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 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, 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 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.
THE POULTRY-YARD IN MID-SEASON
Baby chicks are so pretty, and appeal so strongly to the sentimental feeling most people have for infant things, that they are invariably well cared for until they are deposed by new arrivals, or reach the half-fledged, long-legged period of gawky ugliness. Then they are almost surely neglected, especially by the amateur, who does not realise that the intermediate stages are of paramount importance. It is a waste of time and money to hatch chicks and feed hens heavily in the winter, if they are allowed to reach a standstill period during growth.