MANAGEMENT OF FOWLS 95 



should be of good size and shape, with good strong shells, and as 

 uniform in color as can be obtained. The usual number of eggs 

 placed under a hen is thirteen. After the weather becomes warm, 

 even a small hen will cover thirteen eggs well, and medium-sized 

 hens will cover fifteen or sixteen eggs and often hatch every 

 one, but early in the season it is better to give a hen eleven 

 eggs or perhaps only nine. The number of eggs given a hen is 

 almost always an odd number. There is an old superstition that 

 an even number will not hatch. The reason commonly given 

 by writers on poultry is that an odd number of eggs arrange 

 in better form in the nest, but this is mere fancy. How- 

 ever the practice started, the real reason why odd numbers of 

 eggs are placed in nests of sitting hens now is that the custom 

 is so well established, and the habit of thinking of eggs for hatch- 

 ing in odd numbers is so strong, that most poultry keepers do it 

 unconsciously. 



Care of sitting hens. The best food for sitting hens is whole 

 corn. As the hen will leave the nest only once a day, and not 

 always daily unless removed, the food is given in a vessel from 

 which she can eat it readily. The usual way is to keep a supply 

 where the hens are, so that whenever they leave the nest they 

 can get something to eat. Whether to let them choose their 

 own time to leave the nest or to keep the nests closed except 

 when they are let off at a regular time each day is a point to be 

 determined in each case according to the circumstances. If all 

 the hens in the same place are quiet and get along well together 

 and do not quarrel for the possession of particular nests, they 

 may be left very much to themselves ; otherwise the poultry 

 keeper should regulate things so that there will be no quar- 

 reling and no danger of a nest of eggs getting cold while two 

 hens crowd on another nest and break some of the eggs in it. 



Besides grain the hens need water and a place to dust. Most 

 sitting hens will dust themselves every time they leave the nest, 

 if they have an opportunity to do so. As lice multiply rapidly 



