POULTRY. 565 



we should open everything and turn the eggs, although they had been previously turned that 

 morning. Likewise, if by one cause or another, perhaps forgetfulness, the incubator has been 

 left without heat and the eggs become completely cold, there is no occasion to be at all 

 uneasy. The eggs can remain in this state for thirty-six and even forty hours with only this 

 inconvenience, that the period of incubation will be prolonged just as many hours as- it has 

 been interrupted. 



We should not assist a chicken to come out of the shell when even this operation has 

 lasted for ten or twelve hours. The efforts that it makes are necessary for the absorption of 

 the yolk and the umbilical cord. When the chicks are hatched, they should remain ten or 

 twelve hours in the incubator, and that without eating. At the end of this time they should 

 be placed in the compartment below, having previously covered the floor of it with bran or 

 an old bit of carpet. 



Proper Temperature for Incubators. The degree of heat necessary for hatch- 

 ing eggs by artificial means is from 102 to 104 degrees. Reaumer, Vallee, Wortley, Schroeder, 

 Brinley, Wren, Boyle, and other French and English incubator inventors, advise that the 

 heat should be less at the beginning of the incubating process than at the more advanced 

 stage; honce, at the commencement it should be about 102, and gradually increased to 104, 

 as the incubation progressed. Mr. Wren states that in his experiments in determining the 

 proper degree of temperature, he placed four eggs in the incubator and submitted them to 

 a heat of 102 at first, increasing to 104 at the last. The result was that three out of the 

 four eggs hatched and did well; while of another batch of eggs where the temperature was 

 reduced, they failed altogether, none of the chicks having properly absorbed the yolk for 

 want of sufficient heat. 



He also says: &quot;In this I feel sure we are imitating Nature, because a hen, when she first 

 commences to sit, has feathers between her body and the eggs, which are non-conductors of 

 heat. By the friction of the eggs these wear off, and her body comes in direct contact with 

 the eggs; therefore the heat must, if any difference, be rather greater at the latter part of the 

 time.&quot; 



Turning the Eggs. In proof of the necessity of the occasional turning of the eggs 

 during the incubating process, the same author says: &quot;I have examined the eggs under a 

 sitting hen, and made the following memoranda of the position of the eggs during a part of 

 one day. At 10.30 A.M. marked four eggs, and left them in the center of the nest; at 

 1.30 P.M. three, of the marked eggs were moved to the outside. Marked three more, and left 

 them in the middle; at 2.45 P.M. the three marked last were moved to the outside. Marked 

 four more and left them in the middle; at 4 P. M. the four marked last were on the outside, 

 and some of those marked first were back again in the middle of the nest.&quot; 



Mr. A. M. Halsted, of Rye, New York, says on this point: &quot;I have several times carried 

 eggs through the whole three weeks in the incubator, without turning or moving them at all. 

 Unless some accident interfered, there were some which hatched generally about thirty per 

 cent.; others which pipped the shell, but had not strength enough to get out; and still 

 others, dead, with the yolk sack not fully absorbed, and dried fast to the bottom of the shell; 

 of those which did hatch, most were weakly, and fully one-half died before they were a week 

 old. One lot which I turned twice a week did ten or fifteen per cent, better. Another, 

 which was turned daily, hatched seventy per cent. ; and a final test when I turned the eggs 

 twice daily, I obtained fifty-eight strong, healthy chickens out of sixty fertile eggs, and both 

 the remaining eggs had fully developed chickens in them. 



Hence, I adopted the practice of turning twice daily, morning and night. Further 

 experiment turning them three and four times a day, have not given any better results 

 than this.&quot; 



VOL. II. 31 



