The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-01-30
POULTRY NOTES.
Care OF the Young Chickens.


Whenever practicable a separate inclos-
ure should be provided for the young brood
in which is placed the necessary number of
small coops for each separate brood. This
Enclosure should embrace an area any where
from 800 to 400 square feet up to O quarter
or half an acre according to the number of
broods it ia desired to accommodate during
the season. For the sake OF cleanliness
which must always be an item of the first
consideration. it should be as large as pos
sible 80 as to allow OF a change in position of
the ooops every few days aud the
location should be as dry and as we'll
drained as possible; place where r o water
will collect, even after the hardest rains.
A Bermuda sward affords a satisfactory
condition Of such an Enclosure. II the place
is bare Of vegetation, the surface, after be-
ing thoroughly cleaned, is sprinkled with
lime and a thin layer Of pine straw sprinkled
over the yard, which keeps down the dust
AMI invites, to some extent that class of
insects that will supply food to the young
chicks and incite them to activity.
The ooops are made of pine laths three
feet long, and are go light as to be easily
lifted and moved by a little child. One
man can make several dozen OF these coops
in one rainy day, if he Is an active man and
knows how to handlea saw and hammer
deity. These coops should be moved every
few days to fresh place, and the spots
scraped clean aud sprinkled with lime,
barrel of which should be handy aud kept
in dry place. The laths at the base of the
coop should be nailed close enough together
to prevent the young chicks from getting
out Of the coop, and at the same time prove
a bar to rats or weasels getting in.
As soon as the process of Matching has
been completed the mother hen and her
brood should be placed in coop. Supply
food and water to the hen, but make no at
tempt to feed the chicks until the second
day. They need no food for forty-eight
hours after being taken from the nest and
it Is really better for them not to eat any
thing until the close OF the second day.
There is hardly any subject on which
more arraut nonsense has been written than
on the one of feeding young chickens. All
sorts of formulas aud mixtures have been
devised and recommended by first one and
another until it may be made TO appear to
the novice that feeding young chicks has all
art almost beyond his ken and mprehen-
sion,l when in fact ait is nothing
OF the kind. A simple observance
of the law of nature here is
all that is necessary. Give the young
chicks pure water in an iron vessel and
supply them with just asufficiency of whole
grain, such as German millet seeds
or African wheat or the grain
of the Dourha corn, known also as
Egyptian corn. A part of this food may,
with advantage to the fowls, be roasted,
but this is not essential, unless much damp,
rainy weather indicates the probability OF
an epidemic OF cholera Remember to let
we'll enough alone, and do not stimulate
fowls when they are apparently well. If
cholera is epidemic roast a part of the small
grain food until it is almost charred, and
mix part of the latter. II bad weather
should contine and the young chicks look
droopy mix a tablespoonful OF ground
black pepper, with a pint ofclrn meal, and
feed to the chicks for several MORNINGS.
After the young chicks have developed
strength turn them out on the range dur
ing the warm parts of the day, returning
them to the yards before the cool of the
evening. Clearly surroundings, which in
cludes dryness. pure water in iron vessels
and whole-grain food, as described is the
true secret Of successful poultry raising, it
matters not what the variety Is. The hen
should be fed a ration Of wheat and corn,
half and half, and she will be ready for lay
ing In eight weeks after the Matching of her
brood. She should be provided with dust
bath. in which little sulphur mixed,
and this will be complete protection from
mitAs