not only do the chicks live better in this new brooder but also, according to our experience, those which do live grow better and are thriftier than those raised in the other type of brooder. The second advantage lies in the great saving of labor which is effected by the use of the new brooder. The fact that the brooder never has to be taken away from the house where it is operate means a decided economy.

CONSTRUCTION OF BROODER.

In planning this brooder the primary point aimed at was to make it a "fresh air" and a "pure air" brooder. With this idea in mind it was thought advisable to make the wall of the brooder in some degree permeable to air. To meet this requirement the walls and cover of the brooder are made of cloth. Essentially the brooder is a cloth box containing a hover, of the type in which the lamp fumes are conducted outside of the building by an exhaust pipe.

These brooders are built as a constituent part of the houses which they occupy. Two brooders are placed in each colony

house, one in each of the back corners of the building. In this way one end wall and the back wall of the building form two of the sides of each brooder. The remaining side and cover are made of cloth tacked on light wooden frames as shown in the working drawings.

The floor of the brooder stands 10 inches above the floor of the house. From the front of the brooder a sloping walk extends down to the house floor, reaching in width clear across the whole front of the brooder. The cloth front and side of the brooder are not permanently fixed in position but are removable panels, which are held together and to the frame work by hooks and eyes (see fig 4). The cover is hinged in the middle in such a way that it can be either half opened or entirely opened and folded back out of the way. In consequence of this arrangement it is possible to regulate with great nicety the amount of air which shall be admitted to the brooder. Either the front or the side panel may be tilted out as much as desired at the base thus admitting air there. Furthermore by partly opening a panel and the cover it is possible to insure that there shall be a circulation of air through the brooder at all times.

The hover used in this brooder is the Universal Hover, made by the Prairie State Incubator Co., Homer City. Pa. It is, however, modified in certain particulars for present use. In the first place the arrangement is such that the lamp is inside the house underneath the brooder rather than in a box outside the house, as in the usual arrangement of this hover. The lamp in this brooder is in the house directly under the hover. The reason for this modification is that in this climate, where one is likely to have bad weather during the early part of the hatching and rearing season, with heavy winds. snow, and rain, it is much easier and more satisfactory to take care of the lamp inside the house than from a small box outside the house. Another modification is that in the hovers which are installed in these brooders an especially heavy insulation is put on top of the drum to reduce the loss of heat by radiation in extremely cold weather early in the spring.

One of the essential points about the brooder is its compactness in storage, and the fact that all the parts may be stored in the base of the brooder itself. In this way the labor expense.

of carrying back and forth parts from a storage house each year is avoided. To bring about this result the size of the base is so calculated that all the parts of the brooder may be. enclosed in it. The way in which this is done is apparent from an examination of fig. 2. It will be seen that the end of the brooder base, (marked 4.4 in the diagram) is removable, being held in place by buttons bb. When the end of the brooding season is reached and there is no further use for the brooder that year, the side and front end panel of the brooder are removed. the canvas cover folded back and tacked to the wall of the building and the hover dismantled. All of the parts are then shoved under the brooder floor and the panel 4.4 put back in place again. The floor of the brooder is removable so that it, and the floor underneath, may be cleaned and disinfected. By removing its legs the hover may be stored in the brooder base along with the other parts, or if one does not desire to do this the hover may be suspended close up to the roof of the building. In that position it will be impossible for the birds to roost on it. Of course, all movable parts should be taken from the hover before it is hung up in this way. These parts may be stored in the brooder base. After the chickens are out of the house in the fall the parts of the brooder are taken out, thoroughly cleaned and disinfected, and then the whole is reassembled and made ready for the hatching season of the next year.

Detailed working drawings of the brooder are given herewith. Fig. 2 shows the end elevation of the brooder; fig. 3 shows a section through the middle of the brooder; fig. 4 shows a floor plan; fig. 5 shows the brooder in operation; and fig. 6 shows its appearance when dismantled and with the parts stored in the base, while the large chickens are using the house. All dimensions are given on these drawings and from them it should be possible for anyone to construct the brooder for himself.

As material any sort of planed lumber may be used. Probably pine will be found satisfactory and economical in most cases. Spruce or hemlock may be used to build the base, if one desires. For the cover and removable sides almost any sort of cloth may be used. Here we have employed the lightest.

weight canvas (duck) that could be obtained locally. Burlap may be used, or even unbleached cotton cloth in localities where the outside temperature is not too low.

TREATMENT OF YOUNG CHICKS.

In the work of the Maine Station all of the bir's are hatched in incubators, and in pedigree wire baskets since all are pedigreed. They are not disturbed on the 21st day of incubation, but on the morning of the 22nd day the chicks are removed from the baskets and leg-banded. Each chick is then returned to the basket from which it came and put back in the incubator. There they are left until they are from 48 to 72 hours old. The reason for keeping the chicks isolated in this way for so long a time is to prevent their eating each others droppings. It has been shown by Rettger and Stoneburn that one of the most important chick scourges, bacillary white diarrhea, is (a) transmitted through the egg, and (b) can only infect non-infected birds during the first 48 hours of their life.

After this time the chicks are carried in warm covered baskets to the brooders, and 50 or 60 are put under each hover, where the temperature is between 95° and 100° F. The temperature is not allowed to fall below 95° F. during the first week, or 90° F. during the second week; then it is gradually reduced according to the temperature outside, care being taken not to drive the chicks out by too much heat, or cause them to crowd together under the hover because they are cold. They should flatten out seperately when young, an! a little later lie with their hea's just at the e'ge of the fringe of the hover. They should never be allowed to huldle outside of the brooler. They huddle because they are cold, and they should be put under the hover to get warm, until they learn to go there of their own accord. Neither should they be allowed to stay un ler the hover too much, but in the daytime should be forced out into the cooler air where they gain strength. They ought not to be allowed to get more than a foot from the hover during the first two days; then a little farther away each day, and down on the house floor about the fourth or fifth day, if the

*See Bulletin 159. Maine Agricultural Experiment Station.

+ Storrs Agr. Expt. Stat. Bulletin 60.

weather is not too cold. They must not get cold enough to huddle or cry, but must come out from under the hover frequently.

The floor of the brooder is cleaned every day and kept well sprinkled with alfalfa meal. So far as we are aware sand may be used for this purpose, but it has never been tried at this Station. The floor of the house is covered with clover leaves or with hay chaff from the feeding floor in the cattle barns.

FEEDS AND FEEDING.

FEEDING YOUNG CHICKENS.

The best method of feeding young chicks is at present a matter of some uncertainty, and it is doubtful if there ever will be general agreement as to the one best method. One condition. however, appears to be imperative, and that is that the young things be not allowed to overeat. A number of different methods of feeding young chickens have been used at the Station in the past. The most useful of these methods follow.

Method 1-Infertile eggs are boiled for half an hour and then ground in an ordinary meat chopper, shells included, and mixed with about six times their bulk of rolled oats, by rubbing both together. This mixture is the feed for two or three days, until the chicks have learned how to eat. It is fed with chick grit, on the brooder floor, on the short cut clover or chaff.

About the third day the chicks are fed a mixture of hard. fine-broken grains, as soon as they can see to eat in the morning. The mixture now used has the following composition: Parts by weight.

It is fed on the litter, care being taken to limit the quantity,

so they shall be hungry at 9 o'clock a. m.