Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-04-29
CONSTANT ATTENTION
REQUIRED BY CHICKS
Care Is Necessary From Matching
Time Until Broiler Age
Is Attained.
Some of the Things That Will Stunt
Development or Destroy
the Flock.

Eternal vigilance is the price of
safety Us an adage that applies with
peculiar force to the raising of poul-
try. The novice who starts in to raise
few fowls for the use and benefit of
the family. or the more ambitious indi-
diyual who begins poultry raising on a
larger scale might as well make up his
l-or her-mind to the fact that the
poultry must be watched and cared for
from the time the eggs hatch until the
youngsters have reached the broiler or
the frying chicken age.
Indeed. the unceasing care maG well
begin even before the egg is laid from
which the chick is to be Matched. If the
parent stock is weak, if hens or male
birds have suffered from roup or any
of the other poultry ailments-even
though apparently cured-the chicks
will without fail be weak, subject to
all sorts of disease, susceptible to
colds that speedily develop into roup
or chronic infectious colds, or SO def
cient in NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. as it
were-that they will not be worth
| raising. Vice versa, if the parent stock
| is strong on both sides. never has been
| troubled with any kind of disease, and
| is of a sturdy, quick developing, heavy
laying strain the chicks will almost
certainly inherit these parental traits
SO 1t is not too much to SAP that the
care of the chicks may well begin a
generation or SO before the Matching
eggs are laid.
Have Little Sense.
1t is as well to say right at the start
that chicks, or grown fowls for that
matter. have little or no sense. Fur
| no
ed by wild fowls have been so bred
out of domesticated poultry by hun
dreds of years of human care and
| handling. and dmaking, that the
| poultry of today us about the dumbest
of all live stock.
| mother hen will start out with a
newly Matched brood, trail the chicks
| through rain-soaked grass and pud-
dies, clucking to them in what seems
to be motherly fashion, until the poor
little fellows, soaked and chilled
through, simply drop and die from
| cold and exhaustion. Even a hen tur-
key will do this. Notwithstanding the
| fact that turkeys retain more of the
| wild instincts than any other domesti-
Gated fowl except the guinea. This is
| one of the prime causes of heavy
losses of chicks and poults on the
| farm.
Poultry, from chicks to grown fowls
have practically no sense in regard tt
| things that are good to eat and thing.
that are not. For example, poultry
raiser reported that her growing chick,
and poults began dying off in alarming
numbers, of an ailment resembling linn
berneck. The feed given them was ex
amined and found sound and good, anc
| for awhile the numerous deaths re
manned mystery. At last it was fount
that farm animal that had died hat
been buried several hundred yards from
the barn and poultry houses. the hiret
man digging only a shallow hole TO
the grave. Stray dogs had uncovered
part of the carcass. The fowls, finding
this, had devoured hundreds of blacl
beetles that had Matched in the carton
and the poison infected insects hat
| their revenge even in death by slayins
half-grown chicks, adult hens ant
poults alike. With the proper dispose
of the carcass the deaths among tn
fowls ceased almost at once.