300 THE RURAL EFFICIENCY GUIDE STOCK 



better to let them off four or six at a time. Examine the eggs and nests and 

 clean them. Remove all broken eggs and wash soiled ones. Any soiled nesting 

 material should be removed and replaced by clean straw. Dirty nests soon become 

 infested with lice and mites and this makes the hens uneasy. If the nest is in- 

 fested with mites, the hen will generally stand over rather than sit on the eggs. 

 Many eggs laid in the late winter and early spring are infertile so it is advisable 

 to set several hens at the same time. The eggs should be tested after they have 

 been under the hens from five to seven days, depending on the color and thick- 

 ness of the shells White shelled eggs are easier to test than brown shelled ones. 

 The infertile and dead germed eggs should be removed and the fertile eggs put 

 back under the hen. When the eggs are tested, it is often possible to put the 

 eggs that several hens started under a few hens and to use the others. For 

 example, forty eggs are set under four hens at the same time, ten under each. 

 On the seventh day when testing we find that thirteen are infertile. This leaves 

 twenty-seven to be reset. We put these under three hens and have the fourth 

 hen to set over again after she has been setting only seven days. Much time can 

 be saved in one's hatching operations this way. 



Feeding Setting Hens. Setting hens should be fed well. Their feed 

 should be mostly whole grain such as wheat, oats and corn. They require food 

 for their bodily maintenance. Very little meat or vegetable food should be 

 given. The meat food would be inclined to make them want to quit setting 

 to begin laying and the vegetable food would tend to loosen the bowels. 

 Feed the grain in hoppers and supply fresh water in a clean vessel. 



Taking Chicks from Nest. Chicks should be taken from the nest about 

 twenty-four hours after the first ones are hatched. They generally want to get 

 out from under the hen and begin moving about when no more than a day old. 

 This will often make the hen restless and cause her to leave the nest. 



Incubation. 



Incubators vs. Hens. Incubators as a rule give better service than we 

 think. Most people expect entirely too much from a machine. They read only 

 about the big hatches as the failures are seldom printed. In comparing incubator 

 hatches with those of hens, we forget the hens' failures. The average is not even 

 kept in ^ind, so of course, we are disappointed with anything less than a 90% 

 hatch. 



There is no way of knowing just how many of the eggs set under hens 

 hatch out, however, we believe that only about half of them produce strong chicks 

 and only about half of those live to market size. If these figures are at all near 

 the truth, a 50% incubator hatch should be satisfactory. Hundreds of people 

 report 50 to 80% hatches throughout the season. Incubators are steadily gain- 

 ing in popularity. People find that most of the trouble with incubators is due 

 to carelessness in operation rather than to any imperfection of the machine. 

 Since complete directions come with the machine, we shall not go into detail 

 here but shall give you a few points to keep in mind when using an incubator. 



