TROUBLE WITH INCUBATOR CHICKS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6622, 11 September 1908, Page 3

TROUBLE WITH INCUBATOR CHICKS.

PROBABLE CAUSES. An inquirer is losing his incubator chicks at a fast rate from cramp. This is due. in Lewis Wright’s opinion, principally to over-feeding and meat feeding aided probably by a little too much heat; also in many cases to a hard floor. Tho hard floor causes a sort of true cramp, and the over-feeding accumulates poison in the tissues,* and there is no exercise to work it off. They are more like cases of gout than anything else. Gout and rheumatism, as all doctors know, are close xallies. The only real remedy, and the sure preventive, is plenty of running about; and the food must be scanty enough to make them run and come out to search for it. Cramp U gout from over-feeding and laziness. Very young chickens, up to five weeks old, should have the best of feed and be sedulously attended to, but always kept hungrily active. A Wellington, breeder, who is very successful with incubator chicks, feeds crushed maize in this way. He passes it through a seive. The fine stuff is 'placed in tho hopper, and the coarser portion scattered among chaff on the earthen floor. The chicks scratch about for tlie pieces of maize, and though they don’t eat the larger pieces, the work keeps them in a healthy condition.