Poultry 433 



The poultry specialists of the United States Department 

 of Agriculture make the following suggestions about natural 

 incubation : 



" If several hens are sitting in the same room, see that they 

 are kept on the nests, allowing them to come off only once a 

 day to receive feed and water, the feed to consist of corn, wheat, 

 or both. If there are any that do not desire to come off them- 

 selves, they should be taken off. Hens usually return to their 

 nests before there is any danger of the eggs chilling, but if they 

 do not go back in half an hour in ordinary weather, they should 

 be put on the nest. Where a large number of sitters are kept 

 in one room it is advisable to let them off in groups of from four 

 to six at a time. The eggs and nests should be examined and 

 cleaned, removing all broken eggs and washing those that are 

 soiled ; in the latter case the soiled nesting material should be 

 removed and clean straw added. Nests containing broken 

 eggs that the hen is allowed to sit on soon become infested with 

 mites and lice. These cause the hens to become uneasy and 

 leave the nest, and hence the loss of valuable sittings of eggs. 

 In mite-infested nests the hen, if fastened in, will often be found 

 standing over rather than sitting on the eggs. 



" Many eggs that are laid in the late winter and early spring 

 are infertile. For this reason it is advisable to set several hens 

 at the same time. After the eggs have been under the hens 

 from five to seven days, the time depending somewhat on the 

 color and thickness of the shells white-shelled eggs being 

 easier to test than those having brown shells they should 

 be tested, the infertile eggs and dead germs removed, and the 

 fertile eggs put back under the hen. In this way it is often 

 possible to put all the eggs that several hens originally started 

 to sit on under fewer hens and reset the others. For example, 

 thirty eggs are set under three hens at the same time, ten under 

 each. At the end of seven days we find on testing the eggs 

 from all the hens that ten are infertile, which leaves us twenty 

 eggs to reset, which we do by putting them under two hens 



