The hens are to be kept as much as possible out of the houses, in sheltered places among the crops or brush.  They should not herd together in a few places but should be separated in little clumps well scattered over the land.  These hiding places for the hens must, of course, not be too secluded or eggs will be lost.

Equipment for Chick Rearing.

Just as the long houses for hens have been weighed and found wanting, so larger brooder houses, with one exception, have never been established on what may be called a successful basis.  By establishment on a successful basis, I mean established so that they could be used by larger numbers of people in rearing market chickens.  There are plenty of large brooder houses in use, just as there are plenty of yarded poultry plants, but many intelligent, industrious people have tried both systems only to find that the cost of production exceeds the selling price.  This makes us prone to believe that some of those who claim to be succeeding may differ from the crowd in that they had more capital to begin with and hence last longer.

The one exception I make to this is that of the South Shore Roaster District of Massachusetts.  Here steam-pipe brooder houses are used quite extensively.  The logical reason that pipe brooder houses have found use in the winter chicken business and not in rearing pullets is that of season and profits.  When chicks are to be hatched in the dead of winter the steam-heated brooder house is a necessity.  In this limited use it is all right, where the profits per chick are great enough to stand the expense and losses.

For the rearing of the great bulk of spring chicks the methods that have proven profitable are as follows: 

First:  Rearing with hens as practiced at Little Compton.  For suggestions on this see the chapter entitled “Poultry on the General Farm.”

Second:  Rearing with lamp brooder.  Many large book-built poultry plants have been equipped with steam, or, more properly, hot water heated brooder houses, only to have a practical manager see that they did not work, tear out the piping and fill the house with rows of common lamp brooders.  The advantage claimed for the lamp brooder is that they can be regulated separately for each flock.  As a matter of fact, the same regulation for each flock of chicks could be secured with a proper type of hot water heaters and one of the most practical poultry farms in the country is now installing such a system.

A brooder system where hot air under the pressure of a blower or centrifugal fan would seem ideal.  So far the efforts made along these lines have been clumsy and unnecessarily expensive.  If the continuous house is ever made practical, I believe it will be along this line, but at present I advise sticking to the methods that are known to be successful.