The Newtown bee., 1894-05-25
FEEDING YOUNG CHICKS

My heart is moved in pity for the millions of unhatched chicks which will all suffer more or less from the advice given by some of your correspondents as to their care and nurture after they shall be matched. All sorts of prepared food are suggested, from boiled eggs to bread cooked in milk, etc, most of the writers winding up in recommending some kind of unguent, drug or dose or cayenne pepper, to help kill those that do not die from the effect of the various messes proposed.
 | Of course, the old hen that has. sur reptitiously matched her entire brood in the brush, and brings them home as lively as crickets, cannot read these directions of your learned correspond ents. Nature has supplied her with no cayenne, or sweet oil to rub their heads, boiled eggs or bread crumos softened in milk. She has been obliged to rear her brood so far on dry seeds, insects and grass. Her success, without recourse to the bakery or drug store, may amaze | your cores espUndents, but would you run any risk betting that the old hen does not understand her job better than your correspondents do theirs?
 | 1 have reared hundreds of fine chick ems the past five years by feeding the young birds nothing but wheat and cold water. For the first few days after the hen leaves the nest with them, crack the wheat coarsely in coffee mill. It should be given them at least six times day the first month, and if you can have it where they can fill their tiny crops the last thing at night and the first thing in the morning, you will mature those chicks several weeks or months earlier than otherwise.
 Another essential with chicks (besides perfect freedom if possible) is plenty o1 fresh water in shallow dishes not over an inch deep. Like children without feathers, they love to eat and drink often, and if their food and water is at g certain place, they will soon learn to re turn to that spot at stated intervals when hungry, and woe to old mother hen if she refuses to follow her brooc when they begin calling for their lunch Another word about the rights of chick ems: Young or old, they love the free dom of the early morning hours. They should not be deprived of this and forced to sit on their roosts or walk about il their droppings for several hours, unti their proprietor sees fit to allow them tt start out of their days task. To say nothing about their health, the propri etor might have more finely-developet chickens, and certainly more rapidly growing young poultry, if they were allowed to leave their roosts as they would in state of nature. Certainly chickens ought not to lose all theil rights under civilization.
 A word about feeding and 1 close. Nc one regulates the quantity of grain wilc or tame fowl running in the wheat fields shall eat. The pheasant, grouse CT prair ie chicken, and in Oregon that beautiful bird, the Mongolian pheasant, keep II perfect health without the protection o1 drugs, and eat what and when they I please. My fowls have grain before then all the time, and do not eat nearly as much as when 1 only throw it to then twice day, as many do. I am assuming that fowls have some privileges of range I do not prescribe for keeping animals under confinement. But the idea thai fowls will overfeed, or will not lay, ol any of those assumptions of theorists who imagine they can improve on nature should be received rather slowly at first Il for they will not be received at all after trial of natures way. In all our opera tions on the farm, or in town. with child ren as with chickens, we are inclined tG follow theory and artifice rather than ma ture and facts. 1 will only say iii con clusion that for four years 1 have not failed to raise all my young chickens, ,an6 have not lost one through disease of any kind, and have used no medicine, drugs remedies, not even lime or bone dust, oI fresh meat or gravel. This may seen like discarding all the nostrums at once but adherence to nature and sense vii discard the nostrums tin other lines o1 business, and why not in the case o1 chickens? have raised from 50 to 100 z year, and sold my thoroughbreds in tho neighbothood for from $2 to $3 apiece Lsold sixty at auction in GOODS of three and they averaged little over S2 ne each, after paying for coops, adver- tising and auctioneer's fees.-[ Country Gentleman.