OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 109, 28 October 1911, Page 6

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS

(By " Cock-o'-the-Xorth "). To continue my remarks on the making of a brooder house:—-When the hover is complete, cut two pieces of wire (Xo. 0 or 7 galvanised fencing wire) each -22% in long and turn the ends down at right angles, taking care that each end is turned the same way, and that when turned the wires measure each 20% in in length over all. This last measurement must be exact. "When the wires are cut they should be passed one through each of the 2in seams which have 'been left in the hover with open ends. When this is done drive a medium sized fencing staple in each corner of ■the brooder box (inside) as close as possible to the corners and six inches from the brooder floor, and another two inches above that (in each corner). Put chaff (but on no account with oats in) over the bottom of the brooder, and for the first two or three days heap it up against the sides in a sloping position', so as to keep the little chicks in the centre, after which it may be level and one inch or so deep. Hook the wires into the lower staples in each corner, and the brooder is ready for the chickens.

One thing, however, must be remembered, viz., be sure the wires keep the top of the hover tightly stretched, and on no account allow it to hang loosely. Another very important point is to see that the- calico top of your hover is exactly 20i]i square after the 2in scams have been taken in. If made smaller it permits the chicks to get on top of the hover and foul it.

When the brooder is ready, the chicks may be taken straight from the incubator and put into the box, from which the hover has been temporarily removed and the netted door being closed, and when fifty have been counted into the brooder, the hover should be fixed in place, tine lid put on, and the brooder and chicks can be easily carried to the brooder house and put in its place.

When the chicks have been in the brooders two weeks the hovers should be raised by hooking the wires in the top staples. At the end of four weeks the feathers should all be removed out of the hover, and at the end of five weeks the hover itself removed, so that the chicks are ready for removal at the end of the sixth week. I have seen it advised that extraordinary care must be taken, with chicks when removing them from the brooder to the growing pen. This is only another of some of the teaching the unitiated are made the butt of. Even in heated brooders if the chicks have been properly and sensibly hardened off there is no need to use extra precautions when housing the chicks in their growing pen.

Again, it is advised that all corners should be rounded off with wire netting, and only a few chicks put in each pen, to prevent crowding. This, again, is only twaddle. I have at present two different lots of chicks, one eight weeks and the other nine weeks, running in two flocks of well over two hundred each, and the usual comers in the houses, and yet so far I have not lost one solitary bird. Tiie houses are simply bedded down eight inches deep in clean, dry straw; the chickens properly hardened off (which with fireless I brooders is simplicity itself), and there is no further trouble". It is advice such as the above which keeps so many from going in for poultry, because what with doing what one (reputed) expert saj-s and another expert says a person would need to be a Rothschild to start in keeping poultry for profit. Of course, now and again one hears of very heavy losses by crowding among chicks which have been removed from the brooder to the growing pen, but this is usually through carelessness on the part of the owner of the chicks, or through ignorance of how to proceed in the matter, in both of which cases the owner fullv deserves his loss. No comment is necessary as to carelessness, but in regard to ignorance this also is inexcusable, as any person with ordinary common sense would never embark in an industry which he was ignorant of without first taking steps to learn at least the first rudiments of the business he intended embarking in. If he has not the commonsense to do this then the poultry business is the very last he should start in, for in this business Above all I know common-sense is the most essential requirement.

Unfortunately many so-called experts advise the same, but at the same time give their readers to understand that common-sense consists of following their particular advice. Xow this is not at all my style. I have been a writer on utility poultry culture in this Dominion since 1903-4, and have told my readers fully why I advise anything. Also if there is a case against as well as for what I advise I have always given it, and only under those conditions do I presume to give advice to my readers, always advising them to demand gat>d reasons for any advice given. During the first four days after being put in the brooder my chicks are fed on bread baked hard in a slow oven and ground; then mixed verv dry with raw egg beaten up, and also coarse oatmeal, out of which all the fine meal has been sifted. After this they are put on dry mash, and at noon and evening receive finely borken grain, equal parts of oats, wheat, maize, and one-eighth part of peas or beans.