1910 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



61 



POULTRY 



Department 



By a. I. Root. 



CHICKENS IN FLORIDA; THE "SIMPLICITY" 

 INCUBATOR, ETC. 



We left our Medina home on the evening 

 of Nov. 15, and on the evening of the 17th 

 were in our Florida "cottage in the woods," 

 installed for the night. A week or two ago 

 I asked my neighbor, Mr. Stanton, who had 

 my fowls during the summer, to save up for 

 me from my strain of Leghorns 12 or 14 doz- 

 en eggs for starting my incubator on arrival; 

 and, accordingly, on the 19th I gave my new 

 incubator 120 eggs, this being the first time I 

 had ever made a trial of it with all the shelves 

 filled. Mr. S. had 13 dozen eggs saved up 

 for me; but he gave them to me with the fol- 

 lowing caution: There were only two males 

 in my flock of 60 hens — my old $5.00 one, 

 and a cockerel; and, worst of all, he discov- 

 ered, the day before my arrival, that the 15.00 

 bird could not be found. He had missed sev- 

 eral grown-up fowls before; and the only ex- 

 planation for it was that a wildcat had jump- 

 ed the four- foot netting fence, or that some 

 one l.ad stolen him. 



Now, I always dislike to hear talk about 

 "stealing" unless there is a very good rea- 

 son for suspicion; and I have before remark- 

 ed that my neighbor, Mr. Rood, has for years 

 kept all his fowls roosting in an open shed, 

 almost close up to the highway. Their 

 perches are only about a yard high, and one 

 could pick up a chicken any dark night, with- 

 out even opening a door or gate to the hen- 

 roost. Why, even the colored people in this 

 region don't "steal chickens." I wonder if 

 I shall offend (by "stepping on their toes ") 

 any of my good friends if I say right here 

 that my good neighbor Ten Broeck (just over 

 the poulty-fence) said yesterday, "Mr. Root, 

 this street we live on is about a mile long, 

 and fairly well settled; but there isn't a man 

 or boy on the whole street who uses tobacco 

 in any form or shape." 



Now, isn't it a fair deduction that my rooster 

 certainly wasn't stolen — at least not by any 

 one in this neighborhood? No one knew 

 exactly when he disappeared, but Mr. S. 

 couldn't find him in the flock the day before 

 I came. I decided to put the eggs in my in- 

 cubators, however, for I wanted to make 

 some experiments on fertility any way. You 

 see I am working somewhat like our experi- 

 ment stations. A farmer visited one of the 

 branch stations near my Ohio home, and 

 complained that the crops were not nearly 

 as good as he could raise. The manager re- 

 plied, "Of course not. The field or plot you 

 are looking at has been planted to the same 

 ihmg ioT five years, with no manure or fer- 

 tilizing, to see the effect. Now look at this 

 other plot on the same kind of ground." 



Well, thanks to my new egg-tester, on the 

 third day I had noticed _that very few eggs 



showed any fertility at all; and on the fifth 

 day I found only two dozen out of the whole 

 156 eggs that had made a start. Now, lest 

 some one might say it was partly my new in- 

 cubator I put part of the eggs in my 70-egg 

 Cypher. The result was just about the same. 

 I suppose you all know that eggs tested out 

 on the third or even fifth day are, to almost 

 all intents and purposes, fresh eggs; but, of 

 course, no one would sell them without ex- 

 planation. Well, we had "eggs galore" 

 three times a day for about a month. As Mrs. 

 Root has some of her own notions about "in- 

 cubator eggs," the heavy responsibility fell 

 mostly on myself, and I have just been won- 

 dering if the "egg diet " may not explain, at 

 least to some extent, why I have been so 

 well and so happy (with my "chickens") 

 for the past month. 



On Thanksgiving day I started both incu- 

 bators anew, giving the Cyphers 70 eggs just 

 laid, and my own the 24, and enough more 

 to make 120. With the Cyphers I followed 

 directions to a dot, and got about a 70-per- 

 cent hatch on the 20th day. In fact, the 

 chicks all came out in just a few hours. My 

 own gave a very poor hatch, and some of 

 them were not out until the 23d day. Please 

 bear in mind, however, it had the 24 out of 

 the lot of infertiles; and I have reason to be- 

 lieve that, when so many are infertile, the 

 few fertile eggs are not likely to be of strong 

 fertility. 



Another thing in this connection: Where 

 fowls are moved to new premises the eggs 

 laid before they get to feel at home are not 

 likely to be strongly fertile. 



When I saw how things were going I pro- 

 cured in the neighborhood five good males 

 for my 80 hens and pullets; but it was about 

 ten days before I had a good per . cent of 

 strong fertility. 



Again, on filling all the shelves of my in- 

 cubator I found the lower shelf much colder 

 than those above it. This I have now obviat- 

 ed by placing a disk of tin about four inches 

 in diameter just above the flame of the lamp, 

 preventing the heat from going so much up 

 the chimney and making it first warm up the 

 bottom of the water-boiler. (This takes more 

 oil than I mentioned formerly.) Also, those 

 openwork shelves gave too much ventilation 

 and too strong a draft of air up through. I 

 have remedied this by winding wide cotton 

 tape so as to cover the spaces between the 

 wooden slats. This gives a warmer atmos- 

 phere in each apartment, so that a lower 

 temperature of the boiler keeps the eggs up 

 to 103. The space under the boiler, around 

 the lamp, I have also closed in with a sort of 

 thick warm curtain to retain the heat better. 



With the improved incubator oil I have 

 spoken of, one can get along very well with- 

 out a thermostat; but do not undertake to 

 regulate the temperature by turning the 

 flame of the lamp up or down. Do the reg- 

 ulating by the damper in the chimney. With 

 this good oil you can get a very steady even 

 flame for three or four days, or perhaps a 

 week. The five-gallon sample of oil I got in 

 Medina is rather better than the barrel I have 



