No. 4.] SOUTH SHORE ROASTERS. 387 



hole. With this arrangement, and a bright sun, no exphmation of how 

 to test is necessary, for after one has tested a dozen eggs he can tell as 

 well as any one what is the condition of the eggs. 



Under the above conditions the airing or cooling of the eggs is not 

 practised, except when they get too warm, the theory — and it is well 

 borne out by experiments — being that if the room is well ventilated, 

 so that tlie air is kept good and the proper temperature maintained, 

 the embryo gets all that is needed through the natural circulation that 

 is taking place in this kind of an incubator all the time. On the other 

 hand, if the air is so vitiated that it feels close or "stuffy," and smells 

 strong of the fumes of the lamps, and so that one is glad to get out 

 after staying in there a few minutes (and many of the incubator rooms 

 are in just this condition), and the air in the incubator cannot possibly 

 be any better, in fact, not as good as the air in the room, it is quite 

 likely that a reasonable amount of airing is beneficial, but not the 

 cooling, unless the temperature is too hot. There is no question but 

 that the embryo chick needs oxygen, and that being an accepted fact, 

 it must be far better to give it good oxygen all of the time than to give 

 it inferior oxygen, and in spasmodic doses, at that. It makes quite a 

 difference, too, in what temperature they are aired, as well as at what 

 stage of the process; for to air them considerably where it is not too 

 cold, during the last week, will do no harm, and under some of the 

 above conditions will be of benefit, but to air them during the first 

 week is a great mistake, especially if the temperature is anything but 

 warm. 



The \vriter has been called many times to help poultrymen out of 

 different kinds of trouble, such as. Why do we not get better hatches? 

 Why do so many die in the shell? Why do they die so after we get 

 them in to the brooder? One of the most pronounced cases of the ill 

 effects of airing and cooling was where a party began to air the eggs 

 on the third day, where the temperature of the room was just 50° F., 

 for fifteen minutes, and I think twice per day at that, and this in a 

 room Avhere the ventilation was very good and they did not need 

 airing at all, and certainly did not need and could not stand the cool- 

 ing, for out of 8 fertile eggs tested on the seventh day thei'e Was but 

 one \We germ, and out of several hatches of 30 dozen eggs each he got 

 less than 1 dozen chicks per hatch. Through my advice he stopped 

 the airing scheme, and out of the next hatch he got 108 chicks from 

 180 eggs, and 43 from the other 180 eggs, and from this experiment he 

 also learned that there was trouble in the flocks that the 43 chicks came 

 from. Now, there is another who has derived more or less benefit 

 since he began to air the eggs, and a comparison of the conditions 

 \nll easily show why. In the first place, the ventilation is not near as 

 good as that of the first party, and then if the room is too cold he has 

 a little stove to warm it up. This is all now on the cooling practice, 

 but when we come to the brooding and rearing of the chicks I will 

 refer to it again. 



