82 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 or 90 at noon, nineteen or twenty-one may be set 

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

 smaller 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 hatch- 

 ing 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 becomes empty before 

 morning, and the birds consequently suffer. 



