48 CALIFORNIA POULTRY PRACTICE 



Very little can be done to improve the hen's method of handling 

 eggs, but if the eggs should get dirty, they should be taken out and 

 washed, while the hen is feeding. Filth should always be washed off 

 eggs if they accumulate any. If the weather is dry and hot at hatch- 

 ing time the nest can be sprinkled with warm water and the hen will 

 do the rest. 



A Home Made Oat Sprouter 



Make a set of boxes, any size you wish, without bottom or top; 

 make a frame of two upright boards say six feet high and fourteen 

 inches wide, now nail cleats on these upright boards about 8 inches 

 apart; put a board on top as a stay and another on the bottom. This 

 is the frame for your bottomless boxes, so the boxes must fit the 

 frame. Now get double pointed tacks and good burlap and tack bur- 

 lap bottoms in your boxes, fill the boxes about four inches deep with 

 oats or barley that has been soaked several hours and sprinkle from 

 the top. It should be set out of the wind as much as possible against 

 some building, and in winter if you have a shed to put it in the sprouts 

 would grow quicker. 



Another Sprouter. Make a frame of Ix6-inch lumber 3 feet wide by 

 8 feet long. Place this frame on hard ground and spread inside a bushel 

 of oats that have been soaked over night. Cover the oats with 1 inch 

 of loose earth and water every day. When the sprouts show through 

 it is ready to feed. Then with a garden hoe, work under the roots, 

 pull them up straight and you will have the best egg maker on this con- 

 tinent. Every hoe full has a big lump of dirt on it and lots of small 

 animal life which the chickens will use to good advantage. 



How to Build a Cheap Trap Nest 



A trap nest to be successful, must not only catch every hen that 

 enters, but must prevent the entrance of other hens. The one here 

 shown does that to perfection and is very simple to understand, as well 

 as to construct. In constructing one of these trap nests the gate is 

 made of thin boards, cleated top and bottom, and should be about 

 12x18 inches. A hole is sawed in the lower half 8 inches square. A 

 small gate is made by connecting two pieces of wood together with 

 three wires 8 inches long. Holes are bored in each end of these pieces 

 of wood, so the gate may slide up and down on two upright wires that 

 are fastened to the gate cleats. This gate is held up by a wire trigger, 

 having a shoulder bent on one end, on which the gate rests when 

 open. The closed door shows that the same kind of a wire shoulder is 

 used to fasten the door, which is done by simply pushing it shut. To 

 open the door this latch is raised with the thumb until the door is re- 

 leased. 



These doors may be fitted to any kind of a box or barrel, but it is 

 best to nail a 1x4 up edgewise across the box, about 4 inches from the 



