1908 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



769 



I do not know of any thing better than that. The 

 loose straw that has been trampled up so it is soft 

 and loose will do very well. Perhaps clean oat 

 straw that has been used for bedding would be 

 about the thing. The hen will fix it herself bet- 

 ter than you can do it for her. The nest ought 

 to be shaped about like a wooden bowl — not so 

 deep in the center that the eggs will pile up on 

 top of each other, and not so flat that they will 

 roll off into the corners of the box. The corners 

 of the box should be well filled with straw packed 

 in hard. I do not know but the right kind of 

 wooden block nailed in the corners would be a 

 good thing so as to make the interior of the box 

 to a great extent bowl-shaped, say about like a 

 common wash-basin. 



Give the hen enough straw so she can toss It 

 over her back and tuck it up nicely around her. 

 Now-, if your straw is soft enough, and if there is 

 enough of it between the eggs and the sides and 

 bottom, she can not very well break an egg. The 

 eggs will sink down into the soft straw out of her 

 way before they break; and in order to have plenty 

 of room for material I would have the box about 

 8 inches deep inside. 



We all know that hens like seclusion; and I 

 have studied somewhat as to how to cover this 

 nest so as to give about the kind of seculsion a 

 hen wishes. Another box just like the one I 

 have described, but only half as long, placed up- 

 side down over the nest, seems to be about the 

 right thing. The nest should then be in the back 

 end of the lower box; then the hen, to get in, 

 steps down in the open end and walks over to the 

 end that is covered. If she is a large hen perhaps 

 you had better cut out the end of the upper box, 

 say in the form of a half-circle, in order to let her 

 get over the eggs with less trouble. And, by the 

 way, this upper box must be fastened in some 

 way to keep it in place. If it is hinged with 

 leather or metal hinges on the back end of the 

 lower box this will make a very nice arrangement. 

 Any style of nest with a cover over it should per- 

 mit of the easy removal of said cover. If an egg 

 is broken you want full access to all the eggs, lit- 

 ter, and every thing else in order to clean them 

 off. With the nest I have described you can set 

 your basin of hot water in the end of the box op- 

 posite the nest; then your eggs can be quickly 

 cleansed and put back on clean straw. If the 

 water is up to 100 or 103 it will not chill the eggs 

 at all, and the heat will dry them off when placed 

 on clean dry straw by the time you are through. 

 Now, if Biddy has got her feathers soiled, she 

 ought to be washed off too. 



May be you will say if we have got to have all 

 this fuss with sitting hens we had better get an 

 incubator; and I confess an incubator is much 

 nicer to work with than a sitting hen — especially 

 one of the pugnacious kind; but if your nest is 

 made right, as I have tried to direct, I do not 

 think you will very often have to wash off the 

 eggs. 



Just a few days ago I found a sitting hen in a 

 box without a particle of straw. She had broken 

 all of her eggs but six at different times, and not 

 one of the six hatched a chicken. All this worry 

 and bother, with nothing to pay for it, just for the 

 want of a handful of the right kind of straw! 



I would not have this nest in the yard with 

 other hens if I could help it. No other hen should 



be allowed by any possibility to get on when she 

 is off. Place the box and all in a little yard by 

 herself where she has feed, water, and gravel. 

 This is much better than letting her be annoyed 

 by other hens. But I do not like that as well as 

 letting her have her liberty to go where she pleases 

 and to stay off the nest as long as she chooses. I 

 have several times had hens hatch and bring out 

 eighteen chickens; and they always had a con- 

 venient nest, and had things largely their own 

 way. 



Do not let any one persuade you that there is a 

 patent on making a little yard for each sitting 

 hen, or on having an arrangement so the door 

 shuts while the hen is on. All such devices are 

 pictured and described in poultry-books printed 

 years and years ago. Trap nests are a good thing 

 on some accounts with sitting hens; but I do not 

 like any of them as well as the simple box I have 

 described. The little house like the one pictur- 

 ed on page 638 of last Gleanings is a very nice 

 place indeed for a sitting hen. You can put the 

 sitting hen upstairs, where it is an easy matter to 

 handle and look after her. Where you have a lot 

 of chickens in a fireless brooder downstairs, the 

 doors and poultry-netting make it a very easy 

 matter to give the sitting hens all the conditions 

 that may be required when we have all kinds of 

 weather unexpectedly. Now read the following- 

 letter from a good woman who not only succeeds 

 with poultry but in managing a whole farm after 

 the death of her husband: 



Mr. A. I. Root. — My sister, who is interested in bees, sub- 

 scribes for Gleanings and she has read to me your articles 

 about the chickens, which have given us many a good laugh, and 

 I believe there is nothing better for people who are hard at work 

 than laughter; so, please give us more, for you are doing mission- 

 ary work. You asked for the names of women who make a 

 specialty of selling day-old chicks, Now, I do not make a 

 specialty of that branch, but this season have advertised chicks 

 hatched with hens, the mother to go along if necessary to care 

 for them. My sister and I are city women who came to this 

 farm four years ago, when my husband died, and engaged in the 

 difficult but always interesting task of building up a run-down 

 farm — a beautiful old place of 42 acres situated ten miles from 

 Buffalo. My expenses are heavy, as I hire two men by the 

 year, and a girl for the housework. We all work all ihe lime, 

 and my brains are "worn thin" with hard thinking over the 

 best way to manage affairs, and the various problems which arc 

 continually arising. Many of the difficulties of the first years 

 have been overcome; and a growing income, together with an 

 increasing number of satisfied customers for our produce, gives us 

 confidence to keep on, although expenses will not be materially 

 lessened until the farm is made to produce better crops. The 

 soil is good, but has been robbed for many years. I have an 

 acre of fine alfalfa, and mean to have more. If I keep on with a 

 dairy it is a necessity. 



The chickens have proved a profitable branch, even with buy- 

 ing nearly all the feed. I winter about 300 hens, get my chick- 

 ens out in March and April, usually hatching about 1000, and 

 thus have broilers when prices are high, and pullets for winter 

 laying. 1 also sell eggs for hatching, and have been successful in 

 the show-room. 1 have one incubator, a 300-egg model, and 1 am 

 frank to confess that the hatches are far from satisfactory, as 60 

 per cent is the best one. The very early hatches bring out only 

 about 25 or 30 per cent. This year, with 243 February eggs I 

 got 55 chickens, while hens from the same stock hatched nearly 

 75 per cent out of 60 eggs; andl know that incubators are a 

 necessity, but I regret the necessity. I acknowledge all the short- 

 comings of the hens, and it is exasperating to have them break 

 eggs and step on the baby chicks; but after all, one is working 

 more in harmony with natural laws, wherein there is strength. 



This year I have 30 hens sitting in the house cellar where 

 there was a furnace fire early in the season. This took the 

 chill from the air. The nests are roomy, and filled with oat 

 chaff and a little straw. One can not be too careful to give 

 plenty of litter, as the hens scratch it away in the center and 

 leave the eggs on the bare boards, which makes her break them. 

 Every morning the hens are lifted from the nests, fed, exercised, 

 and replaced. They are each marked with strings on their legs. 

 It takes more time than an incubator, out it pays. Of course if 

 one were hatching chicks by the ten thousand I suppose this 

 method would be impossible. I never give hens over 13 eggs. 



