Proper Care And Management Of Chicks
Did you ever think that it takes good chicks to make good laying hens, or good well grown
chicks to make exhibition specimens? Good blood, feed and management tell the whole story
at the close of the season. Too many lose sight of the fact that chicks should be
recognized long before they are incubated. The veteran breeders frequently get the idea
that every one can and does understand how to care for and feed chicks for best possible
results. However, this idea is wide of the real facts. There is a large number of
poultrymen that are regarded as experts in poultry culture that are really on the surface
on many points in chick management. Now don't get the idea that I am placing myself up as
a know-all and you as an ignoramous. Not at all. for I am just finding out that what I
don't know about poultry culture would make many volumes of good reading matter. However,
it is true, many so called experts are in reality amateurs. When I visit a poultry plant
representing several thousand dollars and see chicks starving to death, as result of too
heavy feeding, as well as sick and diseased from overcrowding, I am then forced to
conclude that some of the "experts" are no wiser than myself. Such was the conditions on
some large plants I visited last winter. The large plants hatch chicks all winter and
have all the necessary equipments for winter brooding, but as a result of bad management
they are stunted and starved with plenty of food at their command. It is an evident fact
that more chicks are poorly managed on some of these larger plants than one would
naturally suppose.
Mismanagement reaches out farther than the large plant; it prevails largely with farmers
and market poultrymen as well as with some local fancy growers. It is not uncommon to
find a breeder breeding one hundred chicks where but twenty-five should grow. Not only
that, but feeding day after day over stale food that has been left over from each
feeding. Such practices mean certain death to chicks. Chicks must be fed with
intelligence, and only just what they will clean up. They must be kept clean, warm, and
dry. No chick should be removed from the nest or incubator before it is thoroughly dry.
Chicks are very often removed to the brooding quarters too early, and they become
chilled, and die for the want of sufficient strength to enable them to get into
comfortable quarters. A chick once chilled is almost as good as dead. After a chick once
gets chilled or wet it is very easy to contract any disease that may come along. It is
best to keep the chicks comfortable, clean and free from diseases. It can't be done
unless you give them special attention. Disinfect the coops, runs, and all drinking
fountains, which will be a step towards staving off many diseases. I have long since
learned that disinfectants are cheaper than diseases, and I administer them frequently.
The use of lime freely over the feeding grounds and roosting rooms will cause a great
saving in the rate of mortality. Filth anywhere about the poultry quarters means failure.
Dark and damp quarters are other great death traps. Chicks must have sunshine, fresh air,
and clean quarters, or failure is certain. Not long ago in passing through the country, I
noticed dead fowls had been thrown in a running stream of water nearby. This should be a
heavy fine and I think is in the State of Indiana. Every fowl that dies from any cause at
"Golden Plume" is burned. To bury is regarded by us as dangerous, as they are scratched up
and eaten by the live fowls only to spread death and disease all over the land. Keep the
chicks free from lice, and disinfect the quarters, and with careful feeding you should
raise almost every fowl to mature age. A very successful, and at the same time
well-balanced whole grain ration for egg production, is composed of equal parts, by
measurement, of Indian corn, wheat, and oats, well mixed.
TEACHING INCUBATOR CHICKS TO DRINK TREATMENT FOR LICE Chicks given the range of
an orchard, garden, etc., will grow faster, keep healthier, and their feathers will show
more life than those kept confined and given the best of care and a well balanced ration.
If you have, during the spring, purchased one or more settings of Brown Leghorn eggs, and
the little chicks, after getting a good start, show white in wings, don't condemn the
chicks nor the seller. This is one of the characteristics of this breed, if not handled
just right. Don't discard all of them, even if they do look the picture of despair,. Many
of them will, after shedding their chick feathers, replace them with feathers entirely to
your liking. If your incubator chicks are slow in learning to drink water, put several
bits of grain into it, they will try to pick up the grain and by so doing get taste of
water. Don't crowd your incubator with chicks. If on opening the door or raising the lid
you detect a sour odor, you either have too many chicks in it or else it needs cleaning
out and fresh litter replaced. In feeding chicks, try to place in their reach such foods
as they take to the best. You will come nearer raising them on corn meal properly mixed
and baked — being sure that it is thoroughly dried out — than on almost any other one
diet. Two parts corn meal, one part wheat bran, one part wheat middlings, salt, pepper,
and about three eggs, is my method of fixing this food.
If you have any doubt about your chicks eating it or as to the result from its use, just
try it and you will forever after make it your pet chick diet. Don't feed it wet. It is a
good plan to make an occasional trip to the brooder room to see if all is well. Many times
chicks will (even if. taught differently) stand around in groups and almost chill
themselves rather than go to the warmth. Keep grit where the chicks can get it. Place
drinking water before them four times a day. Don't allow it to remain where they can get
it at all times or they will get it dirty, get themselves damp and lastly, drink more
than is good for them. I believe that bowel trouble is partly started by too frequent
drinking of cold water by incubator chicks. Don't forget that an ooze made from the inner
bark of the red oak tree is one of the best preventives as well as one of the best cures
for bowel trouble in chicks, and cholera in old fowls, and it is so cheap, too. Put the
bark in a pail and pour boiling water over it, allow to stand for an hour and dilute with
fresh water until the drinking water is the color of weak coffee. It is a good plan to
look over every fowl for body lice. After carefully searching, even if no lice are found,
give them a thorough dusting with a good lice powder. To one quart of finely sifted ashes,
a dimes worth of carbolic acid is added, this is put in the oven and dried thoroughly,
after which a dime box of a strong grade of snuff is added and the whole thoroughly
mixed. Put the powder into a box and perforate the top.
The fluff, back and body feathers are the main habitations of the body lice. In feeding
green stuff to both young and old fowls, be sure that it is fresh, tender, and of the
right length and size. Summer weather is here and the water supply, which is of much
importance in winter, is more so now. Don't suppose that because the vessels are full the
fowls are sufficiently supplied. Ever go to the water bucket and find it full, then go to
the well and get a cool fresh drink? The poor chickens can't do this unless you are very
kind and considerate of their wants. This is one of our "pet" chores around the poultry
yard; but my!, how fresh, cool water does repay in the end. Shade will be very needful
from now on. Ever stand where the sun could get a show at you, then step off into the
shade and note the difference? It seems that that would be sufficient proof to "all of
us" that our poultry should have an abundance of shade.
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