CHICKS FROM DYING IN THE SHELL 9 



egg chambers with fresh air, or in other words, oxygen. The eerg chambers 

 must have fresh air while your eggs are hatching or your chick will die in 

 the shell. I know that most of the instruction books say not to open your 

 incubator till the hatch is done. This is a grand mistake and you will find 

 it so if you will only investigate. There was not room enough in the nur- 

 sery of my incubator to hold all the chicks I would hatch at one time. My 

 incubator has nine ventilators, and then the chicks would open their 

 mouths and pant; I would have to remove them as fast as they became 

 strong enough. Too high a temperature at the beginning of the hatch 

 injures the embryo; that is why some eggs start, then die after a few days 

 of incubation. If the proper temperature has been maintained and some 

 die after a few days, those are eggs with weak germs and are doomed, 

 whether they die the first week or after incubation. 



Turning and Cooling the Egg 



WHEN placing the eggs in the incubator care should be taken to turn 

 each egg over, as you do not turn them again for twenty-four hours. 

 At ttye end of twenty-four hours turn them and change the outside 

 eggs to the center and the center eggs to the outside. You will have a 

 more even hatch by changing them in this way abou.t every four days dur- 

 ing the hatch. Do not cool the eggs the first time you turn them, only as 

 long as it takes to turn and change them from the outside to center. But 

 after this, cool them once and turn them twice a day, each day until the 

 eggs begin to pip; then do not cool or turn them any more. Always cool 

 your eggs in the morning; never in the evening, only as long as it takes 

 to turn them. When you cool them in the morning do not turn them till 

 they are cold, and just before you replace the trays in the egg chamber. 

 This is nature's way. If you will observe a hen you will find that she sel- 

 dom cools her eggs more than once a day, and that early in the morning, 

 and if vou will examine the eggs you will find they are perfectly cold. I 

 used to : advise cooling eggs twice a day, but found by experimenting that I 

 obtained better results by cooling but once, unless the temperature 

 runs too high during the day. Then take the trays out of the incubator 

 for a few minutes, so as to run the temperature down quickly. Avoid ex- 

 treme heat if possible. There is no given length of time to cool the eggs; 

 that depends on the temperature of the room in which the incubator is 

 located, and will have to be governed entirely by the operator. Just leave 

 them out of the incubator till they feel not cool but cold to your face. 

 There need be no fears that this cooling will do harm; the chicks will be 

 the stronger for it and a larger per cent will hatch. In May, June and 

 July, it takes longer for the eggs to cool than it does in March and April, 



