CHAPTER XXIX. 



CARE OF THE EGGS. 



As we have seen, the hen changes the position of the 

 eggs, thus varying the heat they receive, but under no 

 circumstances can she ever make them too hot; unlike 

 the artificial incubator which may be capable of reach- 

 ing 105, 110 or 120, thus killing the germs out and out, 

 or, what is worse, causing imperfect chicks to be thrown 

 on the unavailing care of their owner. Chicks may be 

 hatched after a fashion and not be well hatched. The 

 decree of nature is that the eggs may, from time to 

 time, be held at a point several degrees below the nor- 

 mal maximum without material injury, thus allowing 

 the sitting hen to forage for a living, but a decided 

 departure above that normal is detrimental or positively 

 fatal. 



The effect of too much or too protracted cooling is to 

 add to the whole term of hatching. The hen may be 

 shut out of her nest for twenty-four hours in moderately 

 cool weather and the eggs and nest become so chilled 

 that no heat whatever can be detected by the sense of 

 feeling, yet eleven eggs out of twelve may hatch at the 

 end of the twenty-second day, however, instead of the 

 middle of the twenty-first, as the vvriter has repeatedly 

 demonstrated. If the weather is decidedly summery, 

 thirty-six hours of desertion may not be sufficient to 

 extinguish life, a fact the ignorance of which has often 

 led people to unnecessarily destroy partially hatched 

 eggs. On the other hand the thorough heating through 

 and through of eggs to 108, a situation which, as before 



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