32 GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF POULTRY. 



CHAPTER IV. 



INCUBATION. 



MUCH disappointment in the hatching and rearing of young 

 broods would be prevented were more care taken that the eggs 

 selected for setting were of good quality not only likely to be 

 fertile, but the produce of strong and hardy birds. This 

 remark applies to common barn-door poultry quite as much as 

 to the pure breeds. A friend once complained to us that 

 out of a dozen eggs only four or five had hatched ; and on inquiry 

 we found that the sitting had been procured from an inn-yard, 

 where, to our own knowledge, only one cock was running with 

 about twenty hens, from which, of course, no better result 

 could be expected. When the eggs have to be procured from 

 elsewhere, therefore, whatever be the class of fowls required, it 

 should first of all be ascertained that there is at least one cock 

 to every six or eight hens, and that he is a strong and lively 

 bird ; and next, that the fowls be not only of the kind desired, 

 but that they are well fed and taken care of. From scraggy, 

 half-starved birds it is impossible to rear a large brood, as the 

 greater number even of those hatched will die in infancy. It 

 only remains to ensure that the eggs be fresh, and a successful 

 hatching may be anticipated. 



"With regard to this latter point, eggs have been known to 

 hatch when two months old, or even more j but we would 

 never ourselves set, from choice, any egg which had been laid 

 more than a fortnight ; and after a Tnonth, or less, it is useless 

 trouble. Fresh eggs, if all be well, hatch out in good time, 

 and the chicks are strong and lively j the stale ones always 

 hatch last, being perhaps as much as two days later than new 

 laid, and the chickens are often too weak to break the shell. 

 We have also invariably noticed, when compelled to take a 

 portion of stale eggs to make up a sitting, that even when such 

 eggs have hatched, the subsequent deaths have principally 



