Of course, the real starting-point should be a good flock of healthy hens, all of one breed, preferably Wyandottes or Rocks, for really the hen who lays the egg has as much to do with the success in broiler-making as the care one may bestow on the business.
Next in importance is a well-constructed new incubator. Don’t be tempted to buy a second-hand machine, which has usually been allowed to stand in a damp cellar or in some outside shed while not in use, for it will in all probability warp or go to pieces when put in commission again.
Brooders come third on the list, but are quite as important as the two foregoing, for there is no use hatching a chick unless it can be reared, and the heat 40 and ventilation of the artificial mother is more than half the battle.
The up-to-date broiler plant consists of an incubator-cellar, a nursery, or brooder-house, as it is usually called, and a broiler-house. Both the latter are divided into small pens, about two feet wide and five feet long. In the nursery-house, the top ends of the pens are inclosed like boxes to the depth of about a foot and a half, and have hot-water pipes running through them to furnish heat for the chicks to brood under. A flannel curtain cut into strips falls from the top of the inclosed part to divide it from the rest of the pen, which runs down to the outer wall of the house, where a large window lets in light and sun. The pens should have board floors slightly elevated above the main floor, to avoid dampness, and the divisions are made with a foot board about nine inches high, and one inch netting two feet high above that. The brooder-house is divided in the same way, but the hot-water pipes only run around the walls of the house, as the birds don’t need the immediate heat to brood under, after they leave the nursery, when they are five or six weeks old.
But, until you can afford the proper equipment, one or two incubators can be run in the cellar of the house or an unused room where there is no other heat. Individual brooders can be used in place of the nursery and brooder-house, if you have any light outbuilding to stand them in. In fact, I like the individual 41 brooders better for the nursery period than the pipe-house system, because it is only necessary to heat as many as are needed, and with the pipe system the entire house has to be heated, even if you are only going to use one section.
Most of the different makes of brooders on the market are made with two compartments: A chamber with a round hover, which is heated with a lamp, and an outer compartment for exercise and feeding. The average price is nine dollars, and the machines are supposed to hold one hundred chickens, but seventy-five are quite enough; and even that number should be decreased to fifty the second week, and twenty-five the fourth week—that is, if the chicks are to be confined entirely to the brooder. But if it stands in a warm room, where a small outer inclosure can be made on the floor of the house for a playroom, fifty chicks can be carried through to the squab-broiler age in one brooder.
Chicks hatched specially for the broiler trade have to be steadily pushed along; plump, juicy meat being the main object. The first requisite is warmth. Have the compartment in which the hover is situated heated up to ninety-eight degrees before the chicks are put in and keep it so for the first three days and nights. Keep the door in the outer compartment shut for the same length of time. On the fourth day it can be opened and the chicks allowed to run into it, but the room in which the brooder stands should be 42 warm, and the little ones should be watched toward bedtime, for they are apt to remain in the outer compartment and become chilled.
Being chilled even for a short time is fatal to young chicks, for if it does not kill outright, it causes bowel trouble and gives them a bad setback which will surely delay the day of marketing, if nothing worse. After they are three weeks old, the door in the outer compartment can be opened, so that they can run out on to the floor of the room. Let them have plenty of scratching material. If the weather is fine and mild, it will do them good to let them have an outside run for an hour or two in the middle of the day, but don’t be in a hurry to harden them before they are five weeks old, for it is a risky experiment.
Wyandotte chickens when hatched will weigh two ounces. If all goes well they should gain two ounces during the first ten days; four ounces for the third week; another two ounces in the fourth week, and at the end of the eighth week they should weigh two pounds.
The entire life of a chicken intended for a broiler is so artificial that few if any of the rules for raising ordinary chicks can be applied to them. The great aim is to develop them as quickly as possible, for, to get the best price, a broiler must grow quickly and be plump.
Like all newly-hatched birds, they must have nothing to eat for the first thirty-six hours. After that commercial chick-feed (which is a mixture of all sorts 43 of small seeds and cracked grains) should be their sole diet for ten days.
When there are only small quantities of chicks to feed, and cash is of more value than time, it will be cheaper to mix the feed at home. Take one quart each of finely-cracked corn, bran and hulled oats; mix with the same quantity of golden millet, rape, Kafir-corn and very sharp, fine gravel, crushed charcoal and finely-chopped clover-hay. Mix thoroughly, then pass through a fine sieve, to insure there being no large pieces of the corn or oats for the babies to choke themselves with. For the three days they are confined to the hover department, put a small pan filled with the mixture in each corner and, instead of water, fill a small drinking-fountain with milk which has been scalded and allowed to cool. Leave it with them for ten or fifteen minutes, at morning, noon and again at about 3:00 P. M. It must not be allowed to remain all the time, because the heat from the hover will turn it sour.
After they are allowed access to the outer compartment, mixed grain should be scattered on the cut hay (or whatever is used to cover the floor) so that the chicks will have to scratch which compels them to take enough exercise for healthy growth. The plan is to feed little and often. The milk can be allowed to stand in the outer compartment, but the fountain must be thoroughly cleansed and scalded every day.
After the tenth day, the door of the outer compartment can be opened and the chicks given further liberty, 44 if there is a stove in the building to warm the atmosphere; but if there is not, don’t let them out of the brooder until they are four weeks old. In either case their diet must be slightly changed after the tenth day. Steam some of the chopped clover-hay—about a quart—and add one pint of coarse corn-meal, one pint of ground oats and half a small cupful of chopped liver which has been boiled for five minutes (raw liver is too strong for such young birds, but it should not be boiled more than the five minutes). Feed once a day at noon. Put the mash into two or three dishes, so they can all get a chance to eat at once. Remove any that is left at the end of ten minutes. If it is not possible to get fresh liver, use one teaspoonful of beef-meal or any of the commercial meat preparations which are ground fine. Continue to scatter the dry grains three times a day.
When they are four weeks old, give mash twice a day about 9:00 A. M. and 2:00 P. M., increasing the allowance of meat slightly; and if you have plenty of skim-milk, make cottage cheese and give it to them as an extra once or twice a week. From the fourth week keep a pan containing grit and charcoal always before them. After they are six weeks old increase the quantity of corn-meal in the mash, and correspondingly decrease the ground oats, until all corn-meal and no oats are being used. Also, stop steaming the clover and mix it dry with the other ingredients; then moisten the mash in scalded milk in which suet has been boiled (one pound of chopped suet to four quarts 45 of milk). Boil for fifteen minutes. Feed it three times a day—9:00 A. M., 12:00 M. and 3:00 P. M. The last two weeks before killing, omit all the dry grain; feed nothing but mash, made as before, only as soft as possible without being sloppy. Feed four times a day all they will eat in ten minutes, but on no account leave food before them longer than that, or they will become satiated. Birds pushed along should be in fine condition for market when from ten to twelve weeks old.
Our broilers are never given water to drink, but always scalded milk. Scalded milk invariably checks any tendency toward bowel trouble and is also a strong factor in making the flesh tender and juicy.