8 



Table No. 4. — Showing Practice of Farmers With Reference to 

 Spring Hatching on 448 Ontario County Farms. 



Other errors in this connection that are common with a large propor- 

 tion of the farmers visited are : The use of eggs produced by unhealthy 

 and mismanaged parent stock; the setting of broody hens in the laying 

 pen where they are constantly subject to noise and disturbance; failure to 

 rid the body of the setting hen from lice and mites ; no attempt at having 

 the season's hatches come off at about the same time, in order to have 

 chicks of an even age ; and the indiscriminate selection of eggs regardless 

 of size and imperfections. Naturally the hatchability of such eggs, and 

 the livability of chicks hatched therefrom must be greatly reduced. In 

 this, together with a combination of bad conditions resulting in high 

 percentages of infertility, weak germs and mortality, may be found the 

 explanation for the tremendous loss experienced during the incubating 

 and brooding seasons. 



Artificiae Methods of Incubation and Brooding. 



Artificial incubation and brooding is not general among farmers, as 

 may be seen from a study of Table No. 5. There are several reasons for 

 this, which might be summarized as follows : Low-priced, unreHable 

 incubators, being advertised and sold on easy payment terms; a lack of 

 knowledge of the most rudimentary laws of incubation, such failure 

 being either the result of carlessness or a disposition to discard these 

 instructions for some supposedly better original methods; low-priced 

 brooders — veritable death-traps — a menace to chick life even in the hands 

 of an expert; the feeding of chicks too soon after hatching; the rearing 

 of chicks upon soured or otherwise contaminated land upon which many 

 generations of chicks have been reared and the land having had prac- 

 tically no cultivation during this time. All of these and other preventable 

 errors bring disaster, and result in a sweeping condemnation of artificial 

 methods. 



