decs FOR HATCHING. 43 



on circumstances, and must be diminished for very large 

 breeds or for confinement, or for winter -and very early 

 spring, or for a cock in his second or later years. On a 

 wide range in summer a Houdan cockerel might have 

 20 hens, but an adult Brahma cock in February ought not 

 to have more than three, and never more than five or six, 

 even on good range. 



Eggs have been known to hatch when two months old ; 

 but we would never set, from choice, any egg which had 

 been laid more than a fortnight ; and after a month, or less, 

 it is useless trouble. Fresh eggs, if all be well, hatch out in 

 good time, and the chicks are strong and lively ; 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 sub- 

 sequent deaths have principally occurred in this portion of 

 the brood ; but that if none of the eggs were more than 

 four or five days old, they not only hatched nearly every 

 one, and within an hour or two of each other, but the losses 

 in an ordinary season were few. 



There is one partial exception to this statement, which is 

 only generally true in reference to breeding at the natural 

 seasons. Nature does not, however, intend fowls to breed 

 in winter ; and during that season and very early spring, 

 the male birds are far less vigorous. This is partly shown 

 in sterile eggs, which need no comment. But growth in 

 the egg and final hatching out are as much tests of and 

 taxes upon strength, as anything in the future lives of the 

 chickens ; and hence many eggs which begin to develop, 

 have not strength to finish, or if they do, may not have 

 muscular strength for what is really the great exertion of 

 final hatching. 



