Cornell University Library OF THE Hew Pork State College of Agriculture Age Ee Sas ct [1 fog. is 3574 Cornell University Library SF 487.B791L Little chick | i mann LITTLE CHICKS. A Treatise Giving Hints on the Successful Gare of Chicks by both Natural and Artificial Methods. EDITED BY MICHAEL K. BOYER, Editor Farm-Garden and Poultry. => PRICE, 50 CENTS. > PUBLISHED BY EXCELSIOR WIRE & POULTRY SUPPLY,CO., 26 & 28 VESEY STREET, New York City. 1902. D COPYRIGHTED, 1902, BY WILLIAM V, Russ, INDEX. PAGE. Brooders, raising chicks in............ ccs cee e eee eceneeeeee 20, 29, 44, 45, 46, 60, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105. 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DOE IO 9:5: spioigpenavectievavis eden data sbundnver nen onwlelea Soaeubie a 62 Brundage method........ceeereseeseseeceenenceeees 63 Bene La Munion method....... soa Pee TAKA Be 64 Gambrill method...........-..0000 5 ever ween oe 64 ae Monroe method...........0 ceeee cece ence ee eeeeeee 67 we Blanchard method ........... 2. sees sees cence nee eeees 70 Church methodsewisscccciccrsseoreatmnesaias vo val o Couch: ‘Methods..0c ic ees. casciredevancee eee oeorses 71, 75 te Cummings method............ccccseeecer eee eereee 72 ts Byers method..........cesccseeeeeeeeee Laie ea RRS 73 aS Johnson method... .... ccc cece eee cece eee eee t eee 74 se Davison method... ...-.... aa doava lady dugiaud uations acenendon out 76 “ Pressey’ Method wciiwscee eessie Grawsas tian sane ae 76 es Davis methods s cecaiesseiisareaaicnnesageieiaer ondnwiners G7 ae Mon. Exp. St. method..........cesee cece eensinaelee 78 “ Orange Judd Farmer method...........0.000.5-05: 78 He Trafford method. sacar sonescenes ss vex eacesaes 59 af Exchange method. o..cccssc dei ss sas veseeeve ete nees 80, 81 as Poultry Monthly method............e cece ce eeees 82, 83 es Am. Poultry Advoc. method........ccsceeeeeeeeeee 82 es ClarkemeGthod as: c nesta aniteccnassene “hiviste husieveedous 84 Kins Method naga secawiwaiiiaaeatane week 85 ee Veares method sivcicsacese geyes ve necvesaaans aoe. 85 ee Poultry Keeper method............6-. sees eeeeeeee 86 . Robinson method..........0 0. cee cece et nee e eee e eee 86 ss Poultry Chum method ..............2 eee seen e cee 87 *e COSt Of ses csorcreeeseotes Ph TREO eeee meneeONs 134 Houdan chick............ ccceccenceceeeeeeeeaees . 90, 91, 92, 98 ROHS, DE OO DY. stases 4 zie cosa esane aga at oes ca dab vici tanh Res oMMaeigebns abies eves 111 Incubation, natural...... 2-2. 0 2c cece eee ee eee 11, 139, 144, 146 MTC O acess cha yops di cacvanerinvacadierdeaiolesninra 12, 50, 62, 121, 125, 181, 1385, 187, 188 Mating, weight and color......... 66 cece cece eee eeee eee 110 PYOLA CO) tajéesiisla dentnnn cateerda wag due sauna pay oriiweundes oe 5 PREFACE, It is surprising that with all the poultry literature we have to date, there is not one work devoted to the care of little chicks. Annually the demand for such a treatise has increased, and knowing that by gathering together the different methods of many minds an invaluable work could be secured, this work has been attempted. In this attempt the publishers have been remarkably successful, so much so that we feel that the present edition contains more practical, good, commonsense reading than is gen- erally found in poultry books and manuals. THE EDITor. MICHAEL K. BOYER. CHAPTER I. YOUNG CHICKS—-FEED AND CARE. THE FOUNDATION. . Every poultry raiser should have one great object in mind, and that is to raise good, strong, vigorous stock, There is but one safe and sure way to do that, and that is to “begin at the beginning.” You must have a good foundation. In other words you must begin with the parent stock. By all means, the breeding stock should be hardy and vigorous. It is not only necessary that they have a healthy look, but their history should be looked up. The “woods” are full of stock that have been (appar- -ently) cured of roup or “cholera” (we quote that word cholera as we have very little faith in the existence of that disease in the poultry yard. There are certainly more fowls dying annually of what is called cholera than what really is cholera; as it appears in the poultry yard to-day it is nothing more or less than a severe attack of indiges- tion and lice.) But, we will not knowingly breed from a bird that has ever had roup or any other contagious disease. Slight ailments do not, necessarily, impair the general health of the fowl, but when real sickness roots itself it is bound to leave a weakness, which is almost sure to show itself in the young. Vigor is another important matter to consider. Un- less there is activity in the parent we cannot expect it in the offspring. A lazy disposition can be inherited. Characteristics, no matter of what nature, are passed from the old to the young. Overfat stock cannot produce vig- orous young stock. To get good, strong, vigorous chicks, it is necessary to have a good, strong germ in the egg. To get that strong germ the breeding stock must be in good condi- tion. Neither the hens nor the male birds must be too light. A male bird that eats very little, but is continually calling the hens, is not in a good physical condition for mating. Neither is the greedy hen of the flock, nor the timid hen that is being continually driven away from her feed. After experimenting for several years in mating for good fertility and strong chicks, we have satisfied our mind that it is a mistake to have too few hens in the breeding yards. Our best results have come from twelve to fifteen hens in the Asiatic class; sixteen to twenty in the American; and twenty to twenty-five in the Mediter- ranean. Two male birds_are used in each pen—but only one male at a time with the hens; the other male being kept ina pen alone. The males are alternated each night. For the best results we prefer one, two and even three year old hens mated to vigorous cockerels, or early hatched pullets to vigorous cock birds. The eggs from pullets hatch well enough, but the chicks lack stamina. Another point in our breeding stock that must not be overlooked is that the fowls must have plenty'of exercise. For yarded fowls, the scratching shed has been a ‘big improvement in this particular. We need not describe the construction of such houses here, as that has been so repeatedly published by the poultry journals. Cover 10 the floors of these sheds with hay, straw, leaves, or some other light litter, and among it cast the grain. It is won- derful how the fowls will scratch, and.this exercise gives health, strength and a good appetite to the breeders. That will certainly insure good results. The bill of fare should consist of as great a variety as possible. We pin our faith to wheat, oats and corn, and their by-products bran, middlings, ground oats and corn- meal. In addition add linseed meal, clover hay, roots, and meat scraps or green cut bone, and, of course, not forgetting grit and cracked oyster shell. So much for the breeding stock and its care. It is im- portant that the subject be well studied. THE NEWLY-BORN CHICK. Incubation is the growing of the germ in the egg, and the bringing forth of the chick. It requires a tempera- ture of as near 103 degrees as it is possible to keep it. This applies to both the natural and artificial methods. Poor hatches, while very often traceable to the eggs, are equally as often due to a violation of some law of incuba- tion. This is not only true in the operation of incuba- tors, but also in the actions of the setting hen. If a hen sits too closely, she is apt to overheat her eggs, and if any do hatch it will be only those which have, more or less, been on the outer edge of the sitting. If a hen does not sit’ close enough she may chill the eggs, in which event they will hatch two or more days after due. Hatches of this nature are apt to produce weak chicks. Disturbing the. nest—raising the hen every now and Il then to look at the eggs is a mistake,.as also is the com- mon practice of lifting the hen off andyon the eggs, so that she may feed herself. All nests for sitting- hens should be so constructed and located that the hen can go off and on at will. It is a mistake .to give too many eggs to the hen. Eleven during cool weather, and fifteen when the weather becomes more mild, will give better results than a nest chuck full. It is not only necessary for the eggs to be covered with the wings, but the hen should be able to draw them up as near her body as possible, where the most heat is. When a nest is full of eggs the hen cannot shift them about properly, and the result is she is apt to get the fertile eggs too far away from her, which will most likely kill the germ. Besides an overflowing nest is too much of a conundrum for a hen in going on and off the ‘nest, and if she happens to be a heavy hen she will break eggs and cause a terrible mess. After the chicks are hatched do not remove them from the nest until they are thoroughly dried. They catch cold very easily while wet, and a chill at that time is apt to prove fatal. They are better in the nest for from twelve to twenty-four hours. In cases where several eggs hatch considerably ahead of the others, these advance chicks can be taken out and placed in a basket covered with cloth. If during the hatch the nest has been thoroughly sprinkled with a reliable insect powder (such as the Ban- ner Lice and Vermin Killer), there will be no danger of the hen presenting the young with a lot of lice. And we might state-right here, that in the majority of cases where hens leave the nest during hatching, or where they become restless and break eggs, it is due to the presence 12 of vermin. You can have more chicks, and better chicks, by seeing that the hens are kept clear of these pests. GENERAL CARE, The chicks and hen should then be transferred to a coop and run on some lawn or grass plot, after the coop has been cleaned and white-washed, and for the first week the chicks should not be allowed outside these runs. Then the chicks can have their freedom while the hen is inside the run, or the hen and chicks can be allowed free range. That matter is left to the convenience of. the poultry raiser. Parties residing in a closely built up neighbor- hood may have more or less trouble with stray cats, in which event a run twelve or sixteen feet long, two feet wide and two feet high, made of shingling lath, and coy- ered with one-inch wire netting, will be found an excel- lent arrangement for them. These runs and coops can be moved about to new grass every two weeks, and the chicks thrive wonderfully well in them. We annually raise chicks to broiler size in these covered runs, and the chicks do not show any weakness for being in these nar- row quarters. Runs this size will accommodate twelve chicks to start with, but after a month old it is better to have only six chicks in such a run. Generally, after the chicks are a month old, we take them out of these runs and place them in flocks of fifty each, in runs 7x50 feet. Here they do well until about four months old, when it is better to reduce the flock down to twenty-five. The idea is to decrease the size of the flock as the birds ma- ture. Overcrowding is one of the worst evils, and too great care in this particular cannot be given. 13 When the chicks are in the covered runs in Summer, old carpet or bagging should be thrown over the top to keep out the hot rays of the sun. They cannot stand much of that kind of heat. In the runs to which they are afterwards transferred there should be fruit trees, grape vines, or some.other good shade provided. Good shade and fresh water are grand tonics in the chick bill of fare. In the case of artificially hatched chicks the same is necessary as regards shade and water, but there will be no need of having the covered runs. Instead, a brooding house should be erected, with sixteen feet runs for broil- ers, and fifty feet runs for chicks that are to be raised for breeding purposes. The question is often asked, “When should the hen be removed from the chicks?” Unless we are cramped for room, we leave the hen with the young just as long as she seems devoted to them. But if we notice that she does not make that “clucking” noise, and pecks the young when they get near her, we remove her back to the laying quarters. Asa general thing the hen does not care for the chicks after she has started laying again. She may lay a dozen or more eggs before she grows tired of her young, and again she may not lay any. The best plan is to watch the hen, especially after she has be- gun to lay. Clean out the coops at least every week. You cannot have them too clean. In brooding-houses it is best to clean up the droppings under the brooders every morn-_ ing. In the coops it is best, at every cleaning, to paint the inside with kerosene oil. We do this with a large, broad brush, and see that plenty of oil goes into the cracks of the coops. Keep the floors of both coops and brooders well sprinkled with sand. 14 See that all coops and houses are free from draughts, and that the roofs do not leak. Dampness is fatal to young chicks. We referred to the danger of overcrowding young chicks, and again let us repeat the warning. It is poor economy. When the coop or brooder is overcrowded the chicks huddle too closely (especially during cool Fall evenings) and the chicks “sweat.” In the morning when let out of doors the feathers are ruffled and sooner or later they begin sneezing, have a touch of diarrhoea, and then it is that the death rate increases. The practical poultry- man has little difficulty in that direction, as experience has taught him the dangers that lie in this foolish prac- tice. “Just comfortably full is full enough” is rather a unique way -of describing it, but nevertheless it ex- presses the matter in a nutshell. Chicks should be graded according to their size. That is, the chicks in a pen should be as near a size as possi- ble. If the undersized chicks are sorted and placed in a run by themselves, they will quickly show signs of im- provement, while if kept in with larger chicks they are continually cowed down and have no chance to grow. It is not uncommon to have runts in a flock, and they never amount to anything unless they are given every chance of advancement. Feather-pulling is a vice that quite frequently crops out when chicks are overcrowded. It does not end with merely pulling feathers, but upon the first signs of blood the victim is actually eaten up. Chicks raised for broilers should not have free range, but when intended for breeding purposes they show bet- ter growth and -develope more muscle when given a range of at least part of a day at a time; Where this is impossible they should be compelled to exercise by 15 scratching among a lot of litter, and the bill of fare must be such as will substitute what they would naturally find in a run. Of the latter we will more fully explain later on. It is a mistake to allow young stock to roost. A broad platform, two feet from the floor, and covered with sand, is a better place for them than on the roosts. Crooked. breast bones are the result of early roosting. We do not believe in raising chicks outdoors entirely. Allowing them to seek the branches of trees for a roost- ing place at night may satisfy the man who believes that the domesticated bird should be allowed wild habits; we do not. Birds raised outdoors may be hardy enough while allowed out, but when they are to be introduced to houses they sooner or later show signs of suffering. We believe in accustoming the chicks to houses from the start. But we do not favor closed houses—especially during cold weather. Let the house have a wire netting front, and they will not suffer for pure air, neither will they be exposed to storms. We have the greatest faith in fresh air, and have yet to find a single instance where any success has been at- tained by those who opposed the fresh air system. Some years ago a certain poultry writer tried to raise broilers. indoors entirely. He had a regular brooding house, but did away with the outside runs. The chicks did very well until ten days of age, but after that those that lived pre- sented the most disgusting appearance. They were droopy, the feathers ruffled, and they were anything but attractive carcasses when marketed. On the other hand, Geo. W. Pressey, formerly of Ham- monton, but now residing in Virginia, was an ardent ad- vocate of fresh air, and kept no heat at all in his brood- ing house save what escaped from the brooder itself. He: 16 used no glass in the house, but substituted oiled muslin -curtains. No matter how cold the day, the snow was kept out of the runs and the little ones were given their freedom. Better broilers were never shipped from Ham- monton than what went fram the establishment of Geo. W. Pressey. It certainly was a mistake to attempt to raise these “hot- house” chicks. Unless a chick is strong and robust it cannot make a good broiler, neither will it be fit to grow up for breeding purposes. For about ten years we have experimented with both plans, and can fully endorse the plan of hardening the chick from infancy. Such chicks, we have found, are less subject to colds and roup. In fact, we have not had a case of roup in our flocks since we have adopted the fresh-air method. FEEDING. While it is important to know what to feed, the fact must not be lost sight of that it is equally important to know how to feed it. For the first ten days of a chick’s life, it should be fed every two or three hours. It will not be able to eat much at a time—probably half a teaspoonful only—when it will turn away perfectly: satisfied. But that small amount of food in the crop quickly digests, and then the chick be- comes restless for more food. Gradually increase the time between meals after the tenth day, until it is gotten to three meals a day. In the case of broiler raising, how- ever, it is not best to give less than four meals a day, and there should be more mash than whole grain given. In all cases, as soon as the chicks are through, all food left should be gathered up and thrown away. To allow 17 it to remain soon disgusts chicks of the mash, and if al- lowed to lay any length of time it may sour, especially if the weather is warm. See that the feed troughs and drinking vessels are kept perfectly clean. It is just as imperative to have them clean as it is to keep the brooders in proper condition. The first ten days of a chick’s life is actually its baby- hood, and the food given should not be of a bulky nature. Bread crumbs slightly moistened with milk is very good. If alternated with rolled oats moistened with milk it is all the better. A trough of dry bran kept in the coop or brooder will be relished by them, and we know of no better preventive of bowel troubles than dry bran. A box of granulated charcoal should also be placed within reach. We have found F. P. C. Chick Manna an excel- lent food for the first ten days. A little hard-boiled egg, mixed with bread crumbs is relished, but we would not advise feeding it too liberally. It is apt to cause bowel troubles. In cases of the latter, raw egg mixed up with bread crumbs is very healing. After ten days of age gradually wean the chicks to a mash made of equal parts (by measurement) of bran, cornmeal, ground oats and middlings with a little meat scraps added. Increase the meat scraps as the chicks grow. = About this time the chicks should also be weaned to an occasional meal of whole wheat, and later on cracked corn. In brooding chicks with hens, we give wheat to the hen and notice that after two or three days old the chicks also pick up whole grains. From the time that the chicks eat wheat they should also be supplied with grit. Green food should be daily given them. The above bill of fare has been the most successful ‘with us. MicHaEL K. Boyer. 18 CHAPTER II. RAISING CHICKS IN BROODERS. The raising of chicks in either indoor or outdoor brood- ers on a large scale, under what is known as the hot wa- ter stove and pipe system, is what puzzles the amateur, as well as a great many who claim to be professionals. The writer had considerable experience in raising chicks artificially, and at an early period a brood-house was re- modelled seven times before we met with any degree of success. To-day we find quite a heavy death rate on some farms, while on others it is comparatively small. People do not seem to take into consideration that a young chick placed in a brooder must be looked after carefully and taken care of. There should be a system of feeding proper foods, and the brooders in which these chicks are placed should be constructed in such a way that the fresh, warm air should circulate under the hovers as well as through the brooders. Smail lamp brooders in a large brood-house are suc- cessful, but in addition to these lamp brooders, a pipe system should be used so as to keep the brood-house warm during, the cold weather. A great many people imagine that no other heat is needed in a brood-house except the heat that comes from the brooders, but this is a mis- taken idea. A brood-house should be kept at a tempera- 19 A. F. COOPER. 20 ture of 65 to 70 degrees, then the young chicks will come out from under the hovers of the brooders and take ex- ercise in the yard attached to the same in the building, but where the brood-house is cold the operator will find that the little chicks will stay under the hovers, and it is only a mater of time until they die and the operator won- ders what is the matter. To be successful in raising chicks artificially, the party must use judgment and apply it. On many of the large farms to-day lamp brooders are used as nurseries for the young chicks. After they get to be three or four weeks of age they should be transferred under the hot water stove pipe system. In this way a very small death rate oc- curs, as the lamp brooders can be run so as to carry a very even heat for the young chicks, and after they have been transferred under the pipe system, even should it vary a little, the chicks have sufficient age and do not mind it. . There are various types of brooders on the market to- day, some good, some not so good; but we are not ad- vocates of bottom heat. in any brooder. We believe in top heat where the fresh air is warmed before it strikes the chicks. In this way a good circulation is obtained and the chicks grow rapidly, providing they are fed prop- erly. It is not a hard task to raise chicks in outdoor brooders, especially-at certain seasons of the year, but we have never yet, in all our experience, found a brooder that would run successfully in zero weather. We fre- quently hear of stich things, and see pictures of brooders with great snow banks built around them, setting in a storm, etc., etc. If you will stop to reason for a mo- ment you cannot help but realize that you cannot possi- bly raise chicks in a brooder and keep them confined in the same all the time. In the very cold weather little 2I chicks will not run outdoors because if they do they will freeze before they get back into the brooder. Outdoor brooders should be properly equipped with a glass run in front of them, or, in other words, something after the style of a hot-bed. On cold, wet days the little chicks will stay under this glass run, and in this way they get proper exercise, while if they are shut up in a brooder for any length of time they become weak, and a heavy death rate is the result. Young chicks should be fed carefully. Cooked food we think the best, in connection with broken wheat or oat- meal scattered among the litter so that the little chicks will scratch to get it, but where the proper feed troughs are secured, old fashioned “pone,”’ baked and fed the young chicks so as to get them started, may be used in connection with fresh meat and green food. You will find they will relish a diet of this kind very much and it is the proper food to give them. Feed troughs should first be placed in the brooder so as to teach them their home; then when they are let out, the feed trough can be put close to the outside of the brooder, and in this way, where a ‘proper yard is made, they will learn to run back and forward. If they are turned loose they get too far away from the brooder, “stand around and catch cold, and die, and the operator wonders what is the matter. In the cut we here illustrate it, showing an indoor brooder gotten up under the hot water pipe system, heat- ed by lamps. In fig. 1 you will notice that the partition runs close to the brooder. This is to keep the chicks close to the heat, then as they grow older, say a day or two, move the partition out, as fig. 2, same in figs. 3 and 4. This plan will hold good in an outdoor brooder. It will be noticed that the flaps on two of these brooders 22 ‘aAgdooUd IVNOILOS @LVLS adivad 23 are in part turned back. This is to teach the young chicks very quickly where the hover is, and will apply the same to the outdoor brooders. Great care must be taken the first ten days or two weeks. If you get your chicks to that age then, in a measure, they will take care of themselves and eat most anything you will feed them, but always avoid giving too much food at a time so as to let it become sour in the feed troughs. Feed the little chicks at least every two hours when first taken out of the machine and placed in the brooders. Feed just what they will eat up nicely. Always furnish sufficient yard room so that they will get sufficient exercise. Cover the yard with sand, litter, cut cloyer hay or sweepings from the barn floor. We mean indoor yards, or yards in the brood-house, while out- side yards can vary in width or length according to ihe age of the chicks. In raising chicks for the market you do not want to give too much yard room. If you are in the “fancy” give them all the yard room you possibly can. In confining them to small quarters for the market they grow to flesh -and not to bone (while if you are in the “fancy” you want the bone), then let them have plenty of territory to roam over and after they get to be a certain age you will find they have grown to bone very rapidly and will commence to lay on flesh. ; If your little chicks stand around and collect in a bunch in your brood-house, you will know there is some- thing wrong with them, they are too cold, in all proba- bility, or you have not furnished sufficient litter for them in order to get exercise. There is nothing they relish better once in awhile than fresh meat; it gives them an appetite and takes the place of bugs, worms, etc., that they get when being raised with 24 the mother hen. We do not consider chicks hard to raise, although there is a great deal in the “know-how.” It took us seven years of constant work before we met with the success we here write of, but to-day we have better appliances for raising chicks and there is no reason why they should not be raised successfully where these appliances are used according to directions. Feed the chicks carefully and regularly, and keep your brood-house comfortably warm. A. F. Cooper. 25 CHAPTER III. CARE AND FEEDING OF YOUNG CHICKS. . The young chick is born (hatched) after being nour- ished for three weeks on food provided by nature, the provision thus made ensuring many chemical changes which are too intricate to be understood. The yolk of the egg is about one-third of its contents. The albumen, or white, is a little less than two-thirds. The yolk is prin- cipally designed as a food supply after the chick is hatch- ed, and consists of about one-half water, about one-third fat, and the remainder of mineral matter, protein, ete. This ready-prepared food, requiring no digestion on the part of the chick, is intended to supply warmth and en- ergy during the first 48 hours of the little creature’s ex- istence. To study nature’s methods will teach that she pro- vided for growth of bone, muscle, and warmth. All foods, whether for man or beast, consist largely of the carbonaceous substances—fat and starch. These sub- stances, however, are of no value as food except when combined with oxygen, hence the air inhaled causes com- bustion, heat is created, and the heat thus generated is converted into energy, or given off as warmth from the body. But nature either partially digests the food in ad- vance or endows each creature with the means of so do- ing. The foods are either in a soluble form or are ground 26 to an impalpable powder, in order that they may be easily digested. When digestion is retarded the animal heat of the body induces fermentation of the contents of the in- testines, the result being disease. The farmer or poultryman receives the chick from the incubator just as nature has provided for it. He must start from a new base and judge his course by the facts presented. In the shell the chick was not required to select its food or prepare it. The first two days of its life out of the shell is one of rest and preparation for a new period of its existence. The chick is not competent to select its food. With the young. calf the case is different. Its dam keeps a constant supply of easily digestible food, prepared from substances which she has previously masti- cated and digested. The hen does not supply her young from her body, but she serves as a guide and instructor. The chick when with its dam will not consume any sub- stance without her consent. She carefully examines ev- erything and the chick is obedient and confident, carefully abstaining from consuming the most tempting foods un- til its dam has signified her approval. When the chick is hatched in an incubator it relies up- on the one who operates the machine. Not hearing the voice of its dam it quickly notices the least sound. A tap of the finger on a board will induce it to come at once. It will follow the operator and has no fear of his presence. To the chick the operator is its dam (if the ex- pression may be used in such connection), for the chick knows no other fostering hand, and it confides implicitly in the operator, believing that he knows what to do for it and how to protect it. When he places food within its reach it is at once accepted, as he alone fully understands which foods should be accepted or rejected. In other words, the confidence of the chick is extended to the man 27 in place of its dam, and it follows the lines and directions laid down by him. It is readily seen, therefore, that nature hands over to the operator a healthy chick, which he is to care for, and that to be successful the operator should be intelligent, for he must provide warmth exactly suited to the re- quirements of the chick, and also provide food of a char- acter that will promote the growth of the body. As the body is composed of various substances, chemically com- bined, there can be no growth if any of the elements are completely lacking. One may build a wall of bricks, but without lime with which to bind the bricks the struc- ture will sooner or later fall, and the labor bestowed will be without beneficial result. And so with the chick. It may be kept in a way, and apparently make progress, but a time will arrive when it will fail and the care and labor of the operator prove unremunerative. The first consideration of the operator in beginning with the chick is warmth. Although its body contains stored warmth from the yolk, yet, when with the hen (if she does not have to search for food), she carefully protects her young from loss of any of the warmth, and continues to hover them until a portion of the fuel supply is con- verted into energy. But the hen seldom sits in winter, for by so doing she assumes a difficult task. If she has a kind owner, who will provide the conditions, she is some- times tempted to hatch out a brood during the cold sea- son, but, as a rule, hens seldom venture the undertaking of raising a brood until the song birds begin nesting in the Spring and the warmth of Summer approaches. If the instinct of the hen prompts her to avoid that season of the year when the greatest obstacles prevail the incu- bator operator should fully understand that he has assum- ed a very responsible position in which not only should 28 the greatest care be exercised but excellent judgment should be used in order to meet with success. The profit from the chicks, therefore, is made by hatch- ing them at a season of the year when the hen is in re- bellion. She knows too much to assume the responsi- bility of providing warmth and food when the ground is covered with snow. But if the hen did not thus with- draw from such work there would be no high prices for early broilers, provided the hens could succeed. Hence the operator cannot compare the results of his efforts with those of the hen, because he works when the vold winds are whistling through the tree branches, while the hen cares for her chicks only when the young and tender herbage is plentiful and the insects have been lured from their harboring places to enjoy the warm rays of the sun. Not only must the chicks be kept warm and comforta- ble, day and night, but the operator must judge of much that is required by their ages. At no time should a young chick become chilled, for if so, although it may recover, it will not make rapid growth. Nor should the operator “fix things for the night.” He should be willing to go to considerable labor and trouble to avoid loss. Keep al- ways in view the fact that the season is Winter and that. at any hour of the night a change of direction by the wind may cause,a fall in the temperature of the atmos- phere. If large numbers of chicks are hatched it will pay to have one man constantly in the brooder-house during the day and another at night. This may seem expensive, but the investment will be returned in the large number of chicks that will reach the market. For chicks, during the first two or three days, the tem- perature under thebrooder should begs degrees. Such tem- perature may seem high, but bear in mind that the chicks have just been transferred from a temperature of 103 de- 29 grees to the brooder. Also, do not forget that if the tem- perature i$ apparently 95 degrees some cool air will find its way under the brooder, and the real temperature may be lower, hence, for very young chicks, it is better to err on the safe side and have the brooder a little too warm rather than too cool. As the chicks grow the temperature may be gradually lowered to 80 degrees according to weather conditions. The brooder-house may be. about 70 degrees, or the same as out of doors in spring. The best rule to follow is to observe the chicks. No thermometer is necessary. If they arrange themselves at the edge of the brooder, and separate, by spreading out, the heat will be just what they desire. If too cool they will come closer together and crowd. Many operators have left their chicks apparently contented at night only to find, in the morning, some of them dead under the brooder, because the heat lowered and the chicks tram- pled among themselves in the effort to secure more warmth, and this, too, when (to the operator) there seem- ed to be sufficient warmth. Feeding is a matter that should be done carefully and scientifically, if possible. Ninety-nine in a hundred per- sons zwill feed the chicks the first 36 hours. Don’t do it. Nature has already provided for that period. The little chicks, having no dam to guide them, will begin to eat whenever food is presented, sometimes when just dry from the shells, but that is because the operator does not know how to caution them, as does the hen. They need no food, and will be all the better in health if given noth- ing for 48 hours, as absorption of the yolk is taking place and their digestive organs are not prepared for food. Let the chicks rest and recuperate for the first two days, and also do not allow them to go more than six inches from the brooder, so as to teach them where 30 to go to get warm. The first two days’ management teaches the chicks what to do, and half the battle depends upon the intelligence of the operator during that time. The next point to consider is that the chick has a giz- gard. The gizzard is a grinding mill. One does ‘not pour wet food into the hopper of a grinding mill, or it will be clogged. The gizzard is intended for work. If it does not work, or is rendered useless, it becomes dis- eased, and the chicks will not thrive. The chick does not eat in mouthfuls, like the duckling, but picks up each bit singly, or one at a time, hence it naturally eats slowly, and from the crop the food is slowly passed into the giz- zard, which grinds the food in small quantities, a little at a time, preparing it for digestion. The third and fourth days of the chick’s life are also, to a certain extent, for recuperation. The chick devotes considerable time to exercise, picking a little here and there, but careful ob- servation will show that it really eats much less than may be supposed. The rule to observe in feeding is to allow the chick to supply itself with water, allowing the food to be in as dry condition as possible, never grinding the food to a fine condition, leaving such work for the gizzard. Keep water where the chicks can have access to it without getting wet. The first food should be millet seed and granulated (pinhead) oatmeal, only a little at a time, beginning on the third day, and five times a day, for two days. This combination is much better than any kind of mixed grains, for several reasons, as follows: The food is dry; it is eaten slowly, one seed at a time; there is no lia- bility of clogging ; it is easily digested ; is highly relished; and more nearly approaches a complete ration than some other kinds, the combination containing, in every 100 pounds, about 60 pounds of starch, 5% pounds of fat, 31 and 1214 pounds of protein, as well as lime, soda, potash, sulphur, and other mineral elements. When the chick is a week old the ration may be varied. A little dry ground clover (clover meal), bone meal, charcoal (always freshly ground), cracked wheat, cracked corn, or anything that will serve as a variety, may be used, but a ration of bread, given dry and crumbly, will prove excellent as a night meal. To make the bread, take one pound each of cornmeal and sifted ground oats, to which add two ounces of linseed meal, four ounces of middlings, eight ounces of animal meal, and four ounces of dried blood. Cook until well done and let stand until cold. Feed as much as the chicks will eat up clean, removing all that is not consumed. Only enough water (or milk) should be used in making the bread to cook it in a man- ner to have it as dry as possible when done. In the morn- ing feed cracked wheat and cracked corn. At noon give sifted ground oats and cracked wheat. At night give the bread. Between meals scatter a gill of millet seed to fifty chicks, which will induce them to scratch. But this tule is not inviolable, and should not be followed without variation. For instance, the cracked corn may be re- placed by ground barley, broken rice, clover leaves (meal) or even hard boiled eggs occasionally, and the wheat and sifted oats may also be substituted. The object should be to give a variety. A little cooked meat, finely chop- ped, potatoes, turnips, cabbage, etc., will be relished, but do not feed eggs or meat as a regular diet. Flaked oats, known as rolled oats, may be allowed to very young chicks once a day, but they seem to induce the chicks to drink too much. Salt may be used to season the foods. Do not try to force the chicks, nor overfeed them. Af- ter the first week three meals daily are ample, giving the 32 millet seed between meals. Do not leave any food over night, or after a meal. Avoid: soft foods, especially corn meal, which soon sours and does harm. Never crowd them. Fifty chicks in a brooder will reach the market while eighty in a hundred may die if so large a number are together. Keep everything clean. A little box of ground bone, charcoal, and grit of any kind, may be kept where they can have free access thereto. If bowel disease appears you are overfeeding. More chicks die from too much than from too little food. P. H. Jacoss. 34 CHAPTER IV. SHALL WE RAISE CHICKENS WITH BROODERS OR HENS? It occurred to me that a discussion of this subject, weighing the advantages and disadvantages of each, would be especially helpful in a work of this kind. While everyone cannot make a success of raising chick- ens artificially, strange to say, a large percentage of peo- ple will do better than with natural means. The raising of chickens artificially has most assuredly come to stay, and what I shall have to say will be entirely from ex- perience, leaving the matter of theory to the reader—and I might say right here that theory is a very good thing and undoubtedly leads to many discoveries, but at the same time, any poultry business run by theory, that I have had any experience with anyway, did not last long. ‘We will say that we start with two pens of birds. From the one we propose to raise our chickens artificially, and from the other, by the old method. The first thing that claims our attention is that we have plénty of eggs in the latter part of December, January and February, but in order to incubate these, we have got to call for the incu- bator, as broody hens at that season are as scarce as their teeth. Had we fifty pens instead of one, by investing in machines enough, we could incubate every egg laid. The advantage here will be apparent to every man that is interested in this business from a market standpoint. His chicks are gotten out and can be matured and placed 35 on the market when they will bring top prices, either as broilers or as roasters. We will say that we have our machine nicely running and a fair fertility of eggs, and let me say right here that if anyone running a machine averages fifty per cent. of chicks from those set in a season from December to June, may count themselves as particularly fortunate and suc- cessful. We have taken out our first hatch about the sec- ond week in January, our brooder being individual or pipe system, is ready for the little fellows. I think I would find the individual brooder preferable for the first two weeks as it can easily be regulated by a lamp, change of weather cutting no figure whatever. It is needless to say that if anyone attempts to raise January chickens even in an individual brooder, they have got to have a house ar- ranged to run them in. A fair sized pen in any hen hotise, the warmer the better, of course, with a liberal supply of sand on the floor and a window to allow the sun to get in. It must not fall directly on the brooder unless special pains are taken during the heat of the day to see that the chicks are protected from its fiercest glare. I have seen these little fellows when not protected, become so de- bilitated that in a few days they would be so puny they did not have strength to get around, and begin to drop off very rapidly. After two weeks time, I should take these chicks and put them in the pipe system, a long brooder-house is so much better and easier to take care of them in. By all means in putting in this system, save in your building almost anywhere, but don’t skinch yourself on the heating apparatus. Get the best thing there is on the market and the nearest to a self-regulating system that you can. My first feed of chickens has always been rolled oats, 36 although I have used Spratt’s Food with good success, but care has to be used, I think,*with this not to feed too freely, as it is a very concentrated food. Fine cracked corn makes good feed always and cracked wheat will go for the little fellows. Great care should be taken that they are not fed whole oats until they are at least ten weeks old, as they are liable to puncture the crop. After the first week the chickens are fed with a mash made of one-(ird meal and two-thirds bran, and if they are liable to bowel trouble, the feeding of a small portion of ground bone in the mash is especially helpful. We always have ground charcoal accessible at all times. The most important thing for the first two weeks is to keep your chicks alive and doing fairly well. Don’t make the mistake of trying to force them at this period. As stated, this brood being two weeks old, we transfer them to the pipe system. From this time we shall attempt to force them. To the present time they have been fed some kind of. food every two hours. This is kept up if we are going to make broilers of them until they are shipped out. After the morning feed of hard grain, some kind of green stuff, either chopped raw potato, which is very palatable to the little fellows, onion, or some green vege- table which should be cooked. Of course cabbage should not be cooked, and if accessible, is very fine. The idea is to feed what they will clean up quickly, and two hours iater, be ready for another feed. During the time that they are in the individual brooder they must be allowed to run more or less. These little fellows hardly know enough to go back into the heat unless for the first few days there are boards placed up-so that they cannot go far from the opening. Then as they become a little older, more range can be given them and of course when they are two weeks old, and are in the pipe system, they are allowed full range of the pen. 37 Five feet by ten feet is a good size for a brooding pen and the hover would be about five feet by two and a half feet which is additional. I would not attempt to raise broilers or roasters without sweet milk. We are able to get skim milk at five cents a can. This is especially good to grow feathers, and after the chicken is about four weeks old, some meat meal or cooked meat like BBB or Hollis Dressed Beef should be added to the mash. Those who intend using the brooder-house and ma- turing the females for breeding stock, sh@ld select such pullets as they want and separate them, feeding them dif- ferently.. If it were possible to keep them in an individual brooder with all the range they want, so much the better, gradually reducing the feeding to two or three times a day after six to eight weeks as pullets bred under such hothouse conditions, and forced as we have them in our brooder-house, mature too quickly to reach size, and they are apt to lack the stamina necessary for a hard season’s breeding. With this care and feeding, I have made two and a quarter pound broilers in eight weeks. While the desire to turn these out and off our hands as soon as pos- sible is great, I would advise you to look carefully into the matter and see if it will not be better to make roasters of these same birds than to turn them off for broilers. Let us suppose that you will get out of your broilers about sixty cents apiece, as a two-pound bird dressed is the very limit for size that you can put on the market, and thirty cents a pound is as much as they will average you. Now we have stood the first cost of eggs, the cost of in- cubation, loss in mortality and all the incidentals that make expense on the first eight weeks. The expense for the balance of the time necessary to make a five-pound lurd is practically only a matter of_food with sufficient heat to keep them warm, for the broiler has stood all other expense, you will not lose one bird out of a thousand 38 after they weigh two pounds, and that only through care- Jessness, and you will get from twenty to twenty-five cents a pound alive if you hold them for the roasters, which gives you from a dollar to a dollar and a quarter apiece for the birds, which is about twice what you could get out of a broiler, and then you will have more profit to show for your season’s work. There is one thing that ‘must not be overlooked, and that is that your birds will not stand such heavy feed as this and live under cover all the time. They must be gotten out on the ground to ex- ercise once a day even if you have to push them out with a broom, from the time you put them under the pipes, otherwise they will go off their legs. This is practically the method followed by all who make market birds. Some raise as high as twenty thousand broilers in a year. J have a correspondent who claims that he is able to turn out that many broilers every season, but I guess there are more that are glad to have marketed three thousand nice chicks. The, man that can raise - eighty per cent. of his chicks is a star, although I know a man that raises about ninety per cent. The best price maintains for broilers in my experience about the first of May, and for roasters, the cream is in June. There is one thing that I would mention, that if your birds lack color on the breast meat, as is apt to be the case where they are kept on sand in a brooder-house, that you will be able to give them this by the judicious feeding of cotton seed meal in the mash. A good rich yellow is desired, but a lighter yellow with a clean plump carcass, firm, but showing that it has not been long growing, will bring you the highest prices. I have seen chickens in the Boston market that I would take my oath were colored, but I never have resorted to anything of this kind and do not know as any one does—at the same time was able to get top prices on everything I ever sent in. There is one 39 thing that the beginner must take into consideration when he takes up the poultry business, and that is that he has got to be willing to work, and from sunrise to sunset. If he has a good long brooder-house full of chicks, the care of his breeding birds has got to be sandwiched in between feeds, and the care of the machines will come in the even- ing. Great care must be taken that the brooder pens, the house, dishes. etc., are kept absolutely clean. We always rake (with a anual looped toothed lawn rake) each pen every day after the chickens have reached any size. Of course for the first two or three weeks, once a week would be sufficient with the exception of cleaning out under the hovers, which must be done every day from the start. It is only by this method that you will reduce to.a minimum the danger of sickness and lice. T have been able to make five and five-eighths pounds on a chicken in fifteen weeks, and imany who have followed my methods have been suc- cessful as well as I with broilers and roasters. All birds whether raised artificially or by natural methods, must be well supplied with grit and shells. Now to. take care of the pullets that we have taken from our brooder-house and want to.mature for our breeding pens, we have taken them into the field; put them into in- dividual brooders and reduced their feeds to three or four times a day, giving only one mash and lots of green stuff. The bird hatched in January or February is apt to moult on you in the late Fall which will seriously retard its lay- ing, but if late February and March hatched and taken into the field and treated as I have stated, they will go to laying in September or October and will continue all Winter. If you are running an American breed, which I take it for granted you must be for best results in the market way, they should be matured and laying in seven months for the Rocks and from five to six months fot 40 Wyandottes. There is nothing that makes as handsome a broiler for quick growing, and as clean a roaster that will stand forcing, as the Wyandotte. This is a fair statement of exactly what any one should be able to do with artificial means. I have given its ad- vantages just as I see them. Now we will take the other pen. By much scurrying amongst our neighbors and friends, the middle of January has found us with a few broodies. We have given them from nine to thirteen eggs according to their size, the weather and place we have to set them in. As the days go by, we find that we have more taking to the nests and are able to set more eggs. Up to this time we have been obliged to sell our eggs as best we can, and many have been marketed, when if we had a machine, we could have incubated them. The first brood comes off. Of course each subsequent one is handled in practically the same way. Have a small box, a dry goods box of any decent size, with a roof to slant, covered with some good paper, and hinged on, set up off the ground about two inches, making a good dry place to keep the hen, and a chance for the chicks to run out, is what I consider an ideal chicken coop. For myself, I think that when the hen wanders around, she loses her brood in many ways, whereas if kept confined, she will raise practically all of them. The Wyandotté has proven with me that the hen raised chick will make fully as good growth as the individual brooder raised. What I have found for the very best thing for a chicken coop was a small summer coop that I built five feet by ten feet, and by confining the hen in one corner, allowing the chicks range of half the coop, putting in a board to keep them apart, has given us a large per cent. of the finest stock birds that we have ever raised. This allows for two hens 41 in the coop with a brood of from twelve to twenty, accord- ing to the season of the year. Where a chick is allowed to range with green food from the start, we feed very little mash and more hard grains, believing that the grasses give them what soft food they require. It is essential that the coop be placed on new ground as the weeks go by, other- wise the chicks will eat off all the green stuff. I have always been a very earnest advocate of artificial means, and to this day use it extensively in the raising of my breeding stock, but I must say that there is something about a hen raised chicken that is especially fascinating to the fancier’s eye, birds of the same age showing more of the points of snap and trimness that is not noticeable in the brooder raised bird. Of course this is lost sight of when the specimen becomes matured, and I will defy any one to pick out a brooder raised chick from a hen raised one after having laid the first egg. « If you are raising for breeding and fancy, the separating of the females from your males at an early age is very helpful. The females will not go to laying quite so early and the males will develop into larger specimens, and when penned up, will seem to assume a more masterful Wavy. ARTHUR G. Duston. 42 GEORGE W. NONES. 43 CHAPTER V. ° GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF BROODER RAISED CHICKS—CARE AND FEEDING. The foundation of success in the raising of chicks from the incubator to market, depends upon the determination of any one engaged in the raising of poultry as a busi- ness, to first master the practical requirements which suc- cess depends upon. It is much better, however, to follow your own knowledge, which has been secured by practical experience and hard work. If you do not succeed at first, don’t become discouraged or disgusted, but investigate the cause of your disappointment or failure, and with re- newed energy try again. The most experienced poultry- men of to-day were not by any means successful while serving their apprenticeship in the brooder management of chicks—for to hatch them is the first important step, but to raise them successfully to maturity in health and strength, will be found by the novice quite a difficult mat- ter. After you have selected the style of brooders to be used and every detail has been carefully looked after, in order to receive the chicks, the next and most important point is the proper amount of heat to be kept in the brooders during the various periods of growth. The chick must be kept warm until it is at least six weeks old, or it will reach a point where growth seems to cease. They may become stunted in the Winter, and it is mich easier to 44 stop growth than to increase it. The young chicks will always thrive in Winter if given plenty of warmth. Brooding chicks in large numbers has become a sub- ject of domestication; proper methods must be resorted to in order to enable it to thrive, and accomplish the pur- pose sought by its introduction to existence in the Winter season. The greatest loss occurs from disease of the bowels. Tihe cattse is very often attributed to the food, when the real cause is due to lack of sufficient heat. The cold does not come from a prolonged exposure or lack of warmth during the day, but from the failure to supply warmth at night, at which time the chicks are quiet and do not have the aid of exercise. A single night’s ex- posure to a temperature that will cause the chicks to crowd will bring on bowel trouble. When the entire brood is attacked by it, the chances of saving the chicks are very slim, as they seldom recover, or if they do seldom amount to anything afterward, in raising the early chicks for broilers or breeders. Therefore the main condition is continued warmth and plenty of it; 95 to 100 degrees for the start is.not too much for very young chicks just from the incubator. If you are using single nursery brooders, see that your temperature is up to the proper degree of heat before you put the chicks in. If you have a complete heating system throughout your brooding house, keeping the building at a uniform temperature of 65 to 70 degrees during the winter months, aside from the individual brooders, or if a piping system be used throughout and heat is furnished from the pipes under the hovers, and give the proper amount of heat and ventilation, you will overcome the difficulty that so often proves fatal in not furnishing the proper amount of heat necessary for the chicks. As the chicks grow larger they naturally need less heat, and on large brooder plants a 45 system is used of passing the chicks along to the further end of brooder-house, where there is larger pens and less heat under the hovers.. Taking care, however, that we at that age only put half the number we started with toa pen, as crowding the chicks prevents good results in health and growth, as it requires care and labor to hatch them, and greater vigilance is necessary in order to rajse them. The chicks having been kept in the incubator until, as a rule, the morning of the 22nd day, at which time they are well dried and strong upon their feet, are carefully removed in a flannel-lined basket or box to the nursery brooders, previously heated at 90 to 100 degrees, care being taken, however, that no heat escapes, for if the chicks, at that age, once become chilled in. their transfer from the incubator to brooder, in many cases proves fatal, and have sent thousands of the little fellows to their ‘grave. After you have got them safely into the brooders, place a board that fits into slides across the pen or run, about 18 inches from the brooder, so the chicks cannot wander too far away and not be able to find the way back, and thus get chilled. When the chicks seem to be con- tinually crying it means more warmth needed. The chick comes from the shell full, nature having made preparations for its nourishment for at least 24 hours, by allowing it to absorb the contents of the yolk just previous to. emerging from the shell, consequently the chick should not be fed for 24 hours, and 36 hours will be no inconvenience. The feeding of young chicks has puzzled many persons and has caused failure through a large percentage of mortality. It is not necessary to feed a large quantity at a time, but often for the first few days, say every two hours. Commence feeding for the first two or three days dry rolled oats rubbed through the hands to crumble it. Stale bread ground fine in a mill is 46 also excellent feed for very young chicks, to which may be added a small portion of hard boiled egg, mixed to- gether ; after which a cake made of the following may be fed, equal portions of sifted ground oats, wheat mid- dlings, corn meal, 1 Ib. ground bone, %4 lb. ground char- coal, little salt and one teaspoonful of baking powder ; bake cake brown, in oven, and crumble in feeding; after one week add a teacupful of ground meat (prepared) ; avoid feeding too much at first at it causes bowel disease in very young chicks. Feed five times a day the first ten days, then four times a day for three weeks, after which three times a day, with cracked corn and wheat added— corn one day and wheat the next. After ten days the rolled oats and cake may be omitted, and a mash feed, consisting of equal parts of bran, corn meal and ground oats; scald and feed almost dry. Never feed sloppy food or raw corn meal. A handful of fine grit must be given, when mixing the mash feed.» Green food must be given, such as tender cabbage, clover, water cress and onions, occasionally boiled potatoes should be given, and about twice a week a piece of lean cooked meat. Bear in mind that young chicks do not eat much at a time, but they eat often and feed at regular hours. Keep a box of ground charcoal, one of clean ground bone (chick size) and one of small grit—sifted oyster shells are good, with plenty of sharp sand on the floor. Grit is the greatest aid to digestion and prevents, to some extent, bowel trouble, the most fatal ailment to brooder raised chicks. Fresh water should be kept by them from the time they are placed in the brooders, but a chick must not be even dampened; place the drinking fountains so they can only get their-beak in. Drinking--water in Winter should be tepid and always fresh and clean. Milk may be given at times, if convenient, and much better if boiled, as it will aid in forcing growth; but do not omit 47 the water. Feed the chicks on clean surfaces—troughs are better, and do not, at any time, let the feed get sour. or filthy. When young avoid leg- weakness by giving plenty of exercise; keep the small runs well supplied with clean, finely cut straw or hay chaff, and scatter millet seed or Fidelity food therein, so as to induce tkem to scratch, which not only promotes the appetite but strengthens and invigorates them. Always make it a rule to give little chicks plenty of opportunities to scratch and you will get rid of a good many troubles by so doing. When you see the chicks busy and scratching it is a sign of thrift and good health. Allow the chicks to go out doors soon as possible on sunny days; chicks need fresh air and plenty of it from the start. The first food should be given very early in morning and do not keep them waiting for breakfast. There is more pleasure, better results, and fewer vexations and trials if a person will give every attention to the warmth of the chicks as laid down by the natural laws of nature. Thoroughness in doing your work has a great deal to do with the success of breeding artificially hatched chicks. The sanitary measures, in keeping your houses, runs: and brooders clean at all times, must be observed, and no re- laxation of vigilance: permitted in following up the en- forcement of cleanliness, both in the buildings, feeding and drinking vessels. In conclusion, would say, that to be successful in the poultry business, and there is no exception from this, a person must possess a reasonable amount of intelligence, and use good judgment at all times in what you do. Be willing to work early and late, with a determination to stick, for it requires plenty of grit to make a success of the undertaking, and by following these rules you will have good results as a reward for your labor. Gro W. Nones. 48 MYRA V. NORYS. 49 CHAPTER VI. METHODS OF RAISING YOUNG CHICKS, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL, Probably there is no man in business to-day who has not learned more from his failures than from his suc- cesses. Get a man to talk frankly to you about his fail- ures, and you get the best there is in him for your in- struction. In the same way, looking out for the snags, is the best use the beginner in any occupation can make of his time at the first. Where, then, have the majofity found snags in chick raising? ‘ In raising chicks with the hen, the first and most far- reaching mistake is made before she receives the eggs, in not making sure that she is at least reasonably free from lice. The lice pest is, I am convinced, the cause of the most loss, the most work, the most worry, of any hin- drance which the chick raiser has to battle with. In these days of good lice killers, which can be applied wholesale to the perches and dropping-boards, it is far easier to manage than formerly. Now, it needs only foresight to see that the work is done at the right time, and that the applica- tions are repeated at the right time to catch the new crop that will hatch out from nits that are missed. If several applications are made during the first 15 days, after the fight is on, once-a-month treatments thereafter should keep things in good shape. It must never be forgotten, however, that creolin, carbolic acid, or whatever may be 50 the basis of the louse destroyer, is dangerous to very young chicks. Until they are two months old, applications of insect powder, with an occasional greasing of the head, are safe and much used. If the old birds are free from both lice and nits, these applications will not be necessary, but as this happy state is seldom attained, the one in charge must either give this preventive ‘treatment, or else be lynx-eyed in making weekly examinations of the broods, in order to make sure that treatment is not needed. Probably lack of size and ventilation in coops are re- sponsible for the most losses, after lice. In the small coop, many are sure to be trodden to death by the over- fussy mothers, while coops not having a full open side, at least, will not give air enough during hot nights, and the whole brood will droop and make slow growth. Doubling and trebling the broods often has the same disastrous effect, as the chicks will crowd for place, and overcome the weaker ones, which are often the very ones we prize so much, the pretty pullets. Being usually smaller, they may soon become weakened by being crowded from food and warmth by the heavier, more lusty little cockerels. The pattern of the coop, too, often spoils many chicks, especially if fancy stock is being raised. It takes but a few nights of hard crowding in a corner to put a wry tail on a chick, whose bones are almost as soft and easily impressed as flesh. Many try to economize in coops, by. the use of boxes and barrels. Boxes, well covered, make good coops if they are large enough. A barrel, laid on side, will hold rain by the pailful, unless covered and tilted so that the front is the lowest portion of the bottom. If using barrels at all, I would prefer them large, and sawed crosswise to make two coops, which should have at least two staves removed about the entire 51 length. With a board floor, and covered to exclude rain, these might do for small hens with small broods, but they ought to have also a lath or netting run inclosing a few square feet. Accidents, tsually preventable, carry off a much-re- gretted percentage of the broods. Chief among these are deaths by violence from strange mothers, choking be- tween badly-spaced slats, and drowning in open vessels provided for other birds, or pails of water carelessly left standing. Lock the barn before “the steed is stolen,” not after you have lost your stock! As to feed, those who are prone to look to improper feed as the cause of most of their troubles are urged to look almost everywhere else, and to consider well the lately-expressed statement of a man who has raised poul- try for many years, sometimes more than a thousand in a season; he says: “I never feel afraid to give small chicks anything that is fit to feed hens.” Use common sense about the feed, being careful not to overdo the matter of laxative or constipating foods, and then suspect rather the presence of lice or deterioration of feeding stock be- fore you condemn any common grain or ground mixture. T will touch a little more on the food question in connec- tion with brooder chicks. HANDLING BROODER CHICKS. A good first thought for the handler of brooder chicks to recognize is that in eliminating the hen from the pro- cess, he cuts loose at once from all her disadvantages, and it depends solely on his own intelligence and care to re- place all her natural advantages. Is not intelligence worth more than instinct? Is not man more highly developed than a hen? If so, why should he not find the brooder method to comprise all the advantages with none of the és 52 disadvantages of the natural way? But, you may say,’ “the brooder has disadvantages of its own.” I don’t think this is so, when man uses his brains as he ought when he attempts to outdo Nature. It is my fixed belief that the larger part of the losses credited to brooders are due to poor stock or poor hatching. Leave out the brooder which receives lamp fumes—any one who has ever seen a house lamp should have sense enough for that—and the one that has a floor so hot that it literally bakes the legs till they are as dry as a powder-horn. Secure the one that has plenty of air; that has two temperatures so that the chicks can cool off if they wish; and that will keep up the heat. Then you need not look to the brooder itself for the cause of any possible losses. Probably the commonest de- fect of out-door brooders for use early in the season, is that they will not keep up the heat. The long and short of it is, they need sheds; for warmth early, and for shelter from storm always. One of the two leading physicians who give advice about poultry matters says: ‘Simple diarrhoea, like simp!'e catarrh, is caused by sudden chills, or even lack of heat, especially in young chicks. Sometimes, when you are having an epidemic of colds (catarrh) you will find some of the birds showing looseness of the bowels. A prolonged chill will. be followed in summer by diarrhoea and a few cases of catarrh; and in winter by many cases of catarrh and a few of diarrhoea.” Now, take this as a working maxim, and it will explain many a mystery. Then, use sense! Does it seem likely to you that a tiny being, fresh from a continued temperature of 100 to 104 degrees, can be suddenly transferred to one of 90 degrees or under, without danger of chill? The mother with a tiny child, whose natural temperature is Jower than that of the chick, provides an atmosphere of 53 80 degrees, say, and smothers the child in blankets of cot- ton-wool, lest it get a chill, In natural conditions, the chick, though it soon seeks fresh air and a moderate tem- - perature to live in always resorts to a high temperature to warm up, and seeks this until its own covering is nearly complete, no matter what its age. For instance, we have, to-day, a brood of Wyandottes, with a good hen, full eight weeks old; half their bodies still lack the “shingling” sup- plied by feathers. On hot days, they care not a copper whether they have a mother or not; yet, here in mid- summer, let the day be damp, or the sun withdraw himself for a few hours, and the demand for frequent hover be- comes almost mutinous. For the first 48 hours, then, I would make the chicks in the brooder comfortable enough to spread out and drop themselves, lolling everywhere with every sign of enjoyment, even if it took 100 degrees to do it. In the course of three days you can graduate it down to go degrees or below, and from that down as you wish. But the vital point is to have sufficient heat to make it warm enough in one part of the brooder, no matter how the heat drops outside, with a “‘safety”” compartment— and no brooder is fit to use without one—the chicks can then always choose the temperature that suits them; and the same temperature does not always suit them, any more than it does you; neither does every chick require the same, any more than every man wants the same heat which comforts his neighbor. If all are strong, they will, of course, come nearer requiring the same temperature. The question of feed becomes a more important one with brooder chicks, chiefly because man has made them dependent on his pleasure instead of upon Nature and instinct. The chick can be taught to eat what is set be- fore it, but this may seal its death-warrant. A safe work- ing principle is alternation of foods, particularly alterna- 54 tion of green food with grain products. If you cannot in- duce the chicks to eat green stuff in any other way, mix it, from the first, with their mash. After a few feeds they will take it alone. Green clover, cut up with a knife or scissors, is as good an offering as can be made; lettuce is excellent, as is also grass cut short, cabbage and the like. Sprouted oats will do if you cannot get easier supplies, and raw potato chopped fine, suits them “to a T.” I am not sure that it would be wise to feed much of it, but as a treat it is all right. After alternation of feed, fix firmly in your mind the value of exercise to the youngsters, and supply it in abundance by furnishing small grains in litter. This will do away with the weaklings in great degree; for, with room to scratch, each chick goes about his business, and his only business is to scratch to eat; to get strong to scratch some more. Mark this, and make it a foundation maxim. Chicks will grow faster on soft feeds, possibly, -but they will not have the firm, working. flesh, and the “bone and sinew” of the bird that works for a living. In our own practice, we give a mash once a day, and on rare occasions make two of the four regular feeds of the mash. In between, all along the line, we intersperse the greens, so that at no time can the chick fill its crop hard with grain, unless at night, when we prefer “a soft hard’—if you know what that means. That is, a full crop, yet still one that can be dented by pressure. If we did not keep grit before them always, we should not hope to raise first-class chicks, nor many of them, so important is it. Personally, I don’t care whether the chicks have a hover or not; in fact, I consider them better without it, if they have the heat, because ventilation is better without it. But calling the central point of the heat a hover, let tts say that the distance which the chicks can pass from 55 this is gradually enlarged, and just as soon as they are so smart as to show sense enough to find their way back, they should be let out upon the ground, where, also, their run is to be gradually enlarged. At fledging time, which differs much with different breeds, meat is a necessity—always in small quantities. There are numbers of patent foods, some with much va- riety of grain, others ground and mixed with meat and shell, and some of them baked. All these are convenient —much more so than to keep on hand a large variety for home mixing—and they are so well fitted to their purpose that the beginner nearly always succeeds better with them than with other feeds. They cost more than plain grains, of course, yet many poultrymen who look sharply to the pennies buy them for use the first two or three weeks,. while it does not take much to feed a hundred chicks. Perhaps I should call attention to a cause of loss that is sometimes severe, but can be avoided by watchfulness. This is technically known as “cannibalism.” Any injury to one of the chicks, if it draw blood, may be a signal to the rest to fall to and pick him—often literally to eat him alive; even hens will do this. Crowding and lack of meat are the chief causes leading to this spirit. The remedy is to give room enough, and never under any pretext to leave a bleeding chick with the flock; even a scab may be an invitation to a “feast of brotherhood.” Finally, would you, or would you not, agree with 1 statement lately seen: ‘Filth, in some form or other, is behind nine-tenths of all sickness in the poultry plant.” Whether you believe it, or not, it contains food for plenty of thought. eas Myra V. Norys. W. W. KULP, 57 CHAPTER VII. FEED AND CARE OF CHICKS, The first care for the good of chicks is always done before they are started in the shell. When fowls have free range, it is almost an impossibility to ruin the chick’s chances of life; but when the breeders are kept in pens, especially small ones, care must be used, or the chicks will be hard to raise. Feed a variety o£ whole grain, and, with the lighter varieties, one-half corn gives lots of stamina. I believe in giving corn to all breeds. We are often told to make hens work for all they get. 1 know that applies to Plymouth Rocks, and the larger breeds. But the smaller varieties will exercise no mat- ter how you feed. Don’t feed slop. The worst case I ever saw of ruined chicks was when a creamery was established near us. An old breeder of fine Light Brahmas, Black Langshans and Barred Rocks, knowing milk was very nutritious, gave the old stock all they would drink. During the last of April and forepart of May, he had over one hundred chicks hatch. As far as I remember, not a chick started to grow. They were simply soft. There was enough strength to make the eggs hatch well, yet the chicks did not have power to digest food. They simply died as soon as the strength from the egg was gone. 58 CARE OF CHICKS WITH HEN. My plan to free the hens from lice is to give all pens a dusting place, and from the Bantams to Barred Rocks they will almost_free themselves from lice. The larger breeds will require -hand dusting. Yet when I set hens I dust them once or twice with a good powder, or tobacco dust. If chicks start from the nest lousy, no kind of feeding will raise them. When hatched, leave on the nest for a day. Then put in a roomy coop. My brood coop is a large dry goods box, measuring 214x2 feet, or larger. Slat it up and down. I buy a shoe box, take it apart, and nail all the four sides on two strips for a secohd roof. It will extend out over the front, and a little back. Leave the first strips extend six or eight inches above the coop. Face the coop in the direction of the fewest rains, and the worry of wet coops is over. Small coops and crowded chicks means warm, sweaty chicks in the morning, which is apt to lead to roup in Fall. FEED. When chicks are cut in a field or grass run, almost any sweet feed will do. Pure fine cracked corn and pin-head oat meal will produce good growth. After ten days old, almost any good feed can be used. I often feed bits of lean meat after the fifth day. Dry feed is always the best. Better give them some grit, even when at liberty. BROODER CHICKS. Always disinfect both the incubator and brooder, and see that they are perfectly clean. The success or failure of incubator chicks is often determined in the first seven days. A chill then can never be fully remedied, and a sudden change from a warm, tight incubator to a draughty 59 brooder, in an ice-cold brooder-house, may seal your “luck.” I use incubators having a nursery below the trays, and cover the floor with fully an inch of wheat bran. This makes it warm and keeps it dry and sweet. I leave the chicks in this nursery for three days, if in Winter, and I can spare the machine. After they are forty-eight hours old I put a lamp in front of the machine, and place a little trough of steel-cut oats and fine ground glass before them; also a fountain of water. The chicks make a wonderful start in this warm air. Be sure to have all the ventilators open. The last day I open the doors for a few minutes at a time. : Then have your brooders heated to 100 degrees. It is better to have it a little too warm at first than too cool, for if the chicks get too warm they work out to the edge of the brooder, while if chilly they will crowd and over- heat. My diet for brooder chicks is steel-cut oats, powdered charcoal, and ground glass for grit. There is no grit equal to it. Mr. Cooper told me of it years ago. Give clean water, of course, all the time. After seventh day I feed a mixture of middlings, corn meal, and a little poultry powder, and occasionally a little pure beef scraps or lean meat. Also feed a little green food, but don’t overdo it. I like cabbage the best. Chopped-up boiled potatoes are also good. Watch the chicks, and see that they are doing well with the ration, and that the heat in the brooder is correct. W. W. Kutp. 60 CHAPTER VIII. FOOD AND FEEDING, Opinions and Formulas by Prominent Poultrymen. N. D. Ford, in Practical Poultryman, says: “Pure, wholesome and nutritious food is what chicks need, and if they get it, together with good care, they will grow rapidly and develop into strong and healthy birds. If they are stunted during this first week they will not grow to proper size and shape. “We think there is nothing better for their first feed than hard boiled eggs. It is our main food for the first week, The egg is brimful of nutrition and is a variety in itself, white, yolk and shell crumbled and crushed all together and they will eat it all up clean. We have tried the common oat meal or rolled oats and discarded it as we found it would become soggy in the crop. “We feed cracked corn as soon as they will eat it, and also buckwheat as soon as possible. We do not feed wet food as we think they do better on the above, with plenty of fresh water and a supply of chicken sized grit and shell. And also meat once in awhile which they relish, and which promotes growth and vigor. “They should be fed at least five times a day for about two weeks and then gradually come down to thrice a day.” 62 L, J. Brundage, in Practical Poultryman, says “Cham- pion $5.00 brooders are used exclusively, even when chicks are hatching under hens. I find it easier to care for fifty in one brooder than ten with an old hen. As soon as hatched and dry, they are taken from under the hens and placed in brooders in any number up to fifty. In this way we have no hen to devour the choicest morsels given the chicks, nor to tramp them to death, or give them lice’ (if hens are property dusted with Death to Lice while sitting, the chicks will be free from lice) or to lead them through wet grass or mud and drabble and drench the little fellows. “We have a large brooder-house, cement floor, divided in pens ten and one-half feet by six feet, in each of which is a brooder. The chicks are confined in this pen until four or five weeks old and not allowed to get on the ground for fear of gapes, the yards being thoroughly infested. Our experience is that if chickens can be kept free from gapes until four or five weeks old they rarely have gapes; and if they do, are easily cured, while it if sure death to one under three weeks. They find the germ in the soil. “T feed rolled oats and a few_boiled eggs entirely for first week, then when given range of entire pen I scatter buckwheat screenings in the chaff for them to scratch out. When about three weeks old I add cracked corn and fine wheat. I keep fine grit before them continually and feed green food when I have it. Cabbage heads cut in two are best as they afford exercise in getting it picked off. No mash nor mixed up feed is fed at any time. I used to feed mash but never saw chicks grow so fast as they do on-dry rolled oats. We do not claim that our method is perfect, but it is the best we have yet tried.” 63 Eugene La Munion, in Practical Poultryman, writes: “T take chickens from incubators and place in baskets (about fifty in each basket), cover well with woolen cloths and set near the stove for about 24 to 36 hours. I then place in a brooder which is well heated and dried. “Then take egg shells and heat’ hot in the oven, placing them in an old pan; take them out while hot, pound very fine and give a few to the chicks. After fifteen or twenty minutes scatter a little rolled oat meal. In about three hours feed a few bread crumbs. Feed five times a day for about a week. A little potato and-good johnnycake will now be good after chicks are three days old. Chopped cabbage is one of the best green foods. At about two weeks of age I give free range if the weather is warm. “After about a week begin to give a little cracked corn, also cracked wheat. After four weeks whole wheat, cracked corn and mixed feed, bran, oatmeal and mid- dlings, mixed and sifted, is good feed.” yas. H. Gambrill, Jr., in Farm-Poultry, writes: “Much has been said and written about the yolks of hard boiled eggs, mixed with various ingredients, as being ideal food for quite young chicks. The yolk is the ideal food for young chicks before they are hatched. After they have reached this stage, gotten rid of their shells, that is na- ture’s way of asserting that they have had enough of that kind of food, and that they are ready to begin a more active life on a different bill of fare. “After having tried many different kinds of foods, I find there is nothing better, safer, or cheaper to start them on, than good wheat screenings. This consisting mostly of broken, cracked and small grains of wheat, is easily and eagerly picked up by the little fellows, and they thrive 64 on it. For the first two or three days it is very important not to overfeed them. Feed them three times a day, but not quite so much as they would eat if they had more be- fore them. If they appear to be hungry, it is all right; they won’t starve in a day or two, but will be brighter, mere alert and active, than if stuffed. “When a hen, as we say, steals a nest some distance away, hatches a brood of chicks, and after several days returns with them, it is very noticeable how remarkably strong and active her chicks are, and they haven’t had even three meals a day. Many persons advise feeding four to six times a day for the first few days, but for out- door chicks I would rather feed them three times than oftener. Between meals they will be seen outside the coops, scratching and hunting around, which is very beneficial, for exercise is of great importance. After the first two or three days give them all the screenings that they will clean up quickly within a reasonable time, feed- ing three times a day. “After three weeks, make their morning meal of a mash, consisting of four parts wheat bran, two parts white mid- dlings, one part corn meal with ten per cent. of the whole of prepared meat scrap added. Mix this together thor- oughly when dry, and add cold water enough to make a very stiff or crumbly mass, when well mixed. It is very important not to have mash too wet. Feed this cautiously for the first few mornings, gradually increasing until they have all that they will eat clean in a few moments. “Now if the chicks are kept free from lice, and have plenty of fresh clean water and a reasonable amount of range where they can get some green food and a neces- sary amount of grit, the above named bill of fare will be found a cheap, easy and good one. They will thrive on it from the time they are hatched until they go on the table 65 or die of old age. I have found this to be a good all round ration. “If, however, one is raising pure bred chickens, and wishes to obtain some particular result, it is sometimes necessary to feed the kind of food that will help to ac- complish the desired object. If, for instance, the desire is to produce particularly rich yellow legged fowls, after the chicks have reached the age of ten or twelve weeks, continue to feed the morning mash, but make the noon and evening of yellow corn, either whole or cracked. Give them a good grass range, and if their parents had any yellow in their legs at all, the youngsters’ legs will be sure to be right. Too much yellow corn will make the plumage of white fowls a creamy white instead of pure white. If one wants very white fowls, try feeding wheat; the color of plumage will be there, but the legs will suffer some in color. It is very difficult to get a pure white bird with good rich yellow legs and beak. Not the kind one often sees in the show room; but naturally good. “Some writers claim that chicks having a good grass run or range, will naturally possess rich yellow legs and beaks, because of the abundance of green food they eat; this applying of course to yellow legged varieties. Some also state that this accounts for the difference between the pale yellow yolk of the eggs of hens confined, and those of the same hens having a much richer yolk when on a good range. This may be so, but I know that if hens that are yarded up are fed a yellow corn diet, the yolks of their eggs will be of a deeper color than if fed on wheat or many other kinds of food. “JT am not certain whether the difference in color of yolk in eggs from confined hens, and when the same hens have been turned out is due to grass diet or to the addi- tional exercise and the greater variety of other foods that 66 they obtain. I don’t believe the green food they eat has anything to do with the color of their legs and bills. Most fowls of these varieties have good range where they have a farm range, and most farm ranged fowls are fed corn. I do know, and so do most farmers, that the fat on a ‘corn fed’ beef is of a rich yellow color, while the fat on a grass fed beef is very pale or nearly white. “However, I am wandering. The point that I wanted to make when I began, was that a plain, cheap, simple diet was all that was necessary, used with. common intel- ligence, to successfully raise chicks. I believe that when one gets an egg from a hen, it should be put in the egg basket, not cooked and given back to the chickens. Rolled oats is good enough breakfast food for our own table. Ii a corn-pone must be baked, have it good enough to serve to the family, and not to chicks. Of course chicks and fowls will relish this kind of food; who wouldn’t? But they will get along just as well on a much cheaper diet.” Mrs. Geo. E. Monroe, in Farm-Poultry, writes: “In feeding young chicks the object for which those chicks are to be used must be considered. Chicks intended for market, or for choice breeding or exhibition stock, should be treated according to different methods. As the only kind of chicks with which I am familiar with is the Single Comb Black Minorca, and my object in raising them is to supply choice breeding and exhibition stock, I will give the method, which after eleven years’ experience with this breed, I have found the simplest and most satisfac- tory. “To do this it is necessary to go back to the feeding of the parent stock, for it is almost impossible to raise to 67 maturity chicks hatched from overfat pampered hens, or hens unnaturally forced for egg production. “During the time eggs are being used for incubation, and for a short time previously, the mash is not used daily on the bill of fare. Wheat, oats, ground bone, vegetables, are fed with fresh water, grit, charcoal, and dust bath constantly supplied. The grain is fed in deep litter to induce exercise. Eggs from hens fed in this way” prove fertile in early Spring and chicks hatched from them are the winners at all poultry shows and supply eggs from October right through the Winter. “In feeding chicks, my object is not to induce the laying of eggs at four or even five months. I do not find that the pullet that begins laying at five months is sufficiently developed physically to endure the strain of steady lay- ing through the Winter and next Spring. Such an early laying pullet will never be of large size. This may be the reason why it is often said that the best laying pullets are the small bird, when as a matter of fact they are small because they lay before they are well grown, and they would be even better layers were they physically matured when they began to lay. “Feed first for strong frames, bones well developed, then put on the flesh, or if fat is desired, there is a frame to support it. Minorcas naturally wish to lay early, and to prevent it until they are well matured, they can be changed from pen to pen. “When the chicks leave the incubator they are placed in a brooder heated to ninety degrees. The floor of the brooder is covered with bran, and upon this is crumbled the dry egg shells from which the chicks have just been hatched. These pieces are picked up eagerly, and seem to be just what the chicks need. Following this Fidelity food is scattered in the bran. This food is composed of 68 finely cracked corn, wheat, barley, peas, oats, grit, and charcoal. This is alternated with pinhead oatmeal for about a week, keeping water always in the brooder. After they get to scratching nicely, clover chaff is put on the brooder floor into which their grain is scattered. During the second week cracked wheat is used, and an occasional pinch of green bone is given. Give any new food in small quantities at first. When chicks are three weeks old they can eat freely of green bone if they have free range. Very small chicks pick eagerly at apples and any green vegetables. If the weather is favorable chicks one week old can run freely. My own chicks are raised in out of doors brooders standing on the lawn back of the house, with the garden on one side, and an orchard on the other. “Sufficient heat should be left turned on at night to keep the temperature up during the time toward morning, when it is so cold and damp. I speak of this in connection with feeding, for the question of food is not the whole of chicken raising. “After three weeks a mash is fed nearly every day. This is composed of equal parts by weight, of bran, corn- meal, and ground oats. To this is added salt, a little oil meal, also occasionally charcoal, and the little pieces of shell from boxes in hen houses. Also when we have it, cut clover steamed. This is mixed up with the contents of a big feed cooker, in which is boiled small vegetables, and the pieces of bone and meat not used for grinding. No other corn is used after the mash is begun until it is brought in from the fields. Green bone is fed in as large quantities as possible, and free range is given until the young birds are put in Winter quarters in the Fall.” H. J. Blanchard, in Farm-Poultry, writes: “The chicks are left in the incubators until dry and strong, then taken out and placed in brooders which hover at a temperature of 100 degrees for the first three weeks, after which the heat is gradually reduced. The first day in the brooder we seldom feed them much, but only keep them warm and quiet. “The next day they are given finely crushed grartite grit and a little granulated oatmeal to eat, with clear water slightly warmed to drink. They are fed sparingly five times a day for the first week. We then begin to substitute cracked wheat for the oatmeal, and feed four times daily. As soon as the chicks are strong enough part of their food is given in chaff to induce exercise. “After the chicks eat cracked wheat well we begin to lead them on a diet of johnnycake every alternate meal. This cake is made as follows: ground oats (hulls sifted out) one part, coarse wheat bran one part, cornmeal two parts, all thoroughly mixed; buttermilk one and one-half pints, sour milk one pint, salt one tablespoonful. Mix until quite stiff. Fill greased bake dishes two-thirds full and bake. When done take from the oven and turn bot- tom up on a smooth board to soften crust. “When chicks are two to three weeks old we begin to put a little high grade beef scrap in the cake, gradually increasing the quantity. When chicks are about four weeks old we begin to substitute whole wheat for cracked, and gradually work in a little cracked corn. “When chicks are old enough to leave the brooders they are putt in a warm house with yard attached, and confined until they feel at home, then the yards are thrown open, and they have a free range. They are now taught to occupy portable roosts with broad perches. Now we feed whole wheat and cracked corn twice a day, and 70 one meal of warm mash, composed of ground oats, wheat bran, and corn meal, about equal parts by measure, also a liberal amount of beef scrap, thoroughly mixed in while dry, and the whole moistened with hot water.” James E. Church, in Poultry Monthly, writes: “For the first six weeks, I feed them all the wheat bread they will eat (no matter how stale it may be, so long as it is perfectly sweet), soaked in condensed milk, in the propor- tion of four teaspoontuls of milk to a pint of water; cold water is best, and the milk so prepared will keep perfectly sweet all day, if prepared early in the morning. When feeding squeeze out the bread as dry as possible, and feed just as much (and no more) as they will eat up clean; then put more bread in soak for the next meal. For the first five or six meals, I feed them five times a day with this food, then slack off to three times, twice and finally once a day. “Condensed milk is easily procurable everywhere, is cheap and wholesome. In addition to the above, after they are a week old, I keep chick-size grit, the best No. 1 wheat, and keep cracked corn before them all the time. I raise them all in a brooder, which is kept perfectly clean at all times, and they never stop growing from the day they are first hatched.” V.M. Couch, in Poultry Monthly, writes: “It is a mis- take to suppose, because a chicken is small, that it néeds to be fed mainly soft food.. No other one thing causes so many deaths among young chicks as wet corn meal, left where they can run into it, trampling the food with 71 their dirty feet, and then leaving a large part of it to fer- ment, which it is sure to do in the warm sunshine. The food for the chicks should be as nearly dry as it can be, conveniently, and corn meal should never be given to small chicks except as it is mixed into a dry, crumbly state. A very good feed for little chicks is corn meal, bran and ground oats, equal parts. For this purpose, the oat meal should be sifted, so as to remove all coarse mat- ter, then mix and bake hard like a johnnycake. To get this bread in good shape to feed, it should be run through a mill and ground fine. “But I believe in giving some dry grains from the start—pin-head oat meal, millet, finally cracked corn and wheat. The digestion of the chicken is naturally strong if not weakened by feeding exclusivelyon soft food. Some fine grit and charcoal should be placed where they can get at it handy; they will eat only what they require of this. Whole wheat should not be given to chickens until they are quite large; the kernels are too large for them to digest well, and its heating nature makes it likely to ferment in their gizzards, the same as corn meal will do, if eaten freely when digestion is impaired. I have found wheat to be an excellent feed for chickens after they are eight or ten weeks old. Some poultry raisers prefer the small, shrunken.grains that go out with the screenings in cleaning, to the large, plump grains, owing to their being harder and having less starch and a greater propor- tion of the nitrogenous nutrition that is required to pro- mote growth and make feathers.” A. E. Cummings, in Farm-Poultry, writes: “In my ex- perience with chicken raising, I have tried many different 72 kinds of food and methods of feeding, but bread, johnny- cakes, cracker crumbs, prepared foods, etc., have all been discarded in favor of a simple mixture of Indian meal and bran, about one-half of each by measure. ‘This is scalded slightly, that is, it is moistened with boiling hot water, just enough to give it a somewhat dry and crumbly texture. It must not be wet and sticky. After the chicks are a few days old, a little Sheridan’s Condition Powder is mixed in this feed once a day. Animal meal is also added to this mixture, a little at first, gradually increasing the amount until it forms about ten per cent. of one mash per day. Charcoal is kept by them so they can help them- selves; they get a little of this, finely powdered, in their mash every day or two, as I consider this article indis- pensable to the successful raising of chicks. Grit they must have, also a little green feed of some kind. “For the first four weeks they get the mash three times _ a day, but never more than they will quickly eat up clean, then an alternate feed of grain. This consists of a variety, although but one kind is given at a time, finely cracked corn, cut wheat, oat meal, millet seed, etc. Water is given them with their. first feed, and from that time their foun- tain is never allowed to get dry. Should it become so by accident, great care must be exercised when it is refilled, or some chicks will drink themselves to death.” Evalyne C, Byers, in Poultry Monthly, writes: “We do not feed anything until the chicks are forty-eight hours old. The first feed consists of burned bread (whole wheat bread preferred), sand and milk. The bread is slightly browned and dried, so it can be easily mashed or rolled. The milk is scalded and poured over the bread, using just 73 enough to moisten it. A small amount of dry, clean sand is then sprinkled over this mixture. “We feed this until the chicks are one week old. Then we gradually add cracked wheat until we think them old enough to eat whole wheat. As soon as we begin feeding whole wheat we give them broken dish three or four times a week. “We give water to our chicks three times a day, leaving it before them a sufficient time for all to get a drink, put- ting a little charcoal in the water once every day. “Some of our leading poultry breeders say to keep water before your chickens all the time. This seems al- most impossible for us to do, and we think the best way is to place it where they can get it and take it away when you think they have all had a drink.” Herbert Johnson, in Poultry Monthly, writes: ‘‘The principal point after getting the chicks hatched is to get them growing, and keep them at it. The success of grow- ing the chicks depends not upon’ the quantity fed, but upon the quality. ‘Feed little and often’ is an old adage with poultrymen, and it is a good one. Feed them just what they will eat clean, and mix the feed fresh every time, as they are very sensitive to fermentation, and trouble will arise from feeding sour food. Boiled eggs mixed with bread crumbs, make a good feed; also bread or crackers soaked in sweet milk, and squeezed nearly dry in the hands. I notice that some writers claim boiled eggs are injurious to little chicks, but I have been very successful in feeding them. I always see that they are well cooked, and mix readily with their food. After the second week, cracked wheat or rice (wheat preferred) makes a good 74 change for them. Another food I use largely is a mixture of equal parts of rolled oats and wheat bran, stirred up in sweet milk, and baked in the oven. I use a large amount of this during the first and second weeks, and have found it a good food. I have also used millet seed and cracked pop.corn; in fact, there is no ironclad rule for feeding the infants. The poultryman can invent numerous little dishes for them that will make a change of feed, and which they will relish. The main point is to have their food well cooked, for ‘the first two weeks, and not fed in a sloppy condition. After that they may be fed small grain. A good rule is not to feed them anything you would not eat yourself, though, of course, you may feed them stale bread or somiething of that kind that you would not like to eat yourself.” V.M. Couch, in Practical Powultryman, writes: “It is said that the chick is supplied with a full meal before it leaves the shell. This consists of the yolk of the eggs, and is supposed to be all the food that the chickens re- quire for twenty-four hours or more. This meal keeps them quiet and contented for a little while. They possess the instinct, however, right from the start, to commence picking at almost anything they can see, and the first thing that I give them to pick at is small sized chick grit. The first day that my chicks are in the brooder, I give them nothing but clear grit. “The feeding of hard boiled eggs to chicks at first is still advocated by some. I used to recommend it for food myself, but I am very well satisfied now that it is wrong. We are not able to fix up any egg like that in the shell which the chick gets before it is hatched. I quit the a boiled egg business some time ago, and I believe that half of the chicks that die between the fifth and tenth day are killed by feeding them eggs and other soft feed before the chick has anything in its crop to digest it.” R. W. Davison, in Agricultural Epitomist, writes: “While the food is a very important consideration with brooder chicks, the manner of giving it is just as im- portant. These little fellows should be taught to exercise when a week old. Each little pen should have litter in it. If it can be had, there is nothing better than clover hay chaff—the leaves, heads and seeds that shake off in hand- ling the hay. Next to clover hay chaff comes cut straw, cut in half inch lengths. : “Do not have the litter too thick on the floor at first, say half an inch deep, but as the chicks grow increase the depth. Induce scratching by scattering a little cracked wheat or millet seed in the chaff. This exercise will keep the body healthy and prevent leg weakness. It must be remembered that brooder chickens do not have all out- doors to run in, neither do they have a mother to teach them this ‘fine art.’” In A Few Hens, Geo. W. Pressey gives his meth- od. He says: “When the chicks are twenty-four hours old feed them with baked corn cake made as follows: three quarts corn meal, one quart wheat middlings, one cup meat meal. Mix quite stiff with cold water or skimmed milk in which has been mixed four tablespoon- fuls of soda. Bake, and when cold crumble fine and feed 76 all they will eat for the first week or all the time they are kept in a warm room, which must never be over ten days, or they will sicken and die for want of pure outdoor air. “For the first week they should be fed with mashed potatoes, given plenty of water to drink and plenty of sand for grit. “As they grow, the feed we use outdoors is two parts corn, one part wheat, one part oats ground together fine. To each ten-quart pail of this mixture add one quart bran, one-half cup of pulverized bone meal, one pint of middlings, and a pint of meat meal. Mix rather dry, with hot water and let it stand for two hours before feeding. “With this feed we use once a week a half teaspoonful of salt and in cold weather one-fourth teaspoonful of pep- per. Keep powdered charcoal before them all the time, and feed all the green food that they will eat.” J. H. Davis, in Practical Poultryman, writes: ‘The best feed for chicks after they are a week old that I have found is pin-head oat meal—the old fashioned oat meal we used to have before rolled oats came into fashion. After chicks are hatched, when they begin to eat, stale bread crumbs, broken crackers or crumbly corn bread can be given them together with corn bread, and from this time on they will thrive and grow on this diet if they have the range of a garden or field, presuming that the hens are cooped and the chicks are at liberty. When two or three weeks old, cracked corn and wheat screenings or whole wheat may be given them, and they will require no other food. “You may give them a feed once a day of corn meal 77 wet up with water so as to be just crumbly, not doughy. Cornmeal is a splendid meal for chicks. I give it in good sized doses. If they get any other feed it is corn or wheat, but the fowls are expected to hustle for most of their feed about the stable, the stacks and the fields. Don’t be afraid to feed cornmeal. But I would not advise it until the chicks have grown some. At the same time I do not believe sweet cornmeal will hurt young chicks in the least. “Tf chicks are confined in yards and do not have free range, green food must be provided for them in abund- ance and I know of nothing better than lettuce.” The Montana Experiment Station, in Bulletin No. 26, says: “In feeding brooder chicks the method of feeding is of more importance than the kind of feed. Chicks re- quire to be fed frequently and in small quantities. It is fatal to the vigor of a chick to be overfed, and overfeed- ing is productive of loss of appetite and sickness. Brood- er chicks should be fed five times a day for the first ten days, and after that four times a day until a month old, when three times a day is sufficient. Their first feed should consist of fine gravel, followed ‘by stale bread crumbs and hard boiled eggs (infertile eggs saved from the machine), This feed should serve for the first few days, when cracked wheat, boiled vegetables and meat, oat chop, bran and green clover cut fine should be given, and as the chicks grow older whole wheat and oats may take the place of cracked grain. ‘Green bone fed in small quantities daily is also a very good addition and should always be perfectly fresh. Milk is also a valuable addi- tion, and for young chicks should be fed mixed with meal, while with the older chicks it is best as a drink. The aim 78 should be variety, and meat and vegetables should be equally important as grain. Chicks should not be overfed, nor receive food that is sloppy, sour or moldy. The best results will be secured when they re- ceive a good variety of good wholesome food at reason- able intervals.” A correspondent in Orange Judd Farmer writes: “Rolled oats have long been a staple diet in the progres- sive poultryman’s yard, especially for small chicks. The greediness with which the chicks devour it when mois- tened and swelled, and the speedy growth and sturdy building which it shows, should commend it to all who be- lieve that there is nothing too good for baby chicks. A new foodstuff has been put on the market in the form of loose shredded wheat, the crumbs presumably from the biscuits. It is sold in bulk and the cost is a little less than the rolled oats, while it has the advantage of being fully cooked. It should be moistened the same as oatmeal, and its swelling capacity is really marvelous. If milk is ob- tainable it induces a wonderful growth.” Henry Trafford, in Poultry Keeper, writes: “At the expiration of forty-eight hours from the time they were hatched they get their first food. I scatter a little millet seed in the sand and this constitutes about all the food they get that day. They are now three days old and their bowels are fully developed and so are their appetites. I now begin to feed them four to five times a day, not all they will eat, for I like to be sure that they are not fully satisfied; in other words, I strive to keep them hungry all the time. All grain is fed in litter to keep them busy. When they are three to four days old they are allowed 79 access to a ruin outside the brooder. This run is made very small at first until they get used to returning to the brooder when they feel cold. The size of the run is grad- ually enlarged as the chicks grow until finally they are _taken away entirely and allowed free range. “Up to the time the chicks are allowed free range they must be supplied with green stuff and animal food. There is nothing better than green cut bone, or lean beef cooked, for animal food. It must be cut fine and fed but two or three times a week in small quantities. Animal meal can also be fed in the soft food, about one part to fifteen. I do not feed soft food until chicks are four weeks old, and then only once a day in small quantities. Green stuff can be supplied in many ways; fine cut cabbage, lettuce, clover, etc., are easily obtained, and there is nothing bet- ter. Cut clover is excellent and makes a grand addition to the mash. I strive to give a variety, as chicks are very fond of a change. The first week I feed largely on millet, rolled oats and bread crumbs; the second week whole or cracked wheat is added to the bill of fare once a day; the third week I add one feeding of cracked corn every other day. I also feed johnny cake, made about the same as for household purposes, except that a very little bran and middlings is added to the composition ; this I commence to give them the second week once a day. There are many changes of food which are relished and can be given with safety after the second week. “T believe the cause of nine-tenths of the mortality among chicks can be traced directly to feeding them too soon after hatching and to the feeding too much in the first days of the chicks’ life, rather than to the kind of food. After the chicks are a week to ten days old, any good, wholesome food fed in the proper manner and quantities will generally result in success.” 80 An anonymous writer in an exchange says: “Bread crumbs and hard boiled eggs, shell and all, well mixed together, for the first meal. Bread soaked in milk and pressed very dry in the hands, for the second. After that, dry bread crumbs, small oatmeal and cracked wheat for a week; then add some very small cracked corn to their ration. Corn bread is splendid for them at all times; so are cooked potatoes, rice, vegetables of all kinds, any- thing they will eat, almost, is good for them, providing it is not fed wet or sloppy. Too much egg has a tendency to clog up their bowels, and wet or sloppy food causes them to have diarrhoea. Grain and seeds are the natural foods for fowls. Cooked or mixed food helps in assimila- tion, and thus quickens their growth. Soft, wet food is unnatural for them, and kills more young chicks than any other thing—damp and wet weather excepted. No mat- ter what is fed to them, have it dry, or almost so.” The following recipe for a good cake for chickens is recommended: “Two quarts corn meal, one quart of wheat middlings, one quart of clover meal and one hand- ful of meat meal. Mix these thoroughly with water or milk, either skimmed or fresh, add two teaspoons of bak- ing soda. Bake in an oven and feed when cold. It should be fed five times a day the first week, reducing the number of times to four the second week. After the second week whole grains can be added to the bill of fare, preferably wheat and millet. These should be fed in conjunction with the cake as given above. After the third week cracked corn can be mixed with wheat and fed as the grain ration.” 81 An exchange says: “Seeds are better for young chicks than too much soft food. There are many seeds that can be utilized, but which are almost unknown to some. For very young chicks the seeds of millet, rape and hemp are excellent, and as the chicks become larger sorghum seed and buckwheat will be found better than wheat. But a ration of wheat and cracked corn will serve well for them as soon as they are large enough to eat such. If the smal! seeds are given the chicks will feather with less difficulty and thrive better than when the foods are restricted to grain.” A writer in Poultry Monthly says: “It seems to mat- ter little what kind of food we give, as long as it is rich in the elements of growth, and the chicks keep in the right condition ; in fact, we ought to feed as much of a variety as possible. I am feeding my brooder chicks this season oat meal the first few days, and raw corn meal with about one-eighth patt animal meal mixed with a little cold water, and lots of hard boiled eggs. I had several hundred in- fertile eggs, and they make fine food for chicks, if one is careful not to feed enough to constipate them. I have generally fed bread soaked in water or milk when it could be had, mixing in chopped boiled eggs, animal and Indian meal at times, for the first few days, and baked corn cake crumbled fine.” A writer in American Poultry Advocate says: “I never feed raw corn meal. I think it is much better for them when it is crumbled into a bread that crumbles easily. To make the bread mix with buttermilk, using twice as much 82 soda as one would for baking for the table. The bread will be rather yellow if the double portion of soda is used, but this dees not matter. For a change, an occasional feed may be baked very hard and soaked in skimmed milk. The skimmed milk given them to drink is also very good. There is nothing better than table scraps for the chickens, young or old, but in these days we have learned to use the leftovers in so many ways that the scraps from the table would suffice for a very small flock. “Very young chicks will learn to eat wheat, and it is excellent to alternate with the corn bread. If they have a free range they will pick up all the green food that they need; if they are confined in small lots something of the kind must be furnished them. I find that they will eat chopped radish tops greedily. Last spring the alluring catalogue description of a mammoth radish induced me to try it. The tops proved to be mammoth, indeed, but the roots were about the size of one’s little finger. How- ever, they made such an abundance of green food for my poultry that I thought them worth the room they had had in the garden and the cultivation that had been given them. “Feed but little at a time and feed often is a good rule to follow, especially for the first six weeks of a chick’s life. Five times daily is not too often if they are kept in an enclosure.” A writer in Poultry Monthly says: “Do not, if you value your chicks, feed mashes to them under any cir- cumstances. There is always the temptation to ‘make them grow a little faster,’ but my advice is ‘Don’t.’ The mash will do that, and it will make them mature more rapidly, which is just what no sane fancier wishes. I had 83 some Barred Rocks last year, which I began to force with mashes for broilers. They grew famously for atime, and then there was a check. I concluded that I would use the best of the birds as breeders, and I changed the regimen, but the harm had been done. Several of the_pul- lets began to lay at five months, and the cockerels at the same age were veterans in the art of gallantry to the op- posite sex. But the sequel is not so glowing. The pul- lets laid fairly well at the outset, but they never did after- wards, and taken as a whole, they and their brothers were the most awful lot of lobsters that I have ever owned. } sold them dirt cheap, reserving only the best. These, too, I finally disposed of at an absurd price for the quality of the stock, and even then the gentleman who bought them tells me that he is disgusted with them. No, sir; no more mashes for chicks for me, unless I want to raise broilers, which I most emphatically do not wish to do.” > Mrs. A. J. Clark, in Farm-Poultry, says: “I feed my young chicks nothing for the first twenty-four hours; I then give them all they want of corn meal johnnycake crumbled fine, with an occasionai feed of rolled oats, bread crumbs, or any bits of meat chopped fine; but make the johnnycake the principal food for the first week, or longer if I have not too large a brood. At that age I begin to feed once or twice a day a crumbly mash of H-O poultry food in connection with the johnnycake, which I gradual- ly leave off-at the age of two or three weeks. I then use the plain H-O food mixed to a crumbly mash. They al- ways have fresh water and grit before them, and I always try to have them exercise all I can, but am careful that they have a warm hover to run to. As the chicks begin 84 to get four or five weeks old I begin to feed a little animal meal in their mash; at this age I begin to feed wheat and cracked corn at night. “Of course I get them on the ground where they can get green food for themselves as soon as possible. At first I feed once in two hours, then gradually increase the time between feeds, until at the age of four months I feed only four times daily. By using this method I never lose chicks after two or three days old, unless by accident. My chicks like H-O better than anything else that I can give them, and I call this the easiest, safest and most economi- cal method because my chicks all live, thrive and grow like weeds.” O. L. King, in Poultry Keeper, writes: “My first food for little chicks is dry wheat bread moistened with sweet milk. This is good enough for the first day; the second day, oat meal and millet seed are given, with mica grit. They get water from the start. Up to four weeks old their food is bread moistened in milk, millet seed, oat meal corn bread, baked as for the table, and cracked wheat. After they are four weeks old I discontinue the oat meal and bread and milk, and feed millet seed, whole wheat, and cracked corn, with corn bread for breakfast, baked the day before. After the chicks are two months old I feed a bran mash, consisting of one-third each of ground oats, corn and wheat bran, moistened with milk, clabber or sour milk preferred. This I feed in the even- ing, all they will eat.” Chas. E. Yeares, in Practical Poultryman, writes: “I suppose that every one knows that the yolk of the eggs 85 supply sufficient nourishment for young chicks for the first forty-eight hours. For the first seven days after I feed all the rolled oats they will eat, giving them a sufh- cient supply of fresh water. After the first week I give them hard boiled eggs occasionally, using infertile eggs from the incubator for that purpose. I also make a corn meal cake made as follows: Two parts corn meal, one-half cup of vinegar, one-half pound of ground bone, two or three eggs and enough water to moisten sufficiently and bake twenty minutes. This is fed all crumbled up twice a day, still using rolled oats as their main diet. In ad- dition to this give them charcoal and plenty of grit, and add a few drops of tincture of iron to their drinking water. Continue this method until they are old enough to eat larger grain, feeding green bone twice a week after the second week and lettuce or cabbage as they grow older.” * Poultry Keeper says: “It is generally conceded that it is not a good plan to give more food than the chicks will, at each meal, quickly partake of with keen relish. While this is very true, generally speaking, there will be no harm done by having a feed trough in a cool, shady place, every other day filled with cracked corn and wheat, so that the chicks that are ten weeks old and more may have access to it at will if they are to be fatted for market. They will not partake of it too freely. Often the treat will be just to their liking, and precisely what they need to form a properly balanced ration for the day.” J. H. Robinson, in Farm-Poultry, writes: “I have always thought the advice to ‘keep the little chicks hun- 86 gry,’ very poor advice. Too often it results in the chicks, fed according to that rule, never getting a good square meal. The difficulty seems to lie in different ideas of what constitutes keeping the chicks hungry. Those suc- cessful feeders who. give, or endorse, such advice, do not in reality keep the chicks hungry. They so feed that the chicks come to each meal with a good appetite. They accomplish this by using judgment in feeding; by regu- larity ; by making the interval between meals long enough to rest the digestive organs, yet not so long that the ap- petite becomes inordinate, and the chicks gorge them- selves at the next meal. The feeder who uses good judg- ment, and whose chicks are healthy, with normal appetites will give them all they will eat up quick and clean of a substantial food like johnnycake or cracked grain, only to find that having shaken themselves and turned around once or twice they are as eager for bugs, worms, grass, or tid-bits of any kind as if their crops were not com- fortably distended. They are still a litile hungry. And as their owner does not always realize that the rule which fits them would not work so well with chicks handled differently. “When you get down to the root of the matter, every poultry keeper has his own method. No two are alike in every particular. For those who are bungling the work of feeding: the prepared foods are a good thing, giving them an opportunity to quit worrying about what to feed, and give more thought to other points requiring their at- tention. One of the beginner’s chief difficulties is having to work on. several quite difficult problems at the same time.” Poultry Chum says: “Experience has taught us that the best feed for young chicks or fowls of any kind, is 87 for the first three or four days stale wheat bread moist- ened with milk, and milk to drink. Then begin gradual- ly to feed a little cooked potato or other vegetable that is easily digested, but the change must be gradual or the digestive organs will be affected and disease ensue. Next begin to feed curds and when they are ten days to two weeks old begin to feed corn bread or mush. As soon as old enough add wheat or a good quality of wheat screen- ings to their daily diet and unless they have a good range with plenty of green food and insects, meat must be fur- nished several times a week to supply the latter, when lettuce, beet leaves, onion tops, clover or dandelion leaves will take the place of the former. If you would secure the ‘ne plus ultra’ of poultry culture, you will never feed one mouthful of uncooked food, except grains, curds and green stuffs. Whenever it can be had keep milk before them at all times, and whenever food needs to be mois- tened use milk instead of water.” 88 “SNVGNOH “es CHAPTER IX. THE HOUDAN CHICK. Rapid Growth of the Young—Good Food a Necessity— How and What to Give Them to Induce Strength —Written for American Poultry Journal by the Rev. C. E. Petersen, V.-P. American Houdan Club, Hartland, Me. The great rapidity with which the Houdan chick will fledge has always been a matter of surprise. The day following the one in which they are hatched, the wing feathers are visible, and feathering proceeds at such an amazing rate that at an age when chickens are still in their furry down, the Houdan is all but fully feathered. This shows the necessity of good and nutritious feeding until the process is completed, so as to make up for the tnustial demand on the system. It is in this respect that so many fail in producing stock up to the standard weight required in a first-class show specimen. The strain on the system at this time is great and if proper food and care are not given the result will be under-weight, and, what is still worse, stunted specimens. What is needed in the management of the chicks is to strike the happy mean—to give the birds all they really require, and no more, and to avoid all pampering. The go order should be plain but good food, and above all things, given at regular intervals. And now in treating the subject of food and care for Houdan chicks, let us assume that they are of the better class and that any trivial addition to the ordinary cost of feeding, or any extra care, will not be grudged. To rear them to the greatest size is the point in question, and for this object there cannot be a better kind of food employed than fresh cut clover or lettuce cut very small, whole wheat bread well crumbled, and pin-head oatmeal, with all the sweet milk the little fellows will drink, with a little cooked meat now and again. But be careful in feeding meat that you don’t overdo it; for in growing chicks it has a tendency to enlarge their combs, which in a Houdan is a thing to be avoided. Small grains, such as millet and cracked wheat, to scratch for as exercise, or amusement, call it what you like, but not so they have to work for a living; and please don't forget this warning. Clover and lettuce for extra early chicks can be raised in shallow boxes in some sunny window. Later on as the season advances, green food will of course be found in plenty; but if you want to make a success with extra early chicks green food is an absolute essential. On this diet I have always succeeded in raising large framed, and weighty birds that gave me little trouble from chickenhood till fit for the showroom. I seldom or never lost a chick from any other cause than accident, which I attribute to having abolished feeding soft food of any kind. ‘ For the first two weeks feed every two hours all that they will eat up clean. For the next three weeks, every three hours, and after that four times a day, till they reach maturity. If they have plenty of range, three times a day, or even less, will be sufficient. Yet it is necessary gI to say this: Chickens with a wide range, allowed to hunt all day for their living, mature far too rapidly to make large exhibition fowls. Runs of medium extent suffi- ciently large to supply all the green food needed, afford the best, facilities after all. They, moreover, are con- ducive to that regularity in feeding so essential to suc- cess, but so hard to practice where the range is very ex- tensive. p Feed your last meal by lamplight; it will pay you well when the show time comes. When the mother shakes off the chickens they should be moved to their new quarters, where they will thrive best if kept in small flocks; for if at this time they are at all crowded it will be detrimental to their welfare, and give you a lot of light colored birds. This I have always found to be the case where a number of birds were kept in ill-ventilated and crowded quarters, where the heat was extreme. 7 The chickens should not be permitted to perch too soon, or crooked breasts will in all probability be the result. I use a floor covered with dry sifted earth, upon which a good litter of straw has been spread out. To get fine birds, the cockerels must be separated from the pullets as soon as they show signs of becoming trou- blesome, which they generally do at an age of eight or nine weeks old. If you fail to do this they will attain maturity too soon, notwithstanding all the care that may be bestowed to get them large and well proportioned. At this time the flock of youngsters should be rigidly culled and all birds subject to twisted or fallen crests, deficiency or deformity: of the toes, crooked backs, or beaks, should of course be disposed of, and only the most promising birds retained. (At this culling we of course will understand that size of crest and beard is not to be taken into consideration, for sometimes these are not fully g2 developed until the birds are mature, particularly so in the male birds.) Under no circumstances tolerate any defective birds in your yards, however good they may be in other respects. If you do, certain failure, and uncertainty in your breed- ing pens, will be the result. Here is the so much coveted secret in breeding fine Houdans. “Cull and cull again and keep on culling” till nothing but the birds par ex- cellence are left, and give to them all your best care and attention. CHAPTER X. ARTIFICIAL INCUBATING AND BROODING. Valuable Hints by Experts—Colors of Young Chicks— Gapes—Mortality of Incubator Chicks—Hatching Chicks. Geo. W. Nones, in Practical Poultryman, says: ‘The chick must be kept warm until it is at least six weeks old or it will reach a point where growth seems to cease. They may become stunted in Winter and it is much easier to stop growth than to increase it. The young chicks will always thrive in Winter if given plenty of warmth. Brooding chicks in large numbers has become a subject of domestication; proper methods must be re-. sorted to in order to enable it to thrive, and accomplish the purpose sought by its introduction to existence in the Winter season. The greatest loss occurs from disease of ‘the bowels; the cause is due to lack of sufficient heat. The cold does not come from a prolonged exposure or from lack of warmth during the day, but from the failure to supply warmth at night,at which time the chicks are quiet and do not have the aid of exercise. A single night’s ex- posure to a temperature that will cause the chicks to crowd will bring on bowel disease. When the entire brood is attacked by it the chances of saving the chicks are very 94 slim, as they seldom recover, or if they do, seldom amount to anything afterward. In raising the early chicks for broilers or breeders, therefore, the main condition is con- tinued warmth and plenty of it; 95 degrees for the start is not too much for very young chicks. As the chicks grow larger they naturally need less heat and by our sys- tem of passing the chicks along to the further end of the brooder-house where the pens are larger and less heat under the hovers, taking care, however, that we at this age only put half the number we started with to a pen, as crowding the chicks prevents good results in health and growth, as it requires care and labor to hatch them. Greater vigilance is necessary in order to raise them.” H. J. Blanchard says: “Not only should the brooder be very warm, but it should have good ventilation and be so constructed that the chicks can find a temperature which just suits them. “When we leave our piped sectional brodders for the night we are always careful to see that the hovers are too warm for the chicks, and that they are crowding out from under them. We do this because, at night, even in warm weather, the outside temperature lowers very much be- tween midnight and morning and the chicks would be in danger of being chilled if the brooders had been left just warm enough at nightfall. It is my firm belief that three- fourths of all the bowel trouble in chicks is caused by chilling.” “Some say sand in the brooder is a prolific cause of mortality among very young chicks, but we always sand our brooder floors and never saw any harm come from it.” 95 Mrs. J. H. Orebaugh, in Farm Journal, says: “A very important question in chicken culture is that of brooding. I have heard it said that ‘to be born well was half raised.’ I hardly think so. There is a great fatality from im- proper brooding. Warmth is very essential, and above all things a wee chick must be kept dry. In brooding with the hen mother, my method is to confine her under a box for the first few days, with no light except that which is admitted through small holes for ventilation, and with just enough space for the newly hatched chicks to pass in and out. See that the hen has feed and water morning and evening, and you will find that she will be content to, sit quietly, allowing her brood to return to her as often as they need her warmth. Otherwise, if cooped in an open place, you will find her scratching chicks, straw, everything hurry-scurry, and her offspring more dead than alive. Especially is this true in cold weather. * “After the chicks are three weeks old I wean them from the hen by making home-made brooders. This can be done with very little expense. A cheese box makes a very good brooder for chicks at that age. Remove the lid, using the top hoop to sew on a covering of burlap. Fringe this lid over with short strips of any soft woolen material, cut a small door in the side, cover the floor with about an inch of chaff, and you have a place cozy, warm and dry, not soiled by the hen, where the chicks can come and go out at will.” The Otsego Farmer says: “Whether hens or brooders are used the chicks will need care until they are well feathered. A brooder should not be crowded, but one of the greatest errors made by many is that of putting too 96 many chicks into the brooder under the idea that it will be warmer and more cozy for them. Many manufactur- ers of poultry appliances advertise their brooders capable of accommodating too many chickens, and as a rule— though this is not always the case—a brooder in which it is stated that 100 chicks can be kept, should not really have more than fifty at the limit. When the chickens are crowded they are liable to tramp on one another. A frequent cause of death among artificially reared chickens is that the temperature of the inner compartments is kept too high. A great many deaths are caused by this. The chickens should on no account be kept too warm, as they may become tender and when they go out into the cold air are liable to feel the effects of the change. The tem- perature of the brooder should not be more than go de- grees for the first few days and this should be gradually reduced to 75 as the birds get older. The temperatures given are not before the chickens have been put in, but after they have been for some hours. When the chicks are about a fortnight old and when the day is warm and fine, it is an excellent plan to let them go outside in the open air for a few hours. Coops and brooders should be removed to fresh ground every day; as nothing taints the ground quicker than chickens, and if the same piece of ground is used day after day disease and death will be certain to follow. When one has very little land for the accommodation of the brooders, and it is a matter of dif- ficulty to move them on to the fresh ground every day, new earth should be brought to the brooders. A grass. sod, or some fine earth sprinkled in the run each day, after having removed the old, will be found beneficial. Above all matters, be sure that the chicks do not get chilled, for if they do they may not fully recover for weeks.” 97 Otto Irwin, in the Epitomist, says: “When through using the brooder for the season, scrape it out thoroughly and wash it inside and out with good hot soapsuds, to ‘which add a little kerosene. Use a scrubbing brush and make it clean. Then go over it again with clean, hot, soapy water, and finish off with a cloth, wiping the boards dry. Wash the hover felts and make the whole clean. If a hot air brooder, remove the heater and clean out the hot air chamber. Turn it upside down and brush the sheet iron free of soot. To keep the iron from rusting apply a thin coat of linseed oil. Leave it open in the sun and let dry thoroughly before you put it away. Put all the parts in place. Clean the lamp and do not leave oil in it, but wrap it up in newspapers to keep it free from dust. If it is a tin lamp, scrape the blistered paint out of the water pan, make it clean and dry, and then give the, pan a good coat of water proof paint. In a week give it another coat. If these little things are attended to you will have a good clean brooder to use when needed, and you will also save money.” Thos. H. Mills says: “After the chicks are hatched and dried and lively in the incubator they should be re- moved to brooders which should have previously been heated to about 95 degrees. Brooders, whether bought or home-made, should have a hover and a larger cooler com- partment, besides good large runs. It is not intended that the chicks will remain in the hovering apartment all the ‘time, but they will learn to run there for warmth, just as they gather under the mother hen. At night they will gather in the hover and should the heat run too high they can spread out into the larger compartments.” 98 G. C. Flegel, in an exchange, writes: “All things equal, I would prefer brooder raised chicks to those raised by - natural methods. As a general thing they are the more docile of the two and are more easily handled, which means a great deal when the time comes for hatching. “A wild hen will seldom or never secure a good hatch and at the best is an uncertain quantity, while one that is tame and used to being handled hardly ever makes a failure of it and if let run with her chicks will prove a good mother. “As to the health of brooder raised chicks my experi- ence is that with the same care they will grow faster, and, in fact, thrive better in every respect, and a greater num- ber of them will be raised to maturity than can be by natural method. “Tt must be borne in mind, however, that this cannot be done if crowding is resorted to, nor can the heat be per- mitted to run down and the chicks chilled or run way up and overheat them. If this is done the operator may look for a lot of weak undersized chicks and disappoint- ment will be the result.” W. B. German, in an exchange, says: “In managing a brooder the all-important part is to make the occupants comfortable. Comfort means a great deal, in fact it means everything, for unless chicks are kept comfortable they are living under unfavorable conditions and cannot thrive as they should. When a chick is comfortable it is satis- fied, and when satisfied it will grow. Among the items of comfort are heat, regular feed and water, clean brooder, light and fresh air.” 99 V. M. Couch, in Commercial Poultry, says: “All makers of brooders give instructions as to the running of the machines, but, after all, common sense is one of the best advisers, and one who exercises it a little, and does not depend too much upon mechanical instruction, will probably succeed the best. To come to the best under- standing of both hatching and brooding artificially, we should compare it with the natural method, and watch each system step by step. If this were done carefully, the first notable thing after the chicks are hatched and placed under a hen in her coop would be the very important point that she very strictly broods them for at least twelve hours. This is more important than feed. We should, therefore, follow this method in the artificial way, and leave the chicks in the bottom of the incubator for at least thirty-six hours after all are hatched. I have read re- cently of a man keeping them for seventy-two hours be- fore giving any food; this seems rather a long time for them to fast ; however, this man claims that the death loss wasmuch reduced by this plan,and I have nodoubt that a large per cent. of the loss among young chickens is caused directly by too much haste in taking them from the hatcher and feeding. By allowing them to remain in the incubator for some time after they are all hatched out, they become much stronger, and in better shape for the brooder. “I believe it matters but little what system of brooding is used, providing we can obtain a well-distributed amount of heat and good ventilation. There are two systems in use—the hot-water and hot-air. It is important that the brooder be so arranged that the chicks may be able to get away from the heat when they become too warm. They should be constructed in such a way as to conform as nearly as possible to the natural conditions of brooding, 100 as illustrated in the hen. Chicks under their natural mother feel the most heat from under her body proper, but they can get away from the full force of this heat by sticking their heads out through her feathers, thus getting a little fresh air in their lungs, while their bodies are kept warm. A brooder constructed with fringe, therefore, in my opinion, comes nearer this natural method than any other. But even with a fringed brooder, if too many chicks are placed together, some of them will suffer, because where they are thickly crowded around the heater, some are unable to get away; the result is weak and dead chicks in the morning. “In the past there has been quite a controversy as to top or bottom heat. This, I believe, has been settled in favor of top heat. The heat from the natural mother comes from the top, which is just sufficient to warm the floor of the coop. A brooder made so that the heat de- scends upon the backs of the chicks will lend sufficient heat to warm the floor, and corresponds, therefore, with the natural method. Brooders constructed so as to have the heat come from underneath the floor are very apt to keep this floor too hot, and consequently will overheat the chicks and leave their backs too cool. But whatever style of brooder is used, the chicks should be carefully used on the start, to see that there are not too many in together, for I believe this to be the principal cause of finding dead chicks in the morning.” lowa Homestead says: “The brooder should be about the right temperature, as many disorders are the result of improper heat rather than some error in the food which is very often given as the cause. A brooder can be kept too warm, and no doubt they are permitted to get too IOI cool through some irregularity of the lamp or oil. Brooder chicks should be confined more than those with hens, should have plenty of fresh air and exercise. “The troubles which usually come to chicks are bowel trouble, cramps, roup and drooping wings. The latter covers a multitude of ills. Very often the real trouble is in the parent stock, sometimes the keeper is at fault and sometimes the diet is not of the proper kind. Usually bowel trouble is due to sloppy or sour food, rich food, cold and overheating. It can be checked by keeping the chicks warm, not hot, in dry quarters, given rather dry food and boiled milk to drink. If the trouble is stubborn put in a teaspoonful of nitrate of iron to a half gallon of drinking water. “Dampness is something that should not be permitted where young chicks are reared and if they are crowded, become filthy or unduly exposed, roup may appear and kill off the whole lot. Cramp is said to be caused by drinking water that is too cold or by extremes of heat and cold. Drooping wings is due to general debility which may result from any one or a variety of causes. The chicks simply lack strength to hold themselves to- gether, as it were, and have this way of expressing their condition. This is sometimes more noticeable in Leg- horn chicks when they get a little under the weather.” An exchange says: “Chicks in brooders are some- times found dead in the morning, but as a rule the cause is due to crowding under the brooder, and it is usually the best that are found dead. Those on the outside, if the nights are cool, will endeavor to move to the heat. In so doing they trample on those that are down. Soon all 102 move to the center, and it is there that the pressure from all sides causes suffocation. The remedy is to give a little too much rather than a little too less heat, which causes the chicks to spread out. Leghorns feather rapidly, and are in need of more warmth than Brahma chicks. The food should be varied, containing bone and meat, and a teaspoonful of sulphur, to 80 chicks, in the food, given twice a week in dry weather, will help them when | feathering. If the food or parents were at fault they would die during the day as well as at night, but when found dead in the morning it is from crowding and trampling from want of warmth at night.” An exchange says: “Twenty-five to thirty chicks is enough for any brooder. Ifa person will put in more than that number he may expect to keep on burying them until the proper number is reached. I was once gteen enough to put in 132 in one brooder, and I couldn’t see why they should not do well; but in about a week the number had died down to 37 and they grew apace. “Tt is far easier and pleasanter to raise chicks with brooders than by hen power, if one goes about it right. Have your brooders in a dry, well lighted building that is free from draughts, and have a good sized yard in front of it. When chicks begin to feather they need lots of exercise, or at least they do 50 per cent. better if they can have it.” 4 Henry Trafford, in Poultry Keeper, says: “After do- ing some experimenting with brooder chicks with a view 103 to ascertaining the cause for so many premature deaths I arrived at the conclusion that one of the principal causes was feeding them too soon after hatching. Those which were fed from twenty-four to thirty-six hours old began to have bowel trouble and often a large per cent. of them died at a rapid rate, while those which did not receive any food until they were forty-eight hours old, but were simply supplied with fine sand began to grow at once, and a healthier lot of chicks I never raised. This ex- perience set me thinking and after considerable study I arrived at the conclusion heretofore stated.” Couniry Gentleman says: ‘Warmth is essential. But the best kind is not the applied sort. It is better to help a chick keep itself warm than to keep it warm. Some artificial heat is necessary for -brooder chicks, but too much is worse than none. A good many chicks are mur- dered each year by keeping them too warm and coddling them. A healthy, well bred, properly fed chick ought to supply a good deal of its own warmth from within. Keep the chicks comfortable and well fed. Supply sufficient heat to help them up when they want to and provide a way to get away from it when they want to. Keep your eyes on the chicks and not on the thermometer.” Farm and Fireside says: “The heat demanded in the brooder depends upon the weather. Very cold days, and windy days all influence the chick. There is no tempera- ture for the brooder, because the temperature is not the same at all points of the brooder, being greatest near the 104 source of heat. About ninety-five degrees is correct for very young chicks, but the rule is to have the brooder so warm that the chicks will spread out and not crowd, even if it takes over one hundred degrees. They should be kept in the brooder until well feathered—about eight weeks—but even then it depends on the season. If the chicks are given plenty of warmth until ten weeks old. they will grow faster and be larger. At no time should they be exposed, when feathered, to cold at the freezing point. In Winter, when chicks are being raised for the market, they cannot be removed from artificial heat until ready for slaughter. A larger number of chicks can be raised under brooders than under hens, and it requires no more labor to attend to a large number than it does to lose half the time running after a hen with four or five chicks. No lice affects them, and but few die of disease, as they receive better attention and are kept clean. They become accustomed in a few hours to any familiar sound, and can be called up by a few taps on a piece of board or tin. They are gentle and under control. They can be counted, their wants discovered, sick ones noticed, and particular sizes and breeds kept together. Having no hen with them, the ‘first impressions’ with brooder chicks are always the strongest. They prefer the light and will not go into a dark place. When chicks come out of the shells make a little pen of boards around the brooder six or eight inches high, allowing not over eight inches of space around the brooder, as a yard. Feed and water them in this space. They will then become accustomed to the brooder in a few days. If the room is at ninety de- grees, the chicks will need no warmth under the brooder, yet they will prefer to feel something over them. It is better to have the room at seventy and the brooder at ninety degrees.” ‘ 105 COLORS OF YOUNG CHICKS. An exchange says: “A great deal of perplexity has developed with the hatching of young chicks, especially with amateur poultry raisers on account of the various colors which have shown on the newly hatched chicks. For this reason we give a little information on this mat- ter. The color of the matured fowl is seldom seen on the very young of any breed and for this fact it is not best to complain until the birds mature, if the color is not what you thought it ought to be. The -young of the Barred Plymouth Rocks are of varying colors from dark gray to a brownish black, and some will even be found that are pure black, yet these very same chicks will develop into birds with the regulation barred plumage. The White Plymouth Rock will hatch out in several colors, ranging from a light gray or gray spotted to yellow and white. Many will be quite dark in color, particularly around the head and neck. Young Black Langshans and Black Min- orcas hatch out in spotted down. The colors are usually orange and black, some white and black, while a very small percentage will be all black. Buff Leghorns ‘are usually of a buff color when young, but of several shades darker or lighter than they will be when matured. Even the old established breeds like the White Leghorns do not all hatch out in the snow white plumage of the ma- tured bird, hence if your chicks have hatched out in sev- eral colors and not at all like the colors anticipated you had better wait until they mature before condemning any one. If at maturity the color is not correct then it is not likely to be, but this cannot always be relied upon as the early moult of the young is not perfect in color;-even among wild birds this can be noticed.” 106 GAPES., Poultry Keeper says: “Gapes are usually due to filth, the eating of the residum of food previously given, and feeding in damp places. It is believed that they are prop- agated in earth worms, but no facts have yet been dis- covered regarding such claim. The best remedy for gapes, if the chicks will eat, is to add a teaspoonful of spirits of turpentine to a mixture of one pint corn meal and a pint of middlings. Thoroughly incorporate the turpentine with the dry material, then scald as much of the material as may be required, and feed to the chicks on a thin board. Put ten drops of carbolic acid in every pint of drinking water, and change the water frequently, once a day. There is no sure remedy for gapes, and in- serting feather tips in the windpipe to draw out the gape worms can be done only by an experienced person. There are suggested remedies, but they are sometimes as fatal to the chicks as the gapes. MORTALITY OF INCUBATOR CHICKS, In very many cases the loss of newly hatched incubator chicks has been the sole obstacle to success. If the mor- tality during the first two weeks can be held in check, the remainder of the work is comparatively simple and the ex- pense of poultry raising greatly reduced, with the net result of increased profits to the producer and lower prices and a more regular supply to the consumer. To this end the observations upon young incubator chicks are being carried on at the Rhode Island Agricultural Experiment “Station for the purpose of ascertaining with some degree of certainty (1) the proportion of chicks that die, (2) 107 the causes of death (deaths by accidents, cats, rats, etc., not included). In addition, experiments have been in- stituted for the purpose of. diminishing the rate of mor- tality. The total number of dead chickens examined during the Spring and Summer of 1899 was 826. Of these 387 were males, 439 were females. These figures show that a larger proportion of female chickens died during the first weeks. Post-mortem examinations showed that the dis- eases may be classified under four heads. Disorders as- cribable— A. To heredity or environment during incubation. Recent. experiments have demonstrated that successive alternate periods of heat and cold during incubation are responsible for a very large proportion of abnormalities ; 33 per cent. of the chicks examined showed more or less trouble under this head. = B. To mechanical causes, that is, overcrowding in the brooders, resulting in death by suffocation, trampling, cic. C. To imperfect sanitation, lack of ventilation, sun- light, etc., e. g., tuberculosis flourishing in dark, poorly ventilated brooders; 15 per cent. of the post-mortems showed more or less evidences of tuberculosis. D. To improperly balanced ration, i. ¢., improper feed- ing. For the continued maintenance of health there must be a definite proportion between the amount of carbo- hydrates (starch, sugar, etc.), fats and the nitrogen con- taining proteins. A ration wholly vegetable is almost certain to contain a too low percentage of nitrogen, while a ration exclusively animal is very sure to be deficient in carbohydrates. As a result of improper food digestive disorders soon appear, either in the liver and gall bladder or in the intestines. Of the chicks examined, 75.7 per 108 cent. had abnormal livers; 38.6 per cent. had various forms of intestinal disorders. Miller Purvis, in Breeder's Gazette, says: “For a good while I have studied incubation pretty closely and by a process of elimination I have concluded that the fault of crippled incubator chicks lies in the operator. Chicks hatched by a hen rarely show this weakness. Therefore, I reason, the trouble is not usually one that is inherent in the embryo chick. In looking over some records of hatches I find that in one hatch of eighty-six chicks from the IoI eggs there was not a crippled one. Another hatch of ninety-four chicks from 107 eggs had three which could not ‘get their legs under themselves’ and they were killed. In a record of a very poor hatch the notes say: ‘Very weak and nearly a dozen crippled.’ In short the better the hatch the fewer crippled chicks almost invariably. As a rule a poor hatch is due entirely to the operator when a modern incubator is used. From my experience I conclude that where there is a poor hatch a number of chicks have just strength enough to get out of the shell with no reserve left and as a consequence they cannot stand and are counted among the cripples. In my experi- ence the chicks that come out the twentieth or twenty-first day are almost invariably strong enough to stand, while among those that come out later will be found the crip- ples.” J. Pierce, in Pouliry Keeper, says: “Mate up your pens for weight and color, for color has as much to do 109 as weight in a market fowl. They must be yellow skinned and yellow leggéd to bring the best market prices.” Indiana Farmer says: “It’s a very important thing to go over the premises, burn the brush piles and all rub- bish and cut the weed patches, for here is where minks, weasels. and stich hold high carnival. Chicks that have no mother are not on the lookout for such things. Hawks are our worst enemies, so we have wire netting made into coops large enough to let in fifty chicks as large as quails; they are about 15 inches high, 2 feet wide, 3 or 4 feet long and flat on top. We feed the chicks in these after they are turned out of doors; the older fowls cannot get in and trample the little ones. When the alarm is given by the older flock that a hawk is coming, many will run for the coops. The wire over the top fools Mr. Hawk.” HATCHING CHICKS, _J. A. Lanning, in Commercial Poultry, says: “A great many advocate hatching chicks in February, March and April, but I do not agree with them. April will do if we have an early Spring, but in the Eastern States April is usually very changeable, with a very few hot days, with an occasional snow storm. This weather is death to small chicks. J have known a sudden change in April from hot to cold to kill almost a whole brood of small chicks by bringing on bowel complaint, and when a chick is stricken, he usually dies in twelve hours and nothing will save him. Once in a while a chick pulls through, but they are never II0 good for anything afterwards. Early chicks are all right for broilers, but for breeders and eggs give me the May and June hatch, nature’s own months, for incubation. Eggs are usually fertile and chicks are stronger and grow faster if hatched in these two months.” Victor D. Caneday says: “When we want broody hens, about three weeks or a month before we want them for setting, we place two or three china nest eggs in each nest in the pens from which we want setting hens, and.in from two to four weeks’ time, without fail, we begin to gather in our harvest of setting hens and prepare for the hatching season. We have tested this so many times that we are stire there is no reason for any poultry -keeper to be short of early setters if he will use the nest eggs to arouse the hen’s maternal instinct. We have tested this side by side with pens of hens under identically the same care, housing and feeding, and in the pens where there were two or three china eggs in the nests the hens were nearly all broody inside of a month, while in the pens where no nest eggs were used and the eggs gathered as laid there were no broody hens to speak of and the few that went broody became broody late in the season and were easily broken up.” : CHAPTER XI. CARE AND MANAGEMENT. Advice by Practical Poultrymen, Many of Whom are Prominent in the Poultry World. LAMENT OF THE BROODER CHICK. “I’m a poor boycotted chicken That the rest are always pickin’, For at me they always seem to be amused ; And I think about my life, With its trials and its strife, And I feel I have been very much abused. “Hatched by heartless incubator, Fed on onion and potater, And crowded until we couldn’t sneeze; I and fifty little brothers Lay and sweltered and smothered, Tho’ we begged for air on bended knees. “But the crowd was quickly lessened, As you no doubt can guess, and Soon our number was reduced to three; Then a rat took one dear brother, And a board fell on the other; Which left that fatal brooder all to me. I1l2 “And now when night is falling, And I hear the mothers calling To their chicks, that seem as happy as a king, I crawl beneath my cover, But it will not, cannot hover, And I cannot tuck my head beneath its wing.” —Fanciers’ Monthly. F. J. Marshall, in Poultry Monthly, writes: ‘Early in the season, from the very first of their existence, chicks need the best of care—if you would have them grow fast and escape disease. When the weather is fine and warm, there is no better place for them than the ground and free range allowed them, but when the nights are cold and the mornings wet and cold, little chicks have no busi- ness out of their coops. If they are allowed out, they will surely contract gapes, and an early death will be the re- sult. If one can have a roomy shed with a dry dirt or gravel floor and plenty of light, it makes one of the best possible places to start broods of young chicks during Spring. Where we have the ground floor sheds in severe weather, I would use a lot of hay chaff under the coops to keep the little fellows out of the cold, and it is then -better than having them upon the floor. Let them run out and in from the coops at will, just so they cannot get out of doors. In case the shed is open on one or more sides, you can use the one-inch mesh wire nétting to ad- vantage, about two feet wide along the opening to keep them in.” Rural New Vorker says: “In caring for and feeding little chicks it is important that they have the right en- 113 vironment, else the care and the food will go for naught. In all pursuits there are certain laws before which we bow. We recognize the futility of combating and the necessity of conforming to them. This is especially the case with artificial poultry raising. In no other industry does an infringement of Nature’s laws and her ways find a more persistent and obstinate resistance than is to be met with in the little chick. There is no more independent creature on earth. Along certain lines it will not and cannot be coerced. When this is fully understood and acquiesced in the case becomes greatly simplified. “For the first ten weeks of a chick’s life, or until fairly well feathered, they are as delicate and sensitive to atmospheric changes as is a little baby of the same age. The downy dress they first wear is of about the same pro- tection against cold and wet as a muslin slip would be on an infant. It amply suffices for their little runs from under their mother’s wings, where, if they get wet, they are dried and warmed before they get chilled. There is something so wonderfully simple and efficient in the com- bination of Nature’s. mother and chicks that few realize how frail a tenure on life these healthy, happy little fel- lows have, and how dependent they are on just the kind of warmth and shelter and food they have for health and life. ‘A chilled chick is a dead chick’ may sound extreme, but for all practical purposes I can vouch to its truth. The bird may be nursed back to convalescence, but has received a setback in health and growth from which it rarely recovers. Too much heat is almost equally dis- astrous. The temperature of the hen gradually lowers as the chicks grow older and stronger, and they make longer journeys away from her; also, as one camping spot becomes foul she moves to another.” 2 114 Geo. D. Holden, in Pouliry Herald, writes: “The young chicks will spend most of their time out of doors in pleasant weather, but should be provided with good shelter for the night and for stormy days. A brood coop should be so constructed that the rain cannot beat in, no matter from what direction it may come. Old birds can stand the wet, but it is a bad thing for young chicks,—they should be kept dry. Their coops should not only be so constructed as to keep the chicks dry and warm, but should be well ventilated. The back and front should be made to raise and lower, or rather so that they may be swung up to any angle; this would allow good ventilation in warm weather and also keep out the rain in wet weather. Those are the essentials of a good brood coop, to keep the chicks dry and to admit of good ventilation. “Some fanciers allow the hen to run with the chicks, but we believe it a better plan to confine the hen to the brood coop and give the chicks their liberty. They will then run to the shelter of the coop in case of extreme heat or should a rain storm come up; but if the hen is running with the chicks she will not always go to a sheltered place in case of rain, but will brood her chicks wherever she may be when the storm overtakes her, and in case of a severe rain storm the chicks may all be drowned, or so thoroughly soaked as to die from its effects. With the hen in the coop, the chicks will always run to it in case of storm or unusual disturbance, and with a prop- erly constructed coop will be safe. A good brood coop kept free from vermin and filth will provide all the home necessary for young chicks until their size demands some- thing larger. “The number of chicks that can be raised on a city lot is, of course, limited, but with good care they may be brought to maturity in as fine condition as those having 115 the advantage of extended range, insect life, etc. In fact, the city fancier with his one lot may have the advantage of those with extended range, that is, if he limits the number of chicks to the size of his grounds, as his smaller number is likely to receive better attention than the large flocks of those who have ample ground room, as the tendency is for the average fancier to raise more chicks than he can properly care for, and as a result the young birds do not reach the development possible had they been less in number and more care given to the most promising individuals. It is necessary for us all to fight against this tendency to raise more birds than we can properly care for. It is far better to limit the number to the size of our grounds and the time we have to devote to poultry. “Tt does not pay to be too tender-hearted in the man- agement of young chicks, that is, in the matter of cutting out the weak and puny ones. The fancier must be ob- serving of the physical condition of his chicks from the time of the first hatch all along through the entire season, and should ‘cull out’ any that show physical weakness to such an extent as to not thrive and grow when other chicks of the same hatch are doing well. Of course, if the cause is lice or some outside influence, then the proper thing is to remove such influence, and the chick may thrive again, but when it is the result of a natural lack of vigor and vitality then cull it out and give the room and attention it has taken to some more promising speci- men. Such weakly chicks never pay for the trouble of raising them, and are of no account as either show birds or breeders. A bird without a good healthy body and strong constitution is never of much value in the show room or the breeding yard.” 116 Nellie Bullock, in Poultry Tribune, writes : “We wonder why it is so many of our poultry writers so often remind us that our baby chicks must have shade, and rarely ever say anything about the need of plenty of sunshine. Oh, the number of chicks we have lost from too much shade, they would reach way up in the hundreds. But we have learned at last, by dear experience, that sunshine, and lots of it, is very essential for the welfare of young poultry as well as matured. In Summer time there is a canopy of leaves of large oak and hickory trees over our back yards from the kitchen to a poultry house about four rods away, we can always walk in the shade and I used to think that under that shade was the ideal place for our chicks, coops and all. “After a long while, five or six years, I noticed that the chicks that were cooped in sunny places seldom were sick. So we quit putting the coops in the shade, until last year in May we took a notion we could regulate the brood- ers easier if they were put in the shade. The brooders had done such excellent work that we thought they would raise chickens in any place. But the first hatch we put in the shade we lost half of them inside of three weeks. “They would take a diarrhoea, get poor and scrawny and die, and none of many remedies had any effect, unless some of them put the chicks out of this misery a little sooner, “So the next hatch we decided to put that brooder back where it was sunny all day. We fixed a canvas awning in front of the brooder (a good big awning four feet square). For some days the brooder was too hot for the chicks without the lamp lighted and the chicks could rest and drink under the awning or neighboring rose bushes, but the brooder was where the sunshine poured down on it all day. Some days we kept the glass door or 117 top open, and at night the chicks had a clean disinfected sleeping apartment, and we lost no more brooder chicks by disease.” Victor D. Caneday, in Agricultural Epitomist, writes: “All the chicks are allowed free range as soon as possible and when well feathered are placed out in the fields or along the edge of the woods in weaning coops, where they are kept until the cockerels begin to develop, when the sexes are separated, placing the pullets in the open air roosting coops. Allow them to roam over the fields or woods at will until Fall, when they are removed to the laying houses. The weaning coops and open roosting coops are made of any kind of cheap lumber or siding. The weaning coop is two and one-half by four feet on ground plan and is three feet high in front, two feet at the back. The front is covered with one-inch mesh wire net- ting with door in center. They are provided with board floors. These floors can be made separate from the coop and thus facilitate cleaning. Litter should always be kept in the coops for nesting material which should be changed frequently. “The open air roosting coop is built on legs eighteen inches high, making a shady retreat underneath, and leaving it more convenient to clean off the board floor under the roosts. The roosts should be made of material quite wide, at least three inches, so as to give the grow- ing chicks’ breast bones a good bearing surface, thus preventing, in a large measure, disfiguring crooked breast - bones. The floor space of these coops is three by six feet, three feet high at the back and four in front. They will accommodate twenty-five growing chicks or about fifteen head of old stock.” 118 Mary Traverse, in Agricultural Epitomist, writes: “There is no objection, in my opinion, to hatching chick- ens in Summer, if you will take care of them. I have hatched chickens up to September and never had any trouble with them. But they were given special care. A neighbor tried it this season and lost nearly every bird. The trouble, in the first place, is-the excessive heat which must be guarded against. My neighbor built coops where the full force of the sun would fall upon them. Under such circum- stances the coops were as hot as ovens at a baking. The heat was sufficient to roast the life out of anything. If the coops had been built under a shade, the result would have been entirely different, if the feeding had been prop- erly done. Then food and water are affected by the heat. If anything is fed that is liable to ferment, and the chicks are fed more than they will eat up clean, fermentation will take place and bowel trouble will surely follow.” A. Warren Robinson, in Pacific Rural Press, writes: “Tf the chick has good parentage, it should live and thrive. Things to guard against in the first days are dampness, moist food and chilling winds. If chicks are kept upon the damp ground they will not do well; there will of necessity be weakness and a condition of the sys- tem favorable for various diseases. There is a great loss annually of young chicks from this one cause. There- fore, one cannot be too careful. Always haye wooden floors to the coops or the brooder, and see that they are well cleaned each day.” 11g J. H. Davis, in an exchange, writes as follows regard- ing Summer chicks: “I provided dense shade and plenty of it on all parts of the place. I have corn, sunflower groves, raspberry bushes, grape vines, okra and aspara- gus bushes. There is nothing so dense as shade, nothing that I have ever found to equal grown up asparagus. After the early plants or tubes have been gathered for family use, if the plants are allowed to grow they will form a thick, impenetrable, almost tight shade, under which the chicks can be safe from the rays of the sun, from hawks, and from predatory enemies. I would in- duce all that have fowls to start asparagus, which can b2 put in beds, or in a long row, as a hedge along the fence or elsewhere. Once started, it will last for years and be a most welcome and safe refuge for the fowls and chicks.” Iowa Homestead says: “The chicks having been hatched out early, should be put into a warm coop which should be placed in an open shed. where the cold wind will not strike and where the sunshine will warm up the surroundings. This is the plan, of course, where no brooders are used. But where the latter are used there will be but little use for the hen at all. When brooders are managed just right, the chicks will be free from lice and will outgrow those reared by hens. Begin now to lay plans for early chicks, and if a failure results, it may be well to ascertain why and try to avoid it another time.” V.M. Couch says: “Considering all things, April and May are the best months to hatch them out. There are 120 some who do not get started so as to get the chickens hatched out before long in June and often as late as July, and while I have known some of these late hatched chick- ens to come on nicely, I think it is a poor policy, as these late hatched broods are apt to be victims of lice, intense heat and disease. “An incubator is very necessary where a great many chicks are to be hatched out, but where only fifty or seventy-five are to be hatched the ‘old hen’ fills the bill very well.” Mrs, J. A. Leland, in Poultry Keeper, writes: ‘“Damp- ness kills more chicks than improper food, so we try to keep ‘our chicks out of rains and keep them in floored coops at night until the ground is perfectly dry. Old -fowls are not hurt by moderately heavy rains, while young chicks may be killed by a light shower. We have also found that overcrowding is a usual evil and stunts the chicks so that they are not fit for either the market or show room. We try to sort the chicks in the runs so that they will be nearly the same age, for when older chicks run with younger and weaker ones, they pre-empt all the food and abuse the little ones so that they fre- quently die. Rats, hogs, minks and skunks cost us many more chicks than does disease, and eternal vigilance is the only remedy for them, and for lice. We dust, dust, dust and spray, spray, spray from April until November, and even then we are sometimes unpleasantly surprised by visitors on the chicks. " “We find some of the liquid lice killers too strong to use on the chicks, so we use powder, but the liquid should be used on the old fowls and on the inside of the 121 houses, coops and any covered places used by the chicks. Kerosene is a fine preventative, too, and the painting of roosts and coop floors will also pay. Whitewash at least twice a year and clean frequently, but absolute success is almost impossible where too many fowls are kept. “Draughts are the last but not least of our troubles. Colds and roup are very hard on chicks and can be pre- vented in but one way, that is, by keeping the chicks where draughts cannot reach them if the weather be any- thing but the dry, hot air of midsummer. A large, grassy run is necessary to the comfort and health of the chicks, although unlimited range is not required. A range large enough to keep them well supplied with ani- mal food and tender green grass does away with the need of animal meal or ground bone and their attendant risks of bowel trouble.” Henry Trafford,in Practical Poultryman, writes : “There are a great many who love poultry but are unfortunate enough to have, perhaps, but a back yard in which to raise their chicks and keep their breeding birds upon. “While this state of affairs is a hindrance, yet any one can by proper care and management be quite successful with poultry under the conditions just mentioned. Chicks under such conditions will have to be cared for in quite a different manner than those which have a fimited range. “Chicks raised with plenty of range get supplied with bugs, worms, etc. This constitutes their requirements for animal food. (Chicks in limited quarters do not_get this.) They also get what they require in green food, and while they are obtaining this food they also naturally obtain a needed exercise. We must study constantly to 122 make the conditions as near as possible as nature in- tended. “When the chicks are eight to ten weeks old, take the hens from them and give them a brood coop, one for every fifty chicks. Study all the time to make them work for what they eat in the time of grains, and feed soft food but once a day and that sparingly. Feed regularly; this is important.” L. E. Keyser, in Poultry Keeper, writes: ‘“When the chicks are old enough to leave the brooder or the hen we should decide what their ultimate destination is to be. I divide my chicks into three classes, placing them in small weaning coops containing from fifteen to twenty- five each. These coops are cheap concerns, made of dry goods boxes or anything that comes handy. The first- class consists of those designed for breeders, the second for Winter layers, and the third for those that are to he ripened for market. In the first class I include the finest marked and best shaped pullets from my most prolific laying hens, and a few of the best shaped cockerels from my male line, always cooping the cockerels and pullets separately. For Winter layers I select the earliest pt- lets, but those whose shape and markings are such as to exclude them from being desirable breeding fowls. “The third class composes the poorly marked cock- erels from the male line, all the cockerels from the female line, and the late hatched pullets. This class I keep con- fined and force them as rapidly as possible, but do not dispose of them until they have reached a weight of from three to five pounds, as in this market such fowls are more in demand and bring fully as good a price as broil- 123 . ers, especially at the season when they could be dis- posed of. “The second, or Winter laying, class are given a small range and are fed for rapid maturity. It being the ob- ject to have them all producing eggs by November Ist, and as some of these are hatched as late as the middle of May, it is necessary to force them as rapidly as pos- sible. Their range being sowed to rape affords ample green food and the remainder of their diet consists of wheat, corn, and a liberal supply of green bone and ani- mal meal. Birds raised in this manner do not produce as many eggs in a year as. those that are allowed to mature more slowly, but they do produce them at a time when the price more than recompenses for their decrease in the Spring when eggs are cheap. “To the chicks desired as breeding fowls every care should be given. They are placed in roomy coops fn small colonies of ten to fifteen each, and allowed free range, but are never overfed. In fact, they are allowed to hunt the greater part of their living, but as they are mostly early hatched they usually come into laying in November, and are given a year’s test before being placed in the breeding pen. “Tn following this course of breeding I find it necessary to have a systematic method of marking the chicks, so that the different classes and hatches can readily be dis- tinguished, and after a system has been adopted and you become familiar with it there is no trouble in keeping an accurate record. Careful breeding and thorough bus:- ness methods are necessary to make poultry pay, and the ration, while liberal, should be economical, and such as will bring the fowls to the condition desired in the short- est possible time—be it egg production or a ripe carcass for the market.” 124 Henry W. Denbo writes: “Our object should be to keep the chicks comfortable and contented from the time they enter the world until they are ready for market. Above all things, don’t give them sloppy food. Mix the ground feed as dry as possible and let the chicks drink water when they want it. Numbers of poultrymen are becoming careless or adopting the loose methods of feed- ing and caring for their chicks. The lazy poultry keeper seems to have lost confidence in himself and is falling back; hoping that he might succeed, forgetting seeming- ly, that man needs to guide, reason and work for him- self. In the lazy poultry keeper confidence is rapidly passing away, to be replaced by indifference. The indif- ference of the lazy poultry keeper, who is easily discour- aged and gets the ‘blues,’ allows the filth to accumulate around his yards and houses and cannot succeed. “One of the secrets of successful chicken raising is to keep them growing. To do this no condition can be tolerated which will interfere with development of the bird. As soon as the sex can be determined they should be separated and given: free range. In this way they will secure both green and animal food to balance the grain food, commonly supplied to them. “Some few days ago while reading the Inland Poultry Journal I noticed an article telling how to rid chicks from lice. This is the receipt: Put two drops of oil of sassa- fras on their head and one drop under each wing and they will never be bothered with them. Having a few chicks that had some lice, I thought I would try it, and, dear reader, I tried it to my sorrow. I put it on forty- six, and inside of thirty minutes I had forty-six fine chicks two months old stretched out and the most of them dead. Now, dear reader, take warning, and don’t try to use it. If you do it will be to your sorrow. I have 125 found out the whitewash brush and the whitewash is the best. Clean out your henhouses often, burn up the old nests, remove all old boxes and barrels, whitewash every few days, and I assure you that you will not be bothered with lice. Try it and convince yourselves, but do not ex- periment with oil of sassafras. If you do, good-bye, little chicks. “The greatest enemy you have to deal with is lice; one cannot say too much on this subject in my mind. I believe one-half of the chickens that die die from that cause. There are several kinds that infest fowls. The large gray louse clinging to the top'of the head and side of the neck. Then a flesh colored fellow; you will find those and plenty of them on the fluffy feathers and also around the vent; there is also a large fellow on the body. These are not found in large numbers. Also a long slender fellow you will find along the under side of the wing feathers. But it is the little flesh colored fellows that do the work because they multiply so rapidly. As I stated above, don’t be afraid to use the whitewash brush. Lime is cheap and a barrel will last all Summer.” Poultry Keeper says: “It is believed by those who have not sought for the cause that early hatched chicks are much more easily raised than those hatched out late. It may be said that the late chicks do not grow, but seem to remain at about the same stage for months. The reason is that the early hatched chicks receive more care. They are hatched at a time when they must be protected from the cold, and care must be given them from necessity. They are also less liable to have lice—both the large lice and the small mites—and thus get a good start before the 126 fine weather begins. It is well known that when any kind of young stock is favored in the early stages of growth they hold this advantage ,until maturity comes; but any check received at the beginning will make its influence felt throughout the future existence of the animals or birds. There is a great loss of the early hatched chicks when they are neglected, and a comparison of this loss with that occurring among the late chicks may change the apparent disadvantages of the latter.” P. H. Jacobs says: “The first eggs laid are always the best for hatching. They produce the finest and most uniform chicks, which show all the finer points and de- velop sooner; where the breeding birds are chosen with an eye to the nearest possible perfection. Very early hatched pullets commence to lay too early for breeding purposes, unless one has warm shelters and heated en- closures for the chicks in cold climates. With the first clutch the hen is in better strength and ability to stamp her progeny with that degree of uniformity and perfec- tion which is aimed to be established. The cock later in the season becomes weakened from overuse and his chicks are weak and therefore more prone to diseases. Good, strong birds that inherit constitutions withstand all minor evils and grow rapidly. To produce these the parent bird should be hardy and able to withstand all the at- tacks of insidious diseases that of late years creep into the hen roost in open daylight, making victims ofttimes of the strongest birds. Losses from the foes and vermin that steal under the cover of darkness (bitter experiences, per- haps, to some) have taught many to guard against them, but nothing is able to resist the attacks of the deadly dis- eases that come through carelessness and inattention.” 127 An exchange says: ‘Large and small chicks do not get along well together, and the small ones are the suf- ferers, as the large birds are bound to take more than their share of the food, not because they need it, but just to keep the little fellows from getting it. They abuse the smaller chicks in many ways, and should be separated from them where it is possible, but if room is scarce a coop should be made with slats just far enough apart so that the little fel- lows can get in, but the larger ones cannot. Then feed the small chicks in this coop, where they will be away from the larger ones and cannot be annoyed by them, and the little fellows will do enough better to make it pay for the trouble necessary in providing such feeding places. Anything that we can do to keep our chicks growing will usually pay, as a chick that is checked in its growth seldom reaches the development it would have had it not been checked. A steady, uninterrupted growth is what is wanted to secure the best results with our chicks.” Ohio Poultry Journal says: ‘“‘One reason why late chicks do not seem to thrive is because they are often from the eggs of females that were in the latter part of their laying period, and because of reduced vitality the eggs did not have the strength of those laid earlier in the season, and the chicks naturally lack in vigor. It is no theory about chicks from eggs laid at the last of the lay- ing period being deficient in vitality, as the experience of all fanciers has demonstrated it to be a fact. The eggs that produce the strongest chicks are those laid early in the laying period of each female, and where tlie late chicks are wanted, the eggs should be selected from fe- males that have had a rest after having laid their first lot 128 of eggs. The chicks will then be more apt to have the vitality necessary to carry them through the hot weather and not be checked in growth.” An anonymous writer says: “In building runways for little chicks next Spring, don’t forget to cover them with wire netting; it will keep the little chicks from fly- ing out, which will save you many steps in replacing them again. And where a great many coops are, used, the lit- tle chicks very often get mixed, and very often are placed in the wrong coops, only to be attacked by the ‘old hen who knows her chicks at sight. It will also keep out hawks, crows and those prowling pests, the neighbor’s cats, which love to feast on full-blooded chicks.” An exchange says: “Sprawling is caused by placing little chicks on a smooth surface, which in a great many cases cripples them for life, therefore it is best to place finely cut straw, hay or chaff on the floors of brooders or coops, which will prevent it.” “Tt also affords material for them to scratch in, and pick up little stray bits that have been thrown among the litters, such as pin-head oats and millet seed, which are both good for young chicks, thereby doing double service.” Geo. D. Holden, in an exchange, says: “Our young chicks are our prospective prize winners, and anything that we may do to promote their growth and bring out the best quality of form and feather should be done. 129 Many fanciers overdo the matter in the way of feed, and bring on troubles that check rather than promote growth; they should not be pampered, they are not ‘hothouse plants’ and should not be treated as if they were weak and sickly. A part of their care is to know when to leave them alone—we have heard people make the remark that ‘thoroughbred chickens’ seemed to require so much more than the ordinary fowl that it was so much harder to raise their chicks than those of the ‘barnyard hen,’ when the fact is they require no more care to do well, and render good service as fowls, than does the ordinary fowl, and the young chick is as hardy and requires as little attention as any chick. The trouble is people take it for granted that because they are thoroughbreds, they must, as a matter of course, require more attention and care than the ‘scrub,’ and as a result in many cases, the matter is overdone and the fowls do not prosper and the thoroughbred is condemned. Some people seem to think they must follow some set plan for the care of both chicks and fowls, and are not able to profit by experience—when experience is the best teacher one can have.” A writer in Farmer’s Guide says: “A poultry raiser, who for several years experimented with various insecti- cides in search of a reliable remedy for the little red mites and the various species of the hen body louse that infects the nests of sitting hens, could find nothing effective un- til he tried camphor balls. He says he has had the hens leave the nest before the eggs were hatched, completely covered with these pests, and has taken back many broods of chickens when he would find half a dozen or more big white lice on their little heads, and this, too, after 130 having dusted the hens and the nest well several times during the incubation with various kinds of insect powders. “The balls are perfectly harmless to the hen and chicks, and the hen with her brood of chicks will leave the nest absolutely free from lice. Make your nest and put in the eggs, and at the same time place in the nest with the eggs one camphorated ball, which is sufficient for the entire incubation, and your hen and little chicks will leave the nest free from all kinds of vermin. When you have placed the little ball in the nest you need not bother any more. It will evaporate and get to be very small toward the latter part of the incubation; but never mind, it has done its work. “Since using the camphor ball he has not raised a single chick with scaly legs. It is a good idea to keep one of the balls in the nest where the hens lay, as it keeps them from having scaly legs as well as keeping them free from vermin. The camphorated ball is a little white ball, and can be obtained at any drug store.” Farm-Poultry says: ‘Good chicks may be grown in confinement, but it costs much more to produce them this way than if they have a fair range, and are at the same time well tended. As between good care in confinement and ordinary to poor care on the ordinary range, the ad- vantage is all in favor of the former method. Whether confined or on range the chicks must not be overcrowded —not when the object is to have them make the best possible growth. Under some circumstances it might be more profitable to crowd at the expense perhaps of something in growth and vigor. Thus the growers of 131 ‘hothouse’ chickens crowd their chickens much more than is generally considered safe, and probably find that they get a greater profit in this way than by giving the chicks the ordinary amount of room; while growers of laying and breeding stock find that their stock deteri- orates very rapidly under such circumstances. As many readers may have noticed, the methods adopted by those who grow roasters at West Norwell and vicinity are like those used by the growers of green ducks for mar- ket. As all who are familiar with the subject know, the duck growers adopt different methods for the ducklings intended for stock ducks after taking them from the brooders. “Teaching the chicks to roost is often a puzzle, par- ticularly to beginners. Try this method: Take a low box or a wide board resting on a block or brick and put it where the chicks are accustomed to sleep. Have it large enough so that all the chicks can get on it. After they are accustomed to it, gradually raise it until it is a foot from the floor. Most of the chicks will go on it. Any that do not you should place on it night after night until they will go of their own accord. When all have learned to get up on the board, take it away and put roosts at the same height and four or five inches wide. Here is another that sometimes works well: Put one or two peaceable old fowls of either sex, or a few chickens that learned to roost in the lot you wish to teach, wide roosts being furnished, not too high from the ground. Leg- horns generally need no instruction, and mixed lots of chicks containing Leghorns generally follow their exam- ple very rapidly. Don’t think though that you can teach all chickens to roost. Some breeders of Asiatics never allow their fowls to roost, and when you have stock from 132 such fowls you are apt to find that some of the chicks will never go to roost of their own accord. “A great deal is said of the necessity for separating the sexes—some insisting that it should be done as soon as the sex can be determined. In Asiatics it is not often necessary until the chicks are pretty well grown. In fowls of the Mediterranean varieties separation must be made quite early. In American varieties it depends on the stock and the stage of development of the individual cockerels. Frequently a removal of a few of the cocke- rels disposed to annoy the pullets makes it possible to keep males and females together peaceably until well along in the season. In many cases the separation can be made early as well as later, the chicks being divided into small lots anyway, and it being just as easy to separate by sex, but where it is not convenient to sepa- rate the sexes they may often be kept together by remov- ing those cockerels disposed to make trouble. “What is of much greater importance than separation according to sex is assortment according to size. Ex- cept in very rare cases, when chicks of different sizes are kept together the smaller ones have to take a lot of roughing from the others. Whenever any of the chicks in a flocks are seen to be suffering from this sort of treat- ment they should be removed from it. For this same cause the best development of all the good cockerels one has is hard to secure. As the birds mature it is seen that one or two (those which rule the flock) stand out su- perior to the others in general condition. Remove these and one or two others will quickly surprise you by the rapidity with which they shape up. The best way is to keep every male bird by himself or with a few hens or pullets after he begins to assert his individuality. Not many breeders have facilities for doing this. The next 4 133 best thing is to keep them in as small flocks as possible and have them so nearly matched in size and strength that none will be much imposed upon. Most breeders keep entirely too many cockerels over to sell for stock purposes. The birds that sell for only two or three dollars each in the Spring, it does not pay to Winter, yet thousands of them are carried through every season, and thousands go to the pot in March and April every year which ought to have gone to the frying pan seven or eight months earlier.” Poultry Keeper says: “A chick can be made to weigh one pound at a cost not exceeding five cents; four cents will sometimes be the limit of cost. That is for the food; we do not include cost of eggs, warmth, shelter, etc., “The chicks should weigh one pound each when seven weeks old; some will weigh more and some less, but one hundred chicks, if rightly managed, should weigh one hundred pounds. It is admitted that such weight is sometimes exceeded. A Leghorn chick will not weigh as much as a Brahma, and something depends on the food allowed. “The chicks should be ready for market in three months from the day that the eggs are put under the hen or in the incubator, which allows three weeks for incu- bation and ten weeks for growing. The chicks should then average one and one-half pounds each. “A hundred chicks will eat as many quarts of corn per week (or its equivalent) as they are days old. That is, they will eat seven quarts the first week, fourteen quarts the second week, increasing a quart a day until the tenth week, when they will then eat seventy quarts per 134 week. We do not mean that one chick eats this quan- tity, but one hundred chicks, “A hundred chicks when hatched should weigh five pounds. They should double_their weight every week until forty days old, at which age the increase is less rapid. That is one hundred chicks should weigh ten pounds when ten days old, twenty pounds at twenty days, . thirty pounds at thirty days, and forty pounds at forty days. “Chicks of large breeds gain more rapidly than do those of smaller breeds. At one month of age ten Brah- mas weighed seven pounds, and ten Leghorns thirteen pounds. At three months the ten Brahmas weighed twenty-one pounds, and the Leghorns sixteen and a half pounds. Chicks of Wyandottes, Langshans and Ply- mouth Rocks, in two months were one ounce per chick behind the Brahmas, or fifteen poéunds and six ounces for ten chicks against the sixteen pounds for the ten Brah- mas.” ; boa p cee Poultry Herald says: “Eternal vigilance, so far as lice are concerned, and reasonable care, are all that is‘neces- sary in order to bring chicks through to maturity in good condition physically. The matter of ‘fancy quali- ties’ depends upon a proper mating, for their production, and the parent stock must possess these desirable quali- ties, as well as the quality of vigor of constitution, then with a combination of physical and fancy qualities, with reasonable care of the chicks, one should be in possession of birds, which at maturity should be fit for the show room, the breeding yard, or the practical poultryman’s yard birds—fit to fill any condition of poultry life with credit to the breed they represent.” 135 Thos. F. Rigg, in American Poultry Journal, says: “There are a great many untruths believed for the rea- son that they are so constantly told. We scarcely ever read a poultry journal now, in Summer, but we note the statement that it is best to keep the chicks confined mornings until the grass is dry and the dew has disap- peared. Don’t you-believe it. If you can safely leave your brood coops open all night, do so. Allow the chicks the opportunity of getting out as early in the morning as they like. They will pick up worms and bugs sufficient to afford a good breakfast—a far better break- fast than you or I will be able to supply them. Of course, we will feed them in the morning, but several hours later, for you and I do not ‘get up’ with the chicks—not every morning.” e Henry R. Ingalls, in Practical Poultryman, says: “There is a season when the days of the poultryman are filled with trials and cares, the days of hatching and starting young chicks on the road to their future destiny, what- ever that may be. There is considerable work connected with the raising of chickens no matter how you raise them, with hens or in brooders. To begin with, one must have good clean quarters, for filth is as fatal as vermin. They must also be kept where they can be securely cooped at night. A little carelessness in this respect is almost certain to cause a loss, for rats and skunks are always ready to do their part toward making the chicken busi- ness a failure. I use a good tight coop with a loose bot- tom; this makes it easier to clean, for you can lift the coop off the bottom when you want to clean it. It should be cleaned every day. I use oilcloth on the bottom of 136 my brooders. This is a great thing, try it once. I can take the oilcloth out and clean it without any trouble and the bottom of the brooder never gets dirty. “The greatest pest the poultry raiser has to deal with is lice. They seem to be ever-present, no matter how thorough one is in fighting them. The best thing I ever used for lice killing is one of the small vapor gem spray- ers. I use kerosene, petroleum and any of the lice paints found upon the market. There is no crack so small that the little sprayer cannot fill it with lice death. If one uses incubators and brooders the chicks will be free from lice and this is one reason why I prefer to use the incubator and brooder. An incubator is more or less trouble, but I had rather care for two incubators than two setting hens, for I think of all foolish, unreasonable things a setting hen takes the blue ribbon. “T think the chicks hatched in a good machine are just as good as when hatched under hens, at least I could never see any difference. When the chicks are hatching 1 never disturb them, I let them’take care of themselves until they are two days old when I take them out of the nest or the incubator and give them something to eat and they are ready for it. I do not have to teach them to eat.” A writer in an exchange says: “There are no set rules for feeding chicks and if there were they would not be followed, for poultrymen are original people, always knowing more than anybody else and always hitting out for something new. “Above all things don’t forget the lard for head and wings to clear out the lice. The best system of feeding ever devised cannot make headway against lice in pro- ducing thrifty chicks.” - 137 NATURAL METHODS. The editor of this book, in Farm-Poultry, says: “As in artificial incubation much depends upon the merits of the incubator, so in natural methods the good and bad results lie with the sitting hen. For incubation, some breeds excel others, and individual members of those breeds are often ahead of their class. “But, taking all the varieties into consideration, the. American family will average better results than any other. We have had excellent results from Light Brah- mas and Buff Cochins, but their general clumsiness prac- tically puts them off the field for safe work. They are better as incubators, however, than they are as brooders. Asiatics, set in the early Spring, will, as a rule, bring out a good hatch; but later in the season, when lice or mites are apt to worry, they become restless and break a great many eggs in the nest. Asiatics, too, should have large nests, giving them ample room to turn about, and allow- ing a better chance to‘get off and on the nest without breaking eggs. “The American varieties—such as Plymouth Rocks and Wyandottes—are more careful both with the eggs in the nest and the young in their charge. “We have also had considerable success with Black Langshans and found them steady and careful sitters. “The Leghorn makes an excellent broody hen when it is right down to business, but generally they are risky. “The layers of white eggs are considered the non-sit- ting varieties, but every now and then the broody trait comes over individual hens in such flocks. We have had broody White and Brown Leghorns, Spanish and Minor- cas, but never had a broody Houdan, although we had several years’ experience with the breed. 138 “There are a number of theories connected with broodi- ness of the different varieties, but careful study and. ex- periment has failed to bear out any facts. ~- “One of these theories is that when broodiness shows itself in any of the so-called non-sitting varieties it is evidence that some foreign blood is in the veins of the fowl. In other words, that a straight bred or pure bred hen of the non-sitting variety does not become broody. This we believe is a mistake. For fully ten years we have experimented and made investigations on this score, but have failed to find any evidence that would prove the theory a reliable one. It is natural for birds of all varie- ties to raise families, and it was only through years of scientific breeding, selection, etc., we believe, that this characteristic has been eliminated from the Mediterra- nean class. Our. conclusion, therefore, is that as a rule, _and the exception need not be, necessarily, any other than of as pure blood as the rest of the family. “Another theory is that overfat causes broodiness. Of late, not so much is said on this score as was the case some years back. It was a theory advanced by a writer who claimed that he established it as a fact after a number of years of study and tests. During the past four years we took special note of the hens as they became broody, and each year left us as much at sea as before. Fully one-half of the broody hens would be comparatively light, just in proper breeding condition—that is, one to two pounds (and even more) less than the Standard calls for exhibition stock. The past year we have had a hen that became broody, although gradually ‘going light,’ an in- curable liver disease. She hatched the eggs we gave her, but died about a week after the young were out of the shells, “A third theory is that hens without the attention of 139 male birds would rarely, if ever, become broody, and if so it would be in exceptional casés later on in the sea- son. The idea was that being mated they would more quickly show family inclinations. Several experiments . very easily settled that matter. In one pen we put five Brahma pullets, and in another pen four Brahma hens mated to a cockerel. A pullet was the first to start the broody fever, and then came a hen. That was the first year’s test. The second year practically reversed the re- sult ; while the third year showed an equal number in both pens. But while conducting these experiments we did find— “First—That heavy Winter laying caused early Spring broodiness. “Second—That the best results came from one and two year old hens. “Third—That the hen that sticks too closely to the nest is more apt to have a poor hatch than the one that airs her eggs an hour or more each day. “Fourth—That large sized nests, gradually sloping to the center where the eggs are, are not only the most com- fortable for the hen, but are generally kept cleaner, and hardly ever have an egg broken. “Fifth—That the most successful way of setting the hen is to place her in a barrel or box, and have a small outside covered run so that the hen can get on and off at will. It is a mistake to pen the hen on the nest, or to remove her from the nest to eat, drink and exercise. If given a chance, the hen will get off and eat, drink and dust herself whenever she thinks it is most necessary, and she is undoubtedly the best judge. In fact, we find that the less one interferes with the sitting hen the better for the hatch. “Asiatic eggs often run from two to four times over- 140 time before they hatch, according to the condition of the weather. Either a cold Spring or a dry Summer is apt to prolong the hatch of Asiatic eggs, on account of thickness of the shell. The Mediterranean and Ameri- can eggs very seldom run over. twenty-one days, and if the season is favorable, and the eggs are fresh when given to the hen, hatches are very often completed two or four days before due. “Nests should be in a warm building during early Spring, and in a cool shady place as the weather be- comes warm. For the latter we have found nothing better than a barrel laid on its side, staked firmly so it will not roll, and covered with Neponset, rawhide, or some other good roofing paper. “For breeding stock we have found the best hatching months to be— “March for Asiatics. “April for Americans. “May for Mediterraneans. “June hatches bring the young out right in hot weather, and at a time when it is no easy matter to fight lice. “February hatches are not always desirable, as pullets hatched' too early are apt to moult in Fall with the old stock, and this deprives one of the Winter eggs. Es- pecially is this so with the American and Mediterranean classes.. In Asiatics it would be more safe. “For killing Chickens—Springer size—Fall hatched chicks can be made profitable, although on this score we have had very little experience. “Summer hatches are, as a rule, unsatisfactory, the chicks remaining puny, and the care of them is too great for profit.” 141 P. H. Jacobs, in Farm, Field and Fireside, says: “The coop with the hen and brood should be moved on. fresh ground every day or two, as the weather may be dry or sloppy. When the hen begins to lay, or it becomes time to wean the chicks, she may be removed and the chicks left for a short while longer, care being taken to close the front of the coop at night (if the weather is cold) witha piece of thin board inserted between the coop and the run. The object in keeping the hen in semi-confinement in this manner is to prevent the young birds from being trailed about and lost in long wet grass, as is often the case. Two or three broods may be placed together in one large nursery yard or pen for a few weeks until it appears time to sort them for different runs or let them have their liberty. They should never be allowed, however, to run or perch with old fowls, in which case the chances are that they will be injured or killed. When first removed to the poultry-house the floor should be covered with short straw or chaff, as many chicks prefer to sit in batches on the ground to going on the perches.” ‘People’s Literary Companion says: “Because a hen con- siders her chickens old enough to wean does not prove that they are old enough or able to take care of them- selves. Usually they can from this time on be given a free range, but if they are to make a vigorous thrifty growth they must be looked after carefully, and especially must be fed liberally. Much loss is occasioned by little chicks ten or twelve days old, being left to look out for them- selves, and it will pay to give them a little extra care at this time.” Poultry Monthly says: ‘Ordinarily, let the hen alone 142 while hatching! Don’t fuss with her! After all are out and well dried off, remove to a good coop with a tight roof and a board floor. Some claim to have bet- ter results by keeping young chicks on a _ board floor in a building, where they cannot reach the ground for the first two or three weeks (not longer). Don’t be in too big a hurry to feed them. Chicks don’t need food for the first twenty-four hours. Keep everything about the quarters dry, clean, free from lice, and not overfed. Coops should be so constructed that they may be closed at night, to keep out rats, minks ot other similar vermin. Great losses are often entailed in the vicinity of old buildings, from the depredations of rats. Some stray cats are also very fond of young chickens, as we have found to our sorrow.” Wallace's Farmer says: “Hatching chicks by means of hens is tedious business. We don’t know any one who really likes it. The hens are a constant worry and bother and are guilty of a hundred things which it might be supposed that they would know better than to do. Every one draws a sigh of relief when the hatching season is over. What is the use then of hatching a lot of chicks to be drowned in the storms or eaten up by skunks, weasels and minks? At least a third of the chicks hatched on the farms go that way. Substantial nursery coops would save all this waste.” Poultry Keeper says: ‘There was but little difference in the percentage of eggs hatched by hens or by the ma- chine. The latter gave a slightly higher percentage of chicks, When one wishes to raise over one hundred chickens the incubator will, in most instances, require 143 much less attention and will give better satisfaction than the number of hens required to cover an equal number of eggs, and there is no worry about vermin when the machine is used. Where brooders cannot be secured for rearing the chickens hatched by the machine, little difficulty will be found in getting broody hens to mother the chicks. Hens that have been broody for a few days will take the chickens readily if one or two eggs are re- moved from the machine just before hatching and placed under the broody hen. When the chicks are ready to be taken from the machine place them under the hen at night and in nearly all cases the hen will mother them well. Our experience is that it is seldom advisable to give a hen more than fifteen chickens. Where more are given, the weaker ones are usually killed by their more vigor- ous comrades. We use the above plan to advantage about the latter part of May, when all our brooders were filled with older chickens.” Geo. D. Holden, in Poultry Herald, says: ‘When chicks are hatched they should be left in the nest for from twenty-four to thirty-six hours,;-when they will be ready to be removed and placed in their first quarters. When taken from the nest they should have the head greased with lard or some suitable grease so as to kill any lice that may have fastened there. One cannot take any too great pains in trying to prevent lice in getting a chance at the young chickens, as they cause much of the trouble in chick life. The style of their quarters is immaterial so long as there is sufficient room and so arranged as to protect them from storms and the heat of the sun and to be suitably ventilated. These quarters must be kept reasonably clean and as free as possible from vermin, as the chicks will not thrive if lice or mites are allowed to infest their quarters and sap their vitality.” 144 MONEY IN The farmer who raises for market, the be- POULTRY. ginner just starting in the business, the Vil- lage Poultryman, the keeper of a “‘few hens” on a city lot, will find help in The Poultry Keeper. An Illustrated Monthly Poultry Magazine, devoted to all branches of the poultry business and profits therein. One of the oldest and best. Established in 1884. Will help you more than any other poultry paper published. ; Contains advice on: Mating, Feeding, Housing, Remedies for Poultry Ailments, Incubators and Brooders, Care of Young and Adult Stock, Special Articles by Experts, etc. Price, 50 Cents Per Year. ADDRESS, Ss le Free, Agente wantea POUltry Keeper Pub. Co., at liberal terms. Box 304, QUINCY, ILL. 145 B B B CONTAINS EVERY PART OF AN EGG. 8 5 a ALBUMEN, YOLK AND SHELL. GREATEST MEAT FOOD KNOWN for B B B Laying Hens and Growing Chicks, _ ww. U. Boiled Beef and Bone Differs from all other similar poultry food, in that itis made from ABSOLUTELY FRESH MATE. RIAL, never over six hours old. The Cattle and Sheep Heads, Lights, Livers, and Beef are from stock slaughtered on the premises, and are cooked, dried, crushed, ground, mixed, and bagged, all within six to ten hours from time of killing. Sam- ‘ples sent free. GUARANTEED cheaper than meat, better ‘than scraps. Safer than medicine; rich in albumen. ‘It prevents leg weakness, bowel complaint, feather eating, and assists in moulting. 50 Ibs., $1.25; 100 Ibs., $2.25. D. W. ROMAINE, Successor to SMITH & ROMAINE, Sole Manufacturer, 124 WARREN STREET, New York City. 146 Banner Eggo Food and Tonic is the greatest Egg Pro- ducer and Health Pre- server known. Itstarts the pullets laying early in the fall, and will keep them laying all winter through, when eggs are scarce and high in price. It is also an excellent stimulant for old hens while moulting, when the strain on their sys- - tem is enormous, on ac- count of having to provide themselves an entire new coat of feathers. The small extra cost of feeding Banner Egg Food and Tonic will amply re- pay you for your trouble, as the egg yield will be almost doubled, and the health of the whole flock will be excellent. A trial will convince anyone of its merits. PRICES:—1 Ib. Box, 25 cents; by mail, 40 cents. & Boxes, $1.00, on Board Express. A Few of Many Testimonials. Somers Point, N. J., Jan 10th, 1901. Gentlemen:—I take pleasure in certifying that BANNER EGG FOOD AND TONIC is all that is claimed. I was getting 2 eggs a day when I com- menced its use, three weeks ago, and am now getting 18 to 20 eggs per day. A.S. SCHOYLER. for Mrs. I. L. MILES. Moody, Ark., Dec. 25th, 1900, Dear Sirs:—Have been using your BANNER EGG FOOD AND TONIC about 3 weeks, and was getting no eggs when I began, but am now getting about 12 eggsa day. Am very weil pleased with it. . Yours truly, 8. J. WHITE. OUR LARGE POULTRY SUPPLY CATALOGUE FREE. Manuracror®? EXCELSIOR WIRE & POULTRY SUPPLY C0., 26 & 26 VESEY STREET, WM.V.Russ,Propr, NEW YORK. The Best Books. “Easy Poultry Keeping for Invalids.”” The Invalid’s Best Helper, 95 pages, 25 cents. ““Pocket-Money Poultry.” The Beginner’s Best Book, 175 pages, 50 cents, Buy of the author, Mrs. MYRA V. NORYS, Ridgewood, N. J. @=em : é L:ggs for Hafching. White Wryandottes. The best all-purpose breed. Single-Comb White Leghorns. High-press- ure egg machines. Rose-Comb Brown Leghorns. Birds with non-freezable combs, and always clean and handsome; tremendous layers too. Prize win- ners at Philadelphia, Washington, N. J., etc. Eggs, $2 per setting; 2 settings $3.50, Mrs. MYRA V. NORYS, Ridgewood, N. J. 148 ORE as The Jordan Milling Co., TORDAN, N. Y- -MANUFACTURERS OF CLOVER MEAL and CUT CLOVER HAY, expressly prepared for pouty Also, the celebrated “JORDAN” BROODER, which broods the chicks as good as the old Hen. Thousands used successfully all over the United States, and no complaints. Nothing cheap about this Brooder but the price, which is only $5.00. All orders filled promptly. ‘ JORDAN MILLING CO., JORDAN, N. Y. 149 be fe oad BANNER SCHICK SEND FOR YOUNG CHICKS. For many years past we have felt the need of asafe and nourishing food for’chicks just out of their shell, and one that could be depended upon to carry them right along until fully matured. We tried every known kind of food, and many of them very costly ones, with the poorest results. We then carefully experimented on a combination, in per- fectly balanced proportion, of the best varieties of nutritious grains, seeds, etc.; these, in the first place, having been especially selected for their fine quality, then carefully cleaned, screened and granulated, and all such portions eliminated that our long experience and intimate knowledge of the matter had shown us were hurtful to the delicate and tender organs of the young chicks. The proper way to feed it is to scatter it around in the runs, making them scratch for every grain of it, which pro- duces strong and healthy chicks. Banner Chick Food is put up in 10c. and 25ce. Packages, 25 Ths.» 81.253 50 Ibs. $2.00; 100 Ibs., $3.50. F. 0. B. New Yo. ue MANUFACTURED BY EXCELSIOR WIRE & POULTRY SUPPLY Co., 26 & 28 VESEY STREET, NEW YORK. Wo. V. Russ, Propr, $50.00 Prize Articles. Subscribe for and advertise in AMERICAN POULTRY JOURNAL. 64to 182 pages each month. It is the leader in age, prestige and all other desirable points. During the coming year its columns will be filled’ with articles which will embrace a fund of information such as has never before been given in as available a form to the readers of any publication devoted to poultry. In addition to the valuable matter furnished by our special corps of prominent and practical writers, we will present the communications re- ceived in our noted prize contest, in which has been enlisted absolutely the best talent the country affords. It will be impossible for any one who reads these articles to fail of success. The entire subject of ‘‘poultry for pleasure and profit” will be thoroughly covered in all its branches. The most pleasing, handsome and instructive illustrations which artists can pro- duce and money can buy will be placed before our readers. These will include ideal birds, houses and plants,and each number of AMERICAN PouULTRY JOURNAL will be worth many times the subscription price for a year, both to the ex- pert and the amateur. The subscription price is 50c. per year. We will send you a sample copy free, which will be worth more than that amount to you. Send us your address. AMERICAN POULTRY JOURNAL, 325 Dearborn Street, | Chicago, III. Stearns Bone Cutter. BALL BEARING AND BACK GEARED THREE 10 ONE, CHUNKS & HUNKS. Some bone cutters gouge bones into chunks, hard for fowls to swallow. Others crack bones into splinters and ... Slivers,fatal to fowls. The best bone cut- ter—that’s always the Liens, reduces the bone to a fine granular meal which fowls of all ages enjoy and thrive on. Our New MODEL No.7, with Ball-Bearings, Model No. 7%. is without question, the easiest running, most rapid cutting machine made. Don’t buyacutter until you have investigated this new model. Ball-bearings make it turn easily. Back-geared 3 to 1, makes it powerful and rapid. Automatic feed; entirely self- regulating. We make eight other models, for hand and power. PRICES. No. 4, With Balance Wheel.. $7.00 No.7. Back-geared and Ball- 5, With Crank..... ....... 5.00 pearings......... .. $20.00 ‘* 5. With Balance Wheel.... 8.00 SB. BOF POWEP...nee- + veree 30.00 “ 6. With Legs ......... .... 15 00 ‘“« 3. Geared tor Hand Use.. 35.00 ‘“* 6, For Use on Bench... .. 12.00 Grit Crusher..........cceeueeees 5.00 2, With Short Legs........ 12.00 Clover Cutter.......... ccc neces 8.00 E. C. STEARNS & CO., Syracuse, N. Y. 152 “Chicks not only like it but thrive wonderfully on it—M, K, BOYER, Editor of “A Few Hens.” EF. P. CG. Chiek Manna. 40 Days’ Food for Little Chicks when First Hatched. comssrie teers NIMAL +A D> ites 220s save 7 cor, vinnas toe le Lee = PRICE OF F, P, C. CHICK MANNA. Put upin packages. 11b.10c., 5 Ibs. 40c., 15 Ibs, $1.10, Bulk. 60 and 100 Ib. cases, 7c. per Ib. 1 lb. package by mail 25c., prepaid. Send for Free Sample, Circulars and Testimonials. 153 Pleasure and Prepared only by F. P. CASSEL, LANSDALE, PA. RESULTS:—Healthy, Vigorous and Strongly Developed Chicks. Profit to the Poultry Raiser. Manufacturer of the F. P. C. PREPARATIONS FOR POULTRY. American Poultry Advocate, SYRACUSH, IN. Y.- 24 to 48 pages. Practical and Up-to-date. CIRCULATION, a 25,000 COPIES PER MONTH. 25 Cents per year. Every yearly subscriber answering this adver- tisement will receive a 64-page practical poultry book called “Cream from a Poultry Scrap-Book,”’ if you mention this book. 4 months, on trial, 10 cts. Sample copy free. Established in 1892,—ten years old. CLARENCE C. DePUY, Publisher. ALSO PUBLISHER OF DePuy’s Popular Poultry and Pet Stock Books. No. 1. All about Broilers. By M. K. Boyer......... 25 cts. ‘« 2. Capons and Caponizing. By Geo. Q. Dow..25 “ ‘* 8, Moneyin Hens. By M. K. Boyer........... 25‘ ‘““ 4, The Rabbit. By W.N. Richardson......... 25“ ‘ 6. Poultry. By G. A. McFetridge............. 50 ‘* ‘« 6, Minorcas, All Varieties. By Geo. H. Northup, 25 ‘ “7, The Pigeon, By A. V. Meersch............. 25 « “8, Cream from a Poultry Scrap-Book. By W. Theo. Wittman sec cis itaos ese seed ate we tee ams 10 “ Dealer in Poultry Literature of every description. Catalogue Free. 154 PRATTS POULTRY FOOD Little Chicks. Young Chicks grow quickly, healthy and free from all diseases when Pratts Poultry Food is fed. It cures Chicken Cholera, Roup, Gapes, and all diseases of the flock. It pro- duces bone, muscle and feathers, and is a guaranteed egg producer. Trial Package, 10 cents. PRATTS FOOD CoO., Philadelphia, Pa. 155 IDELITY YOUNG og CHICKS. (Trade-Mark Copyrighted.) Used everywhere by prominent practical poul- trymen and specialist fanciers with universal success. Insures perfect health and promotes rapid growth. Diarrhoea and kindred maladies are un- known where FIDELITY is fed from the start. It is made from finest. grains and seeds, purest protein products, etc., and is a perfectly balanced ration. Introduced by us several years since (when dry feeding was unknown,) as the result of thirty years practical exper- ience in feeding all kinds of Gallinaceous birds and in the manufacture of their appropri- ate foods, FIDELITY has now = become the most famous food of ° fidelity Food they armly the day. Itsintroduction was no Andre asking for more, ike mere experiment, for our confi- dence in it was just as great the year we sold a few bags as now, when we ship many thousands, and all fanciers and poultrymen who use FIDELITY sound its praise with one voice. PRICES OF FIDELITY FOOD. FIDELITY FOOD FOR YOUNG CHICKS, used by leading fanciers and practical poultrymen. 25 Jbs., $1.25; 5U lbs., $2.00. In bulk, packed in bbls. (of about 250 Ibs.,) $3.50 per 100 lbs, FIDELITY FOOD FOR FOWLS, pronounced by those who know, to be THE FOOD for maximum cer produgan and maintaining birds in the highest condition. 25 lbs., $1.25; 50 Ibs., $2.00. In bulk, packed in bbls. (of about 250 lbs.,) $3.50 per 100 lbs. 1 FIDELITY FATTENING FOOD, for producing choicest table poultry, Sold in bbis. of 200 lbs., at $5.00 per barrel. The Famous y weniey. Foods are for sale by First-Class Poultry Supply Dealers throughout the World, and by the PINELAND I. & B. CO., Sole Mfrs., Jamesburg, N.J., U. 8. A. 156 MOST HELPFUL!! THAT IS WHAT WE CLAIM FOR Poultry Monthly. Fee. Its contributors are, every one, practical men and women, who write of their own personal expe- rience, therefore what they say is practical and helpful and can be relied on. It covers all the various fancies in the same careful and thoroughly reliable manner. If you subscribe for a poultry paper for the help you can get from it, the subscription price of Poul- try Monthly, only 50 Cents a Year, is an insignificant sum. Subscriptions can begin any time—Now is the best time. It is also one of the best advertising mediums; rate is $1.40 per inch, each insertion, less discounts for 3, 6, or 12 month’s order. Sample copy free. POULTRY MONTHLY, ALBANY, N. Y. 157 TO MAKE EGGS and lots of them, the hen must be supplied the proper materials properly combined. Just here RUST’S EGG PRODUCER comesin. It is the one perfect egg food on the mar- ket. It contains all the elements in just the right proportions. It imparts vitality so that the eggs surely hatch and produce strong, lively chicks. It makes 3 hen healthy and keeps her up to her work anditcosts only 20 cents a year to feed her with Rust’s Egg Producer. : Five sizes, 26c, b0c, etc., (if mailed, 44c and 94c). Rust’s other Poultry preparations are of equal merit. If your dealer does not have them send us his name and receive our booklet free, Wm. Ruet & Sons, Box 51,New Branswick.N.J. SAYE YOUR POULTRY. ‘Sick hens are unprofitable hens. Your hens will get healthy and stay healthy if fed RUST’S HAVENS CLIMAX POWDER. It gives new blood, new life and stamina. The eggs will hatch stronger and sure-to-live chicks. It prevents and cures Fowl-Cholera, Gapes and several other diseases of Poultry. It is not a food but a preventive and cure, and always gives satisfaction. Five sizes; 25c., 50c., etc., (if mailed 40c. and 85c.) No one should fail to read Rust’s useful booklet, mailed free. A ROVP PROOF FLOCK is clearly possible when Rust’s Havens’ Roup Pills are kept constantly on hand and fowlsare treated on slightest appearance of indisposition, Those already suffering from the mala y may be quick. ly cured and restored to health and profit by their use. They are equally effective for Oatarrh Distemper, ete, These pills utterly upset the old theory that the axis the only cure for roup. Used and en- dorsed by the leading breedersand poultrymen evarywhere, One small box will convince, Buy now and be ready forthe first indication of disease in your flock. 26c and 81.00 of deal- ersor mailed on receipt of Drees If your dealer does not have them, send us his name and receive our booklet free. William Rust & Sons, Box 5%, New Brunswick, WN. J. W. V. RUSS, 26 & 28 Vesey Street, New York, Sells.these Preparations at Manufacturer’s Prices. BANNER Lice and Vermin ...KILLER... A CHEAP AND EFFECTIVE DISINFECTANT AND REM- EDY FOR ALL KINDS OF POULTRY VERMIN, LICE ON HORSES, SWINE OR PLANTS, FLEAS ON DOGS, TICKS ON SHEEP, MOTHS, BED, WATER AND SQUASH BUGS, ROACHES, ETC. This Remedy is in Powder form, and can be applied or dusted upon the fowls or chicks, nests, runs or any place where vermin have collected in chicken houses. It is per- fectly harmless to young chicks or any animal life. It is very effective on sitting hens and will not injure the eggs in the nest at the time of sitting. If used liberally during the hatching season it will save the lives of many small chicks. If your fowls are dusted thoroughly with this material, they will lay more eggs and have greater vitality. Vermin will weaken the fowls and make them suscept- ible to all kinds of diseases. This Powder not only exter- -minates the lice and vermin, but disinfects the nests, runs and fowls, and wards off all contagious diseases. We have given this Powder a thorough test before put- ting it on the market, and can vouch for its good qualities. PRICES: 6 oz., 10 cents; by mail, 15 cents, 1 1b., 25 cents; by mail, 40 cents. 48 oz., 50 cents,—On board express in N. Y.—100 oz., $1.00. MANUFACTURED BY EXCELSIOR WIRE & POULTRY SUPPLY CO., Wo. V. Russ, Propr. 26 and 28 Vesey St., (Bet. Broadway & Church St.) New York. Large Poultry Supply Catalogue Free. Send for one, 159 Pe CuicKenS | Then keep them healthy and growing if you want the Pullets to lay when five months old. When hens lay | eges for hatching mix in their food every other day Sheridan’s Powder. It strengthens the hens; makes the rooster more vigor Ui ous; finally you get more fertile eggs and strong healthy chickens, Persons who succeed best in keeping Poultry, commence with little chicks; giving twice a week an . even teaspoonful of Sheridan’s Condition Powder mixed | with each quart of food, gradually increasing the dose. Sold by druggists, grocers, feed dealers or by mail. ingle pack 25 cts, Large can $1.20. Six cans, $5. Exp. paid in, Singl tt 18, JOHNSON & CO., 22 Custom House St., Bosto WE CLAIM ----. FOR THE H-O CO’S POULTRY FOOD That it is all grain. That it will furnish bone and promote growth in young fowl. That it will insure the highest results in the production of eggs. That it will shorten the moulting period. That it is entirely free from all medication and unnatural stimulants, and keeps the fowl in prime condition by thé natural means of a properly balanced food. | WE GUARANTE That a thorough trial of the H-O CoJ’s Poultry Food will substantiate the above claims, or we will cheerfully refund your money. ss DIRECTIONS FOR USING. The H-O Co.’s Poultry Food is used for the grain food in the regular morning mash, steamed or scalded the same as any other soft food. Where it is the custom to mix vegetables, animal meal, etc., in the morning mash, these can be used in conjunc- tion with the H-O Co.’s.Poultry Food as well. Ask your feed dealer for the H-O Co.’s Poultry Food. If he does not keep it we will supply you direct. THE H-O COMPANY, BUFFALO, N. Y. 161 Established 1818. Incorporated 1874. The Gilbert & Bennett Mfg. Co., MANUFACTURERS OF Poultry Netting, Farm Fencing and Staples. Wire Goods, Wire Work, Wire, OF EVERY DESCRIPTION. Foundry and Coal Yard Supplies, Stable Fixtures. - No. 44 CLIFF STREET, NEW YORK. EASTERN FACTORY, WESTERN FACTORY, Georgetown, Conn. Chicago, Ills. 162 MIGA GRYSTAL 60. MANUFACTURERS OF MICACRYSTAL, The Standard Poultry Grit of America. THE SUCCESS OF .. 9==SBASONS== 9... Put up in 100 Ib. Bags. Always Sharp and Clean. Never Wears Smooth. FOR SALE BY Excelsior Wire & Poultry Supply Co., New YorK CITY. Manufactured Only by THE MICA CRYSTAL CO., Concord, N. H. pelt. nad 163 BANNER ROUP ...CURE... is the only remedy that will positive- ly cure roupin all its forms. It is simply put in the drinking water and the chicken takes its own medi- cine. It prevents colds and is unequalled for Canker, especial- ly in pigeons. One 50c. package makes 25 gallons of med- icine ; $1.00 package makes 75 gallons of medicine, and it is the best and cheapest cure of its kind in the market. We guarantee each and every case where Banner Roup Cure is used; if it fails we refund the money. Directions in every package. Prices, 50c. and $1.00 per Box, Postpaid. MANUFACTURED BY EXCELSIOR WIRE & POULTRY SUPPLY CO,, 26 & 28 VESEY ST,, Wo. V. Russ, Propr, NEW YORK. A_TESTIMONIAL., EXCELSIOR WIRE & POULTRY SUPPLY CO., 26 and 28 Vesey Street, New York City. Gentlemen :—I take pleasure in informing you that I have given your Banner Roup Cure a thorough trial and find it does all you claim for it. Out of more than 150 fowls and chicks sick with roup, there have none died since using the Banner Roup Cure and now there are none even sneezing, nor dol find any trace of roup. Before using your cure I was losing 6 to 8a day and all efforts to check the disease was fruitless. Shall never be outof Banner Roup Cure as it isa SURE CURE in all stages of the disease. Yours truly, - GEORGE MOWRY, 110 N. Water St., Elmira, N. Y ep DJ-LAMBERT, Box 802 APPONAUG.RIL | 164 PRAIRIE STATE Incubators & Brooders, Rata No, 1 BABY “FULL HATCH.” These machines are the easiest regulated, no-moisture machines on the market. Thous- ands now in use all over the United States and Europe. Our large 1902 Catalogue, No. 10oc., free. It illustrates the largest farms. in the world, where only Prairie State Incubators are used exclusively. Address, PRAIRIE STATE INCUBATOR CO., Homer City, Pa., U.S. A. Excelsior Wire & Poultry Supply Co., 26 & 28 VESEY STREET, Wm. V. Russ, Propr. NEW YORK, Sole New York and Export Agent. 165 .. A Peerless Food for Chicks Sold only in Sealed and Branded Sacks. American Poultry Food is a food—not a con- dition powder. It is a scientifically prepared, ready-mixed, daily ration. Do You Want Eggs? Feed American Poultry Food. Do You Want Quick Growth? ? Feed American Poultry Food. Do You Want Show Birds? Feed American Poultry Food. If you are Raising Chicks for Market, there is no food that will force them so fast and produce such all-around Se eee and perfect quality ‘as ee ee ro 6 a 6 Ad er re ed . i ee a ee ae )} )) } a Y) at sy U) Pr a ae J ad Lael oar 5 a (eee Jk YY ot hy 66 66 6 rag ae we) ed ned ae ee ee ee ce Ta ® 66 66 Fe % (aces é i Ye ed ear “© @ 6- THE AMERICAN CEREAL CO., moet eKEO IE, 166 More Money From Your Hens. All the profits in poultry keeping come from a few extra eggs from each hen. Fresh cut green bone stimulates laying as does no other food. To get more profits, get a DANDY GREEN BONE CUTTER. After you try it you'll say to yourself, “It’s a dandy and no mistake!” and to all your friends, “Get a Dandy.” It’s the most substantially built cutter made. It turns easily, reduces either green or dry bone to better feed than any other cutter. It is very good for cutting vegetables. Perfect automatic feed and gives less trouble than any other machine. Get a Dandy and see! Prices, from $5.00 ap. Our new book, “More Money From Your Hens,” is sent free to all poultry keepers. It is handsome and full of common sense. STRATTON MFG. CO., ERIE, Pa. BANNER LEG WEAKNESS PILLS. Having experimented with these pills for over four years, we offer ¥ them to the public as the only safe © and reliable cure for Leg Weakness in either old or young fowls. This disease is especially prevalent in brooder chicks, caused by too high feeding, thus producing rapid growth. These Pills have never been known to fail to cure, and being quite small insize, are very easily administered. Price, 25 cts. per Box, postpaid. EXCELSIOR WIRE & POULTRY SUPPLY CO,, 26 & 28 Vesey Street, ‘Wo. V. Russ, Prop. NEW YORK. Banner Setting Nest, ALD) ‘ Made entirely of wire, strong Ly nough for the largest fowls. gj Easily put up, All that’s nec- VP essary is two large screw eyes screwed in the side or back of house, the projecting wires slipped in the eyes, and the nest is ready for use. Greatest and best setting nest ever made. Hangs perfectly when hen is in the nest. Price, 50 cts. each. Excelsior Wire & Poultry Supply Co,, *°* #8 Vesey StReEa ‘Wu. V. Russ, Propr. OF