346 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



of his matings, learn to trace cause and effect, and provide 

 better surroundings and conditions than the fowls have 

 previously been accustomed to. 



Hatching and raising the Chicks. 



If only one hundred or two hundred chicks are to be raised 

 each year, it is certainly a safe and wise plan to depend 

 upon hens to do the hatching and brooding. Pullets which 

 prove to be good sitters and mothers may usually be de- 

 pended upon to do still better in these respects the next 

 year. If a hen house or room in some farm building is 

 available, an excellent plan is to place a large number of 

 nests in it, and devote the same to the exclusive use of the 

 sitting hens during the hatching season. Orange crates or 

 soap boxes will answer for nests if the poultryman wishes to 

 be very economical. Each nest should be yji-ovided with a 

 lattice door in front. I like the idea of placing in the box 

 two or three inches of loam beneath the nesting material, 

 which usually consists of soft hay or cut straw. If con- 

 venient, move the broody hens at night to their new nests, 

 and allow them to sit for a day on nest eggs, unless you are 

 sure enough of their good character as sitters to immediately 

 place under them the eggs which they are to incubate. Re- 

 move the hens from their nests daily at a regular time, 

 supplying them with fresh water, whole corn or other grain, 

 and provide an abundance of dry, fine soil, so that the fowls 

 can freely and fully dust themselves. Use plenty of Pyre- 

 thrum powder or other insect destroyer in the nests and on 

 the fowls, working it thoroughly in among their feathers. 

 Spray the room once a week with a one per cent solution 

 of carbolic acid, and remove or cover with dust the drop- 

 pings of the fowls. Keep the room well ventilated, — in 

 fact, make the conditions continuously healthy. 



If by using hens the chicks are not hatched sufficiently 

 early in the season or in large enough numbers, or if you 

 think that the hens can better employ their time in laying 

 eggs than in hatching them, you are not forbidden to pro- 

 cure an incubator and brooder, or, in fact, several of them, 

 provided the business warrants the expenditure of capital 

 for this purpose. It is easy to learn to run an incubator. 



