92 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



Poultry 

 Department 



Conducted by A. I. Root. 



STARTING EGGS UNDER HENS BEFORE PUTTING THEM IN 

 AN INCUBATOR, ETC. 



When I started I bought what 1 thought was a good incubator, 

 but it was a very poor machine. I tried putting them ten days 

 under hens and then taking all into the incubator and setting the 

 hens again. I found there was no trouble in finishing the eggs 

 when they were half hatched. I tried starting them in the incu- 

 bator, and then putting them under the hen, but that was very 

 little better than doing it all with the machine. I used that ma- 

 chine for some years in connection with hens. 1 could double 

 the capacity of the hens. I would set about ten at once. 



About this time I conceived rhe idea of doing without a lire in 

 the brooder in May. I made a fireless brooder and put a batch 

 of chicks in it. I raised about all of them, as I remember now. 

 I made another one and put the next lot in it. The weather was 

 sunny and warm when I put the first lot out. When the second 

 lot was ready it was a rainy spell, and cold. These all died. I 

 see now it was too poorly made. That was enough of the fireless 

 brooders for me. I have used fire ever since. 



CHILLED eggs; SEE PAGE 648, MAY 15. 



I have had considerable experience with chilled eggs in the 24 

 years I have been in the business. Sometimes they will live, 

 and at other times all will die when you wish very much they 

 would all live. I went away one March day, and a hen came 

 off the nest after dinner. I came home at six o'clock and put 

 her on, but the chicks were dead. I had paid $5.00 for the eggs. 

 My friend, who lives near, took several settings of eggs out to 

 test. He forgotandleftone, and found itthenextmorning. A lit- 

 tle skim of ice formed that night The egg hatched two days late. 

 This egg was well on the way. In August a hen had hidden 

 her nest under a bush and in the way of the surplus water. Dur- 

 ing a thundershower in the afternoon the eggs were washed down 

 the waterway some distance. We found them the next after- 

 noon. They hatched well. I have at difJerent times left a tray 

 of eggs out all night in the cellar when the temperature was be- 

 tween 50 and 60. But few will be killed if it is in the last half 

 of the hatch. In the first four or five days the eggs will stand but 

 little abuse. 



MANY CHICKS TO A HEN; SEE PAGE 238, FEB. 15. 



I wonder how many will try putting many chicks with a hen 

 because A. I. did so well. Don't fo-get that he had one of the 

 best-bred hens as a mother that you can breed. A Leghorn is a 

 good mother, and a game better yet. You have light weight, so 

 none are hurt because of the tramping, and you have the good 

 care that comes with the game and Leghorn. I should like to 

 have A. I. try ten hens and see if about two-thirds of the brood 

 would not go bad. It takes a good mother to care properly for 

 many children of any kind. 



My father and I have feed tons of alfalia, cow peas, and some 

 soy-bean hay, and our experience says that there fs no hay or feed 

 equal, as a milk-maker, to soy hay. This is not saying alfalfa is 

 not a grand feed, but we do know that when we stopped feeding 

 the soy hay we had to add grain to keep the cows in the same 

 production. I do not keep cows, but my father does or did, and 

 ■has been a careful feeder, and likes to try all the new feeds. We 

 raised some vetch hay also. 



I use saciline for green food part of the time now. It is a per- 

 manent plant, and grows 7 feet high. May 21 it is from 4 to 5 

 feet high. It is as sure as taxes. The hens eat it readily. The 

 ^eedmen pushed it some 12 years ago. Mine is that old, and 

 is getting stronger every year. I like it for shade and for the 

 chicks too. W. W. Kulp. 



Pottstown, Pa. 



Friend K. , your plan of starting eggs under a 

 hen before putting them into an incubator is 

 what is described as the"bifold method," in 

 friend Grundy's little book entitled " The Grun- 

 dy Method." No doubt many Icinds of incuba- 

 tors would give a better hatch if the hens give the 

 eggs a start. But the principal difficulty, as it 

 now occurs to me, is in getting a sufficient num- 

 ber of sitting hens started at one time to keep 

 even a small-sized incubator running. If you 

 take eggs away from the hen after the first five or 

 ten days, and give her a fresh lot, that might help 

 the matter somewhat — at least after you get ago- 

 ing. But let us look at it this way: 



In this book, the Grundy Method, he has made 



another discovery or invention; and this discovery 

 is that an ordinary hen can take care of 30 or 40 

 chickens, to say nothing of the 70 chickens that 

 I gave to one hen; and Grundy recommends giv- 

 ing a hen a large number of chickens, and thes 

 calls it a " fireless brooder;" and I must confess 

 that a sitting hen might be quite an important 

 adjunct to any sort of fireless brooder — that is, if 

 you give her 30 or 40 chicks, or double that 

 amount, as I did. 



Just one point more, and then we are ready for 

 our summing-up. Somebody else made the great 

 discovery that you can start eggs with an incuba- 

 tor and then give them to sitting hens to finish. 

 Now, if it is a great benefit to let the hen sta)-t in- 

 cubation, and another great benefit to let them do 

 \.he fijiishing of the incubation, and a third great 

 benefit to give a sitting hen chickens after they 

 hatch, why not adopt the old way from beginning 

 to end, and give one hen all the chickens that 

 two or even three hens or more hatch out, as the 

 farmers" wives are doing and ha'-ve been doing for 

 ages past.' 



In regard to the plant called saciline, I was one 

 of the first (I regret to say) to help boom this 

 great forage plant, and it has been growing on 

 our grounds more or less every season for perhaps 

 a dozen years; but although we have it in what 

 we call a rich place it never has made a remark- 

 able growth, and, worst of all, we have never 

 found a domestic animal that would eat it or pay 

 any attention to it. The hens 7nay have been 

 helping themselves to it, but I have not noticed 

 them doing so. I will try to keep watch next 

 season. It is certainly very important just now 

 to hunt up the very best forage-plant for poultry 

 that the world affords; but so far I have never 

 found any thing to come anywhere near lettuce, 

 especially the head lettuce grown in Florida. 



While I am about it, this Grundy book con- 

 tains another great secret. A method has been 

 advertised in the papers for chicken feed, for only 8 

 cents a bushel; and this book tells us it is shred- 

 ded alfalfa. In order to get chickens to take it 

 to advantage, boiling water is poured over it in a 

 tub the night before. The next morning it is 

 mixed with corn-meal middlings and bran. This 

 feed during the winter time gives the fowls a rea- 

 sonable amount of green food. But I do not see 

 what there is new about it. Alfalfa has been 

 used for years in just this way. 



SELLING SECRETS; " SPROUTED OATS;" CHICKEN 

 FEED FOR "only 8 CTS. A BUSHEL," ETC. 



While there are some things that seem to be 

 wrong and unfair about advertising secrets, there 

 is one feature in connection with it that promises 

 great good to the poultry-keeping fraternity. 

 Most of the men who have secrets to sell have de- 

 voted considerable time and care to their experi- 

 ments. The principal fault I have to find with 

 them is that they do not furnish a nicely gotten- 

 up and decent-sized book for the 50 cents, $1.00, 

 or $5.00 they ask. And then by all means let 

 the purchaser of the book show it to his neighbor 

 in just the way people are in the habit of showing 

 their periodicals, books, and every thing else to 

 their neighbors in a neighborly way. As an il- 

 lustration, I saw advertised in some of the poul- 

 try-journals "The Angell System of Securing 



