. Principles and practice of poultry culture . Poultry. GROWING POULTRY 277 constantly decreasing, when measured in numbers of birds con- tained. The capacity of a brooder is often given (correctly for a time) at the number of newly hatched birds that may be kept in it; but the need of reduction of numbers as the birds grow is not always sufficiently emphasized. This form of misrepresentation is sometimes excused on the ground that at the average rate of loss the losses of chicks or ducklings will offset the increase in size of those which remain, but there can be no valid excuse for instructi
. Principles and practice of poultry culture . Poultry. GROWING POULTRY 277 constantly decreasing, when measured in numbers of birds con- tained. The capacity of a brooder is often given (correctly for a time) at the number of newly hatched birds that may be kept in it; but the need of reduction of numbers as the birds grow is not always sufficiently emphasized. This form of misrepresentation is sometimes excused on the ground that at the average rate of loss the losses of chicks or ducklings will offset the increase in size of those which remain, but there can be no valid excuse for instructions that are most misleading when the birds are doing best. Experienced growers generally put into individual (heated) brooders rated as having a capac- ity of from seventy-five to one hundred only about half those numbers, and into the compart- ments of brooder houses they put the young birds in lots of about one hundred, though for some time each compartment might safely carry two hundred or more. As has been said, under natural con- ditions all young birds are pro- duced and reared in small groups. Massing them in large numbers creates conditions both unfavor- able and dangerous to them. In exceptional cases a large group may thrive, but as a rule the birds do best when kept in lots not many times larger than the natural groups. In general practice, brooders and brooder houses are adapted to this principle. Methods of artificial brooding. There are three general meth- ods of providing heat without natural mothers : (i) by fireless, or "cold," brooders; (2) by individual brooders, each heated by a lamp or a stove; (3) by a hot-water system arranged to make one heater and system of pipes furnish heat to a series of brooding compartments. Cold brooders are small boxes, usually with a capacity of from twenty-five to fifty young chickens, in which the birds keep warm through contact and the conservation of the heat from their Fig. 313. Fireless, or "cold,&
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Keywords: ., bookauthorrobinson, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1912
