JUNE 15, 1913 



429 



Poultry Department 



SITTING HENS^ AND HOW TO MAN AGE THEM. 



There is an article by our good friend 

 Stoddard in the American Poultry Journal 

 that is worth ten dollars to me. I have read 

 it over three times, and I am going to read 

 it again. The article certainly ought to be 

 worth the subscription price of the journal 

 to any one interested in jDoultry. If you do 

 not subscribe right out for a year, send for 

 the June number at least, and read Stod- 

 dard's two articles in that issue. I know 

 friend Stoddard is getting to be an old man 

 like myself ; and I have criticised him some- 

 what in times past on account of the com- 

 plicated machinery he recommends. But 

 notwithstanding all this, I believe our old 

 friend has studied chickens more than any 

 other writer who is living and making 

 " things hustle " in chicken matters at the 

 present day. The article that I have read 

 with so much interest is on the value of 

 poultry inventions, and is particularly about 

 sitting hens. See the following extract : 



I would a hundred times rather invent something 

 that will aid in producing food for generations to 

 come tlian create the advanced types of monstrosities 

 in fowls and pigeons that have appeared in England 

 for a century past all put together, were it possible 

 for one person to do this. 



A while ago I published in this magazine a de- 

 scription of what I named the " duplicate system " 

 of yards for management of sitting hens, which 

 method pleased me so much that I felt like jumping 

 over a two-story house. I thought it was not capable 

 of improvement. It has worked like a charm with 

 me and saved endless labor and vexation of spirit; 

 and had my sitters been of a better breed, with 

 more uniformity of disposition, it would have work- 

 ed still better. To find the very best breed for sit- 

 ting purposes, in the sub-tropics, is a consummation 

 devoutly to be wished. Climate is evidently not just 

 right for heavy breeds. 



I kept calling on poultrymen for years and years 

 to invent good methods of taking care of hens en- 

 gaged in sitting, but my appeals were largely in vain. 

 In all, volumes of diatribes against mother hens have 

 been written, though they are among objects most 

 worthy of admiration found in the entire realm of 

 animal life below the human race. " As a hen gath- 

 ereth her chickens under her wings " suggests a pic- 

 ture than which there can be no finer in nature in 

 the eyes of her true votaries. 



The latest depreciation of the use of sitting birds 

 I have seen is in the April issue of the Poultry 

 Advocate, from a writer who gives a very valuable 

 article, and is in part as follows : 



" As the nests were attended to, the hens fed and 

 watered, there were broken eggs discovered. This 

 called for fresh nest-filling, washing of the eggs that 

 remained whole, and sometimes the getting of a 

 fresh sitter. One of the hard things in hatching with 

 hens is the bowel trouble that comes from feeding 

 injured corn to them. . . More hens soil their 

 nests, more chicks die of bowel trouble, from musty 

 corn, than all other causes. If in any doubt as to 

 the corn — and you can not get other — bake it in the 

 kitchen oven till the color of it is slightly darkened. 

 Then cool and keep in dry box till needed." 



The baking advice is excellent; but this writer 

 has missed the most general cause of bowel trouble. 

 It occurs from lack of exercise in twenty cases to 



one of musty corn. Sitters closely confined are af- 

 flicted as described time and time again, while their 

 flock mates not engaged in sitting, but of the same 

 age and breed, and fed on the same corn exactly, 

 are exempt. 



Study the actions of a sitter off her nest of her 

 own will, with plenty of room to run and get up full 

 speed, and fly to the fence top, or upon some other 

 elevated object, and down again, and bustle around 

 generally, and hunt up her flock for a short visit, 

 and race back near her nest, then scamper away 

 again. Once I thought these antics were merely 

 manifestations of delight at respite from the irksome 

 restrain of sitting, but now I know better. They are 

 fraught with deep meaning like many other habits 

 of animals. Probably hens which steal their nests do 

 not have bowel trouble and foul their nests in one 

 case in a thousand. I will warrant not a reader 

 of this magazine ever knew of such a case. 



TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS. 



Our writer's other vexations are familiar to read- 

 ers. Hens do not return to their proper nests, for 

 instance. The hen which steals her nest makes no 

 such mistake. Her brain k loaded to the limit with 

 thoughts about her nest, and her previous nest. She 

 spent lots of time considering the matter in the first 

 place, and compared various localities before she laid 

 an egg. All her actions proceed like clockwork if 

 she is not " taken off by hand " and " put back," 

 and stirred up and confused generally. The more she 

 is handled and made anxious about her nest, the 

 worse she behaves. Even if she is quite a tame speci- 

 men, and not nervous on ordinary occasions, she is 

 excited when the sitting fever is on. The love for 

 her eggs is almost as strong as love for actual chicks, 

 and all the fine program of nature is disarranged 

 by a " brain storm." 



What if some way could be contrived by which 

 sitters could be let severely alone after eggs were 

 assigned, all the time till hatching begins, just as if 

 they had stolen their nests ! Eureka I All fussing 

 not only menaces success and vexes the poultryman, 

 but takes up so much time as to mean good-by to 

 profits. 



Contrive some way of letting sitters alone, and 

 they will regularly air and turn their eggs and carry 

 out the whole of nature's exquisite program just as 

 the one which steals her nest does. 



You perhaps gather from the above that 

 both writers refer to an arrangement for 

 confining the sitting hen to a little yard or 

 yards. Let me digress enough to say that 

 it is virtually the same thing we frequently 

 see advertised — the " natural-hen incubator, 

 for only $3.00." I have shown it up again 

 and again in years past ; but still the adver- 

 tisements are seen in a great part of our 

 poultry journals. Briefly, the man has no 

 incubator to sell at $3.00 or any other price, 

 and he never had one. All he has to sell 

 is a single sheet of paper — price $1.00 ; and 

 if you do not buy immediately he will come 

 down to 50 cents and then to 25, for his 

 wonderful sheet of paper. He just tells 

 how to give each sitting hen a little door- 

 yard where she can eat and drink and take 

 a little exercise. Now, friend Stoddard's 

 plan as described in the June number of 

 the American Poultry Journal is to make 

 these yards a good deal longer. They may 

 be three feet wide or less, and as long as 



