616 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



Oct. 1 



Poultry 

 Department 



By a. I. Root. 



THE INCUBATOR OR THE SITTING HEN— WHICH? 



Before discussing this subject at length, 

 permit me to say that I have been having ex- 

 cellent success in working with sitting hens 

 and the incubator together. The incubator 

 I am using now, as I have explained, has 16 

 shelves, and 8 eggs on a shelf. It is virtual- 

 ly 16 little incubators combined in one. I 

 often put in 16 eggs a day as fast as they are 

 laid; then when one of my White Leghorns 

 offers to sit I give her 16 eggs from Ihe incu- 

 bator, nearly ready to hatch. So far this 

 thing seems to work nicely. If she com- 

 mences sitting one afternoon, and her chick- 

 ens commence hatching next day, she does 

 not seem to be at all put out about it. She 

 makes just as good a mother as if she sat on 

 the eggs three weeks. When her chicks are 

 weaned, or before, she begins to cackle and 

 sing, and lay eggs. She is much happier than 

 she would have been if thwarted in carrying 

 out nature's program. If I can get around 

 to it I am going to trap-nest one of these 

 hens, and try in this way to see how many 

 eggs she will lay in a year besides taking the 

 place of a brooder. Now for my story: 



Some time in June a White Leghorn want- 

 ed to sit. I changed her to a big drygoods- 

 box with a little yard to it, and gave her 14 

 eggs; but she just cackled and flew around 

 inside of the box, got out in the yard, got 

 mud all over her feet from our clay soil, and 

 then tramped over her 14 eggs until they 

 were about the worst-looking lot of eggs I 

 ever saw. She sat a little while and then 

 got entirely over it — stayed out in the door- 

 yard all day long. Of course I let her out 

 and gave it up. Two or three days later I 

 found another hen on the nest, that bristled 

 up when I went to take her off. I put her 

 in the deserted box, deciding to wash off the 

 eggs if she consented to sit. Well, she acted 

 like the other hen for a couple of days. 

 Then she finally got down to business and 

 never got off the nest unless I went near and 

 frightened her. You know the poultry jour- 

 nals and books say we must wash off eggs 

 that get soiled while the hen is sitting; but 

 somehow this hen was neglected, and I fear- 

 ed she would not hatch a chicken.* You see 

 the first hen sat on the eggs more or less for 

 two or three days. Then they were left for 

 a couple of days more, may be three days, 

 perfectly cold. I had learned by experience, 



* Please do not understand me from the above that 

 you need not go to the trouble of washing the eggs 

 when they get broken. The glutinous matter from 

 a broken egg, unless washed off very soon, will spoil 

 the egg for hatching, sure. But soiled eggs from a 

 chicken's muddy feet are a different thing. In fact, I 

 have just learned from one of the poultry journals 

 that the Chinese preserve eggs for many months by 

 simply daubing them with mud, or making each egg 

 the center of a mud ball. The dry mud excludes air. 

 and keeps the egg perfectly fresh for months, or at 

 least that is what the \vritel- says. 



however, that this might not do any harm. 

 Now, after this last hen got down to business 

 she hardly left her nest at all. Once or 

 twice I found her off very early in the morn- 

 ing taking corn and water I placed there for 

 her. I do not know how much she stirred the 

 eggs around, but they had very little airing 

 or cooling. I remember telling Mrs. Root 

 later on that the hen had one chicken any- 

 how. But biddy was so wild I just let her 

 have her own way. After the chickens were 

 48 hours or more old I opened the door and 

 let her out, when, lo and behold! she had 13 

 chickens from the 14 eggs, and they were so 

 lively that the whole crew scampered off to 

 the stables almost before I could count them. 

 I was in a hurry at the time, and so I let her 

 go; but after that she kept out of sight so 

 much that I could not find her or her chick- 

 ens a good deal of the time. Now, here is 

 the point of my story: 



Those 13 chickens were all exactly alike 

 the day they were hatched. There was not 

 a weak or puny one. They are now half- 

 grown and weaned, and each one is just like 

 all the others. There is not a puny one 

 among them, nor one that lags behind when 

 they start out mornings down through the 

 lumber-piles. If I had an incubator and 

 broodr that would raise 'chicks like these 13 

 every time, I would not take a thousand dol- 

 lars for it. Perhaps several things contrib- 

 uted to make this the best hatch of the sea- 

 son. 



In the first place, I have two good males. 

 One stays in the main yard, and the other 

 stays a'l the time in the yard where the lay- 

 ing hens go after they have gone through 

 that trap gate. This brood of 13 was started 

 just after I got that trap gate to working 

 nicely. I think 13 out of every 14 eggs are 

 about all fertile. The hen did not sit on the 

 ground; but she was in a box with some 

 straw in the bottom, raised perhaps six inch- 

 es from the ground. While she was sitting 

 we had rainy weather. Now for the incu- 

 bator side. 



At the time this hen raised the 13 I gave 

 three or four other sitting hens chicks or 

 eggs from the incubator. I told you I gave 

 one hen 29 chicks; but in spite of every 

 thing I could do with her or for her, the 

 chicks got "pasted up behind," and these 

 would always be lagging behind the rest 

 when their mother put out through the wet 

 grass after a rain. A neighbor of mine in 

 Florida declared this "pasting" I have men- 

 tioned is caused by the chicken getting chill- 

 ed in some way or other. He said he had 

 noticed it a good many years, and he knew 

 he was right about it. Well, the two hens 

 that had about thirty chickens apiece were 

 very likely unable to brood properly all the 

 chicks during our cold rainy spells, especial- 

 ly to warm them up when they got wet and 

 draggled. The hen with only 13 covers them 

 very well. Besides, she kept around in the 

 barn and stables, and did not take her 13 out 

 in the wet grass as much as the others. 

 Some of you will say the incubator chicks are 

 not as hardy as the hen-hatched ones. But 



