St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1910-05-04

KANSAS EXPERIMENT STATION BRooDER.
chicks are not normal and hence not
as livable as hen Matched chicks.
This loss of wee chicks is the most
discouraging part of the poultry bust
ness. If this loss is much greater than
10 or 20 per cent there is something
radically wrong somewhere, and the
mistake must be found and rectified or
failure is inevitable.
Coops For Chicks.
The coops provided for hens With
chicks should be one of the most care
fully constructed features of the poul-
tryman's equipment. First of all. they
must be rat tight and rain proof. but
not air tight. They must also be easily
cleaned. These points are best OBJ
tanned by building a platform and set
ting upon it a foorless coop. The
shape of the coop is not important, but
it should have an open front protected
by projecting hood, so the rain can
not beat in, and covered with wire net
ting or in cool weather netting cloth.
The coop itself if built of cheap lum-
Der must be covered with roofing pa
per.
From twenty to forty chicks may be
placed with each hen, the number de
pending upon the severity of the
weather. The greatest source of the
loss of chicks with hens is from the
hungry hen leading the little ones
around in the wet grass after rain or
heavy dew. The best way to over
come this loss is to keep the hen shut
in, opening the coop sufficiently for the
chicks to come out and exercise. The
hen if provided with corn and water
within reach need not be given her lib
erty for several days after the chicks
are Matched and should be shut in for
several weeks when the grass is wet.
Breeders for chicks have until with
in the last few years been heated with
kerosene lamps. Lately great fad
has arisen in poultrydom for fireless
breeders. These fireless breeders are
simply boxes arranged for slow venti-
lation. The chicks are kept warm by
lowering under cloth arranged in
such a fashion as to represent the
feathered body of the mother hen.
Chicks can be raised in freless brood
ers, and in warm climates the method
is all right In the colder seasons and
climates, however, fireless breeders
have not been found practical by the
majority of poultrymen.
Lamp Breeders Best.
Lamp breeders holding from so to
100 chicks have been successfully used
for many years and are considered the
best means yet devised for handling
young chicks on large scale. Steam
or hot water heated brooder houses
have never proved very successful,
and as they are expensive. to start
with. 1 should advise the poultryman
to be very sure he knows what he is
doing before investing money in a
plant of this kind.
The brooder should be large. having
not less than nine square feet of floor
space. The greatest trouble with
brooders in operation is the uncertain
ty of the lamp. The brooder lamp
should have sufficient oil capacity and
q large wick Brooder lamps are often
exposed to the wind, and if cheaply
constructed or poorly inclosed the re-
suit will be a chilled brood of chicks
or perhaps a fire.
In a lamp heated brooder one must
see that the heat is provided in such
a way that the chicks in attempting to
get warm will not crowd in corners
and trample each other to death. The
best brooder heater or hover consists
of tin drum, inside of which eircu-
lates the hot fumes from the lamp.
Beneath this drum the chicks hover.
The best form for the heating drum is
disk with hole in the center. some