502 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



INCUBATORS. 



The management of an incubator is theoretically a simple matter. 

 All that seems necessary to secure the hatching of a very high per cent 

 of the eggs is that they shall be fertile and fresh, and that they shall be 

 kept at a uniform temperature, between 100 and 103 degrees Fahrenheit, 

 for twenty-one days, and that the moisture conditions be properly regu- 

 lated during the latter stages of the hatching process. As a matter of 

 practical experience, however, it is found that to secure these seemingly 

 simple conditions is not an easy matter. It requires skill, patience and 

 considerable experience to operate the best of incubators satisfactorily. 

 The experiments conducted at this Station have not so far resulted in 

 establishing new principles or bringing forward new methods. None of 

 the forms of incubators here tried can be trusted to self regulation for 

 a single day. The per cent of hatch is measured largely by the amount 

 of careful and constant attention given the incubator. This attention 

 must be directed to the following points among others: 



1. The incubator must be placed in a room where the temperature is 

 reasonably even. If the variation in temperature in the incubator room 

 varies more than a few degrees it is impossible to so regulate the delicate 

 apparatus, in the incubators that the temperature in the egg chamber 

 will be constant. The maximum allowable variation for the different 

 machines has not been definitely determined. 



2. Laying aside, as out of the sphere of this bulletin, all rules as to 

 the adjustment and management of the incubator itself, it was found 

 necessary to a good hatch that the eggs from hens having plenty of exer- 

 cise be selected. Not only must attention be paid to the breed and strain 

 of blood of the laying hens and to their health, but they must be given 

 a wide range and a superabundance of exercise. In one case, for 

 instance, an incubator received 200 eggs, all from healthy stock. Seventy- 

 five eggs were laid by a flock of thirty hens, kept in a hen house nineteen 

 and a half feet by eleven and one-half and allowed in addition the run of 

 a lot twenty-three rods long by three rods wide. The hens were fed a 

 great variety of feeds consisting for the most part of a warm mash in 

 the morning and coarse, unground grains in the evening with plenty of 

 green stuff, cabbage, lettuce, grass and the like and regular feeds of cut 

 bone and oyster shells. 



The remaining 130 eggs came from the flock of a neighbor whose hens 

 were allowed the utmost freedom, were in fact never confined at all but 

 roamed where they pleased over farm, garden and barns. They picked 

 up most of their feed but received daily a small allowance of grain. Of 

 the 75 eggs from the carefully housed hens, 27, or 30 per cent hatched; 

 of the 130 eggs from hens allowed to run where they pleased, 95, or 73 

 per cent hatched. There were in all 140 fertile eggs. 



3. Repeated trials have shown that eggs freshly laid hatch better than 

 where there has been delay in incubating. This fact partly accounts for 

 the failures often experienced when eggs are shipped considerable dis- 

 tances and a week or more elapses before the incubator is ready for them. 



For the first twenty-four hours after the chickens are removed from 

 the incubator the young things require no food. For the next week we 

 have found nothing better than the yolks of hard boiled eggs, cracker 

 crumbs, oat flakes and some properly prepared green food like lettuce 

 ohopped fine. Only as much feed is given as is eaten up clean but the 



