The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1885-02-13
ABOUT RRoopERs.
An Invention Which Every Poultry Breed
er Should Have.


A good brooder is certainly an in
ventlon which every poultry raiser
should have. Any one can make
brooder at trifing cost and with it
avoid much annoyance. If hen
matches the chicks, she can be given
another setting of eggs, if not too thin
in flesh, or she can be ''broken up and
allowed to lay again. The cost of
keeping a hen with chicks is much
greater than when she is setting OF lay
ing, as she eats more than her share OF
the delicaeies prepared for her children,
besides trampling over portion of the
remainder. With brooder the hen can
not step on any of the little fellows or
keep them poor by loading them with
lice. The chicks thrive amazingly and
if properly fed, watered and kept clean,
will nearly all live. Any kind of q
brooder will not do, but any Kind of a
person can build brooder that will do,
and we can give the needed instruction
in few lines If it be in warm weather
place it out of doors. Make a box two
feet square and eighteen inches high,
with or without bottom; cut few
holes near the top of one side for doors
or entrance places; put in adjustable
zinc or sheet-iron floor four inches from
the top (nail the zinc to little frame
that can be moved up and down to ac7
commodate the increasing size of
chicks; this floor should be nearly air
tight to prevent the fumes of the lamp
from rising; bore a few holes above and
below the floor to let in fresh air above
and let out gas below; sprinkle an inch
or less of dry sand, dirt or saw dust
upon the floor and it is ready for habi-
tation. Set the box in the ground up to
line with the floor, (this makes it easy
for the chicks to 60 in and out), leav-
ing place on one side to put in small
lamp and admit air enough to supply
the flame with oxygen. The brooder is
complete and it will require surpris-
ingly small amount of oil to make the
small blaze required to heat the floor
and keep the little things contented and
happy. Change the saw dust every few
days. If still more economy is desired
and little extra work is not disagree
able, the cost of oil can be saved by in.
closing tank of warm waterin pack
ing of sawdust on all sides except the
top which is the floor of the brooder;
arrange so as to draw out and put in
water to keep up a temperature of about
eighty degrees. A brooder two feet
square will accommodate fifty chicks
If it is in cold weather the brooder
must be in as warm place as you
would put hen with chicks. The
writer of this has a rather novel brood
er which is taking mothers care of
thirty-one chicks Matched 10 an incu-
bator on Christmas day. 1t consists of
simple box, five inches built around
stove-pipe in a chamber room where it
passes through the floor in o thimble; a
piece of building paper is perforated
and placed two inches from the pipe
and entirely around it, thus. preventing
too much heat. The ventilation was
splendid, the thimble constantly dis
charging warm air from the room be-
low. Plenty of clean sawdust is kept
upon the floor, and a run four feet
square provided for them. The top to
the mother is of zinc, while a com
mon piece of "a mosquito netting keeps
the wee orphans from jumping out. As
there is a fire constantly in the stove
below there is no extra expense in
warming the brooder These chicks
we expect to sell as '..broilers'' when
two months old for seyenty-fve cents
each, and if possible we will have three
or four hundred more that will COM
mand half a dollar at same age. There
are many good brooders upon the
market, and some very poor ones. The
top heaters are failures as the chicks
pile upon each other in their efforts to
touch something warm, and many are
thereby killed Chicago Cypress.