^BROILERS AND ROASTERS. 59. 



machines, not habitual carelessness and neglect, but 

 occasional. Some manufacturers may be to some degree 

 responsible for the general impression among those who 

 have not learned differently through experience, that an 

 incubator can go for twenty-four hours or more without 

 attention. True, it may be left that long without anything 

 going wrong, but the experienced operator learns to take 

 no chances of that kind. Twice a day he goes through 

 the routine work of caring for his machines, but he keeps 

 an eye on them at convenient intervals between times as 

 well ; for some little thing may go wrong with a machine 

 at any time, and the loss of an incubator full of eggs is 

 quite an item. 



After giving his machine or machines such regular 

 attention as they require, and such incidental oversight as 

 is possible within reason the operator should study 

 his machines. He should learn how they behave under 

 different conditions, and how slight changes in moisture,, 

 ventilation, etc., affect them in operation, and also how 

 variations, whether accidental or intentional, seem to affect 

 the chicks in after life. The operator has to learn to oper- 

 ate machines, and each machine, under the particular con- 

 dition to which his machines are subject, and in doing this 

 he is in effect learning the precise application of the gen- 

 eral rules which the manufacturer has given for operating 

 his incubators that is, he is cultivating judgment in apply- 

 ing his instructions. 



It will greatly help a novice in incubation to draw right 

 conclusions from his experiences in artificial incubation, if 

 he can arrange to have one or two hens incubating simul- 

 taneously with some of his machines and on some of the- 



