32 NATURE AND ITS 



ter results are had by doing so. With hens eggs start the 

 incubator at 101^ degrees the first week with thermometer 

 bulb between the eggs. Do not stand the thermometer up, 

 but lay it down between the eggs with the top a little above 

 the bulb end, so you can see it without opening the door. 

 On the second day turn the eggs, each and every one. Mark 

 the eggs and you can see when they are all turned. Now, 

 air these eggs ten to fifteen minutes every day for a week 

 and turn every egg twice a day. During the second week 

 turn the eggs three times a day and the thermometer should 

 show 102|. Air the eggs twenty minutes every other day. 

 During the third week turn the eggs three times a day and 

 air them every other day forty minutes in hot weather, and 

 an hour on the alternate days. The thermometer should 

 show 103| degrees the last week. On the nineteenth day 

 stop airing and turning. The air space should then be one- 

 third of the egg. The chick should pip the shell on the 

 morning of the twentieth day. 



Now when the chicks come out on the twenty-first day 

 close up all the ventilators. This keeps in the moisture from 

 the chicks after breaking the shell. If you don't close the 

 ventilators the air passes through and carries out the mois- 

 ture, and moisture you must have just at this time. You 

 should try to get along without putting in water for mois- 

 ture as it drowns the chicks in the egg by too much moisture. 

 The water, together with the heat makes the chicks grow 

 too fast in the eggs and they cannot break the shells. 



When the chicks are all hatched, which should be on the 

 twenty-first day, open all the ventilators. Any chick which 

 hatches after the twenty-first day is weakly and not worth 

 saving, and will die sooner or later. When the chicks have 

 been in the incubator fifteen hours and are all dry open the 

 incubator door a little. This is to get them used to the out- 

 side air. In opening the door the thermometer should 

 show 95 degrees in the rear of the incubator one inch from 

 the floor. When the chicks are thirty hours old, take them 

 out and put them in a box with sand on the floor, and a 



