OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 103, 21 October 1911, Page 3

OUR FEATHERED FRIENDS.

(By •'' Cock-o'-the-North"). [ have to apologise to my readers for my long silence, but it was :i sheer impossibility for me to write owing to illness in my family and (he fact of my assistant being seriously ill. 1 was thus left, with everything on my hands and with no assistance in the height of the breeding season. These things, added to the fact that T badly smashed the lingers of my right hand in a grit breaker, which was worked by an-engine, and having to attend to a heavy correspondence, besides classes and lectures, rendered my writing this column impossible for some weeks.

Before resuming' my subject at the point where T left off,'f may say that i have received from a goodly number of readers in different parts of the North Island requests for information as to my methods of brooding chicks, etc. I have made up my mind in response to these to describe as near as possible my brooder house and brooder with the method of caring for chicks. My present brooder house is 60ft long by 14ft deep, from front to back, 7ft high in front and sft Win high at the back. (All these measurements are over alj.) The walls are two-ply ruberoid, with the edges fastened to battens 3ft apart, and also fastened to uprights, which arc also 3ft apart. The roof is close boarded end covered with one-ply ruberoid. the edges being lapped two inches and well cemented together with the material supplied for the purpose. The whole front is simply enclosed by one-inch mesh wire-netting. The internal portion is fitted up with a series of runs Oft 3in long by 22in wide, thirty in all, giving accommodation'for 1500 chicks, ob to each run. At the end of each run is a tireless brood. 21 inches square (inside measurement I. which accommodates the chicks up to six weeks old. They have no outer run, and for the first six weeks I of their lives they have no oilier space but this. The runs are constructed by simply cutting a number of pieces of 12 x 1 boards Oft Gin long and nailing them edgeway Op 23 inches apart, the ends being nailed to other pieces of 12x1 boards, also edge, up, and running the entire length of the brooder house, being fastened end to end at the joints by means of pieces of 3 x 1 battens, 12in loilg. overlapping the ends. The chicks are kept from, flying out by wire-netted frames 3ft. 2in wide and 12ft long, which are hinged to 4 x I battens running the entire length and fastened to the upper edges of the Oft 3in pieces of 12 x 1 in the centre. These are double, thereby covering the whole top of the runs and guarding against cats and other vermin, and as they open upwards on hinges screwed on to the 4xl centre piece thechicks and runs can be attended to from (he front or back of the house. Each brooder is built of i) x % boards, and is simplicity iself. Proceed as follow?:—Cut seven pieces of (J x % board each 22% in long and two pieces 21 in long. Rip up one of the 22% in pieces down the centre, making each half 4% x 22%. Nail two of the 22% in pieces on to the ends of each of the 21in pieces, and on to the square thus formed nail two pieces of the 22% x 0, and one of the 22% x 4%. clamping them tightly together. This makes the bottom. Out of one of the remaining 22% by 9 pieces, cut a hole on one edge 5x5 inches square and fasten these two remaining pieces together and the remaining 22% x 4% piece edge to edge b,V\ means of narrow cross pieces of almost any timber, and in such a way as to have the 5 x 5 hole in the centre of the lid which this is intended for. Cover this hole with wire netting; cut a hole in one side of your box sin wide by fiin high, and make a square frame to slide over this opening and cover with netting, which makes your brooder secure against rats or other vermin at night. The hover (or mother) of this brooder is simply a square of calico 24in square, and after a 2in seam has been taken all round leaves it 20in square. The em» of two of these seams (the last ones sewn) should be left open and a slit cut in the centve of the calico, with a flap i over it like the flap over a pocket, On [ the under side of this'calico a piece of flannel 23 inches square should be fastened by the corners t& the wider side of the pprners of the calico, and then sewn afong, gathering the flannel at the edges as sewn and thereby allowing the centre ,to bulge downwards, leaving a hollowspace between the flannel and calico, which is intended to be filled with feathers, and mark you. feathers only, and j that very lightly. A strip of flannel should tlien be sewn around the edge of the hover, and left to hang down s%in. so that when the hover is Gin. from the ground the lower edge of the flannel is %in above the floor. A. similar strip_ of calico should go around on the outside of the flannel, but only four inches down instead of s%in as for the flannel. (To be continued next week).