PROGRESSIVE POULTRY CULTURE 71 



These and any previously mentioned or other in- 

 fluences that cause over-stimulation or halting of the 

 development of the blood-vessels, folding back of the 

 net-work of veins at the borders or weak development 

 and growth of the embryo in the egg may follow the 

 chick in the brooder and defeat the purpose of the 

 poultryman. Shells that are especially thick and hard 

 or inner shell linings that are too tough, lack of proper 

 temperature, and deficiency of ventilation or of moisture 

 at hatching time may cause exhaustion, weakening, or 

 crippling of the chick. Failure to properly enclose the 

 yolk and heal the navel and delayed or dilatory hatch- 

 ing are signs of weakness. 



If any one or several of these influences have re- 

 sulted in the hatching of weaklings or of chicks defec- 

 tive in any way, apparent or nonapparent, the chances 

 of satisfactory growth in the brooder are small. Suc- 

 cess in brooding calls for whole, healthy, normally de- 

 veloped chicks in starting. Their heredity and hatch- 

 ing must be favorable to life and growth. The chick 

 has a full chance only when its inheritances are of the 

 best. Heredity is the foundation with prepotency for 

 the corner-stone. The structure rising from this foun- 

 dation because of life, shaped and cemented together 

 by environment and the exercise of functions should 

 not be disappointing. 



BEGINNING BROODING. 



After the chicks are hatched they should have no 

 food given them for forty-eight, or better sixty, or best 

 seventy hours. 



The perfectly formed, properly hatched chick has, 

 during the last stages of incubation, enclosed within 

 its abdomen the yolk that remains and is thus pro- 

 vided with food sufficient for all meals during several 

 days. 



The yolk within the abdomen connects by what ap- 

 pears like a small, short tube with the intestinal canal. 

 If a dead chick be opened and examined a day or two 



