CHAPTER XXXI. 



BROODERS. 



Artificial brooding and rearing include three requi- 

 sites warmth, ventilation and exercise. In incubation 

 there is exercise ; for the chick or embryo uses its limbs, 

 or their rudiments, from the sixth day on, including the 

 vigorous kicks which complete the hatching. But as 

 this exercise takes care of itself, it is not included in the 

 list of incubation requisites, although moisture is. Cor- 

 respondingly, some moisture is needed in the air the 

 chicks breathe, but this matter takes care of itself and 

 is not included in the requisites, though exercise is. 

 Heat and ventilation are two requisites common to both 

 incubation and brooding. 



If artificial hatching, as carried on in the ordinary 

 commercial incubators, meets difficulty in regulating 

 moisture, artificial brooding meets with a still greater 

 difficulty in governing heat. If no regulator is used, the 

 chicks are almost sure to suffer, at one time or another, 

 from too much or too little heat, while if a regulator is 

 used, adjusted to some particular degree of heat, as it 

 must be, of course, if it is to be used at all, why every 

 time the birds run under or out of the hover, they 

 change the temperature, in spite of the regulator. 



We will try to explain this matter fully because it is 

 so seldom understood. The fact is, volumes have been 

 written on incubators, compared with single pages on 

 brooders. One. book has one hundred and seven pages 

 on the incubator and one-half a page on the brooder. 

 Notwithstanding, common consent has been given by 



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