CHAPTER VIII 



HOW TO BUILD AN INCUBATOR CELLAR 



While we do not have the extremes of cold and heat they do in the 

 east, it is necessary to have a place for incubation where an even 

 temperature can be maintained the year round. To get this we must 

 be partly underground. The very best material to build an incubator 

 cellar with is hollow cement blocks. And these can be bought almost 

 as cheaply as buying cement and having a man to build a wall. The 

 wall should be from twelve to eighteen inches above the ground and 

 four to five feet under ground. The size must be determined by the 

 number of machines you wish to run, but always allow for expansion, 

 for expansion is inevitable sooner or later; you never stand still in 

 the chicken business. Put your windows in the space above ground 

 allowing one for every ten feet of surface, but so arranged that you 

 have windows on all four sides. Hinge the windows on the inside and 

 at the bottom, then put fly screens outside. By this arrangement you 

 have good ventilation and if the wind is blowing from one direction 

 the window on that side can be closed, leaving the ventilators on the 

 other three sides still on the job. There will never be any smell of 

 oil or smoke in a cellar of this kind and the operator can attend to 

 everything from the inside. If you fail to get good hatches in a cellar 

 built like this, there is something wrong somewhere else. 



The upper part of the building can be used as a store room or a 

 packing room. But to economize, the space should be used for some- 

 thing connected with the business. Land is too valuable to lie idle, 

 and having the foundation of a building already to hand, it is cheaper 

 and better to run up a lumber building over the cellar. A feed room 

 is a necessity and it would not cost very much in connection with the 

 incubator cellar. 



