VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 71 



were not to be depended upon; they were scrubs. So we sent away for 

 200 such eggs, for which we paid $20. When they arrived we put them 

 on the table to give them a rest. Whenever you send away for a sitting 

 of eggs, when they arrive you should give them a rest of twenty-four or 

 thirty-six hours. It will bring them together and you will have a better 

 hatch. When the eggs were ready he opened up the incubator. It is 

 very easily adjusted; the thermometer would go to 103 when it would 

 blow off; and he put those eggs into the tray, closed the incubator, and 

 at the end of the fourth day he examined the eggs; he took a tester 

 and just took the eggs off the tray and held them up to the light. If 

 they are fertile there will be a pronounced zone of very fine blood ves- 

 sels there. He put those eggs back into the tray, and the eggs that were 

 not fertile he laid aside to feed to the little chicks after they were 

 hatched. The eggs were turned twice a day, and then on the morning 

 of the nineteenth day there was a beautiful sight; those little chicks just 

 threw off their shells and opened up into new life. There was a won- 

 derful transformation. Nine years ago was the first hatch I ever saw 

 by an incubator, and it was one of the best hatches we have ever had. 

 Ninety-seven per cent, of the fertile eggs hatched. 



The next thing we did was to leave those chickens in the incubator 

 thirty-six hours. Now, when we took the little chicks away from the 

 incubator we tried to have the brooder heated to 97 to 100 degrees. 

 We took those chicks out of the incubator and put them carefully into 

 a basket lined with cloth so as not to have a circulation of air. lest those 

 littie chicks should catch cold. You want to be very particular about 

 that. If you take the chicks out of the incubator and put them into the 

 brooder, and that brooder is a little bit cold, and they catch cold, it will 

 cause indigestion and cholera infantum, and that means death every 

 time. 



Now, the first thing he fed those chicks was the shells the little 

 chicks came out of. He put them into the oven and when they were 

 perfectly dry rubbed them together in his hands, and sprinkled them in 

 front of the chicks. That is just what is required to promote digestion. 

 On the brooders he sprinkled some sand and gravel, and that puts the 

 system into action, gives them a good appetite and power to digest their 

 food. Then stale bread, moistened with skimmed milk, was sprinkjed in 

 front of the chicks. In a few days he gave them plenty of clean water. 

 You want to be very careful about the water. If the water is distasteful 

 and insipid, and the vessels become slimy and nauseous, that causes in- 

 digestion, and that makes a great difference in regard to the death- 

 rate. What they want every hour of the day is clean, pure water. 

 Never allow a chicken to get dry, but at all times have it so arranged 

 that they can go right up to the little water vessel and take a sip. 



We use granulated charcoal, put in a small box; they can go there 

 and help themselves. That, also, is a great bowel regulator — it cleanses 

 the system. 



In a lew days we began to feed golden millet, and that is the most 

 growthy food and the best bowel regulator that we know of; and every 



