234 EESOFRCES OF CALIFOENIA. 



Each nest has some hay in it and a mock egg of porcelain. 

 Several times in the course of a day, the eggs are taken out 

 and placed in a covered box near at hand. Four or five hens 

 may use the same nest in the course of a day, and if the eggs 

 were left in the nest the warmth might start the development 

 of the chick, and injure the egg for either hatching or eating. 

 It is considered bad policy to let a hen sit on eggs while lay- 

 ing, even if she is to hatch them herself, for some will be far- 

 ther advanced in incubation than others, and then the propor- 

 tion of loss will be great. Over the laying department is the 

 roosting place, which is eighteen feet high, and his the perches 

 so fixed that the droppings of one hen do not fall on another 

 A stairway leads up from the ground to the roosting chamber 

 In the lower story of another house is the hatching dejDart- 

 ment, with nests for six hundred hens. The nests are about a 

 foot square, with a door in front, opening on a level with the 

 floor. They are numbered and divided into sections, each of 

 which has one door, and has hens which commenced sitting at 

 the same date. The hens are fed by sections ; ten, twenty or 

 thirty being let out at a time, and called to eat. When first 

 called they do not understand it, and after they have eaten, 

 they have difficulty in finding their places ; but in three or four 

 days they come out immediately as soon as the door is opened, 

 and when the signal for closing is given, they go to their places 

 without the least confusion. About a dozen eggs, usually not 

 more than four, and never more than ten days old, are given to 

 each sitting hen, and of this dozen, nine or ten are hatched on 

 an average. Every nest has snuff" in the bottom of it to keep out 

 the lice. When the hen has hatched out her bi'ood, she and 

 they are transferred to the "young-chick room," over the 

 hatching room, where every hen is put in a pen. During the 

 first twenty-four hours the little chicks get nothing to eat ; 

 then they are fed twice on fine bread, after that on boiled rice 

 and corn-meal. They are fed four times a day. When five 

 days old, the chicks, with their mother, are placed in the 

 smaller enclosure of the poultry-yard, which has several 



