32 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE GEORGIA. 



tial exposure of an egg would prove destructive of the chick, fifteen 

 eggs are enough for a large hen and thirteen for a small one. 



Later in the season, when the thermometer ranges from 70 at 

 night to 80 C or 90 at noon, nineteen or twenty -one may he set 

 under the hens of the larger breeds and fifteen under those of the 

 small breeds. 



The eggs should be frequently examined, and if any have been 

 broken those remaining should be carefully washed in milk-warm 

 water, and, as promptly as possible, gently wiped and returned to 

 the hen. If this is not done, the chicks will die in all of the eggs to 

 which any considerable quantity of the contents of the broken ones 

 has adhered. Whether this results from the stifling odor of the 

 decaying eggs or from suffocation by closing the pores of the shells, 

 is not known, but the fact is known to every experienced poultry 

 raiser, though the remedy is seldom applied. 



If hens are set upon nests with plank bottoms it will be found 

 advantageous to sprinkle the eggs with tepid water daily during 

 the last week of the incubation. During very dry spells this will 

 be found to be beneficial even when the nests have dirt bottoms, 

 unless the hen seeks her food, while off, in grass, wet with dew. 



If nothing goes apparently wrong with the hen, it is best to dis- 

 turb her as little as possible during her incubation. When hatching 

 commences all that is necessary is to remove the shells that have 

 hatched to prevent them from covering the pipped eggs and stifling 

 the chicks. It will sometimes be necessary, if the hatching is con- 

 tinued longer than twenty-four hours, to feed the hen to prevent 

 her from leaving her nest before the hatching is completed. 



The best food for the young chicks, for the first few days, is 

 hard boiled eggs, but very few will be willing to use eggs in this 

 way. An excellent food for them is curds, or plain corn bread 

 crumbled in buttermilk or clabber. Soft, sticky, raw dough should 

 never be fed to young fowls, and is not proper food for adults. 

 Wheat bran, or shorts, mixed with corn meal and not made too 

 wet, or baked into bread, will be found suitable food for growing 

 chicks and adults as a morning feed. If they have a liberal range, 

 two meals a day will be sufficient, giving dry dough, or bread, in 

 the morning, and grain of some kind just before they go to roost. 

 If fed on meal at night it is so rapidly digested that the crop be- 

 comes empty before morning, and the birds consequently suffer. 



