SIMPLE ARTIFICIAL MOTH K US. 87 



to bring up chickens by hand, even when they have been 

 naturally hatched ; believing that under the shelter provided* 

 and not being forced to accompany the hen in her rambles, a 

 greater portion are reared, that they grow faster, and make 

 ultimately finer fowls. 



All this is quite independent of the immense numbers of 

 chickens now hatched annually in incubators, for which 

 artificial rearing is almost indispensable. 



For chickens hatched towards the end of April, or later, 

 the very simplest form of artificial mother may be made to 

 answer, since in such weather their own animal heat alone is 

 sufficient. Many an odd brood has been reared through May 

 by rigging up a mother out of a piece of sheep-skin mat, tacked 

 round the edges only to a board about nine inches wide and 

 fifteen inches long, so as to fall a little slack by its own weight 

 when turned with the wool downwards. If this board is 

 nailed on two end pieces cut so that it may slope from about 

 four inches high 'in front to about two inches behind, the back 

 bring filled in with another strip of wood two inches high, it 

 will do very well, if set upon dry earth or ashes, renewed 

 perfectly clean every night and morning. Occasionally, 

 however, a chick will entangle and hang itself in the wool ; 

 and a better way of making the covering is to sew a number of 

 flannel strips about two and a half inches long and three- 

 quarters of an inch wide by one end to a piece of canvas. 

 They cannot get entangled with these, and, moreover, the 

 flannel strips are more easily cleaned, which is done by turning 

 the inside up and well shaking clean dry earth into it every 

 day, afterwards shaking it free. 



But only late chickens can be reared in this simple way. For 

 earlier ones some heat is required, and the first great stimulus 

 to artificial rearing in this country was given by an apparatus 

 brought out, about 1873, by Mrs. Frank Cheshire, a section of 

 which is shown in Fig. 21. 



