112 THE CALL OF THE HEN. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



SELECTING THE SETTING HEN. 



"How can I select the best hen for the purpose when 

 I want to hatch chickens with hens?" 



The writer is asked the above question very often. It is 

 a serious matter with a poultryman when he has a small 

 number of choice eggs he wishes to hatch and gives them to 

 a hen that is apparently setting well only to have her spoil 

 most of them. He very naturally lays the cause to mites 

 or lice, or both. While it is true that the nests and sur- 

 roundings must be kept free from mites and the hens kept 

 clean from hen lice, the trouble is not all here by a good 

 deal. Sometimes a great deal of the fault lies in the hens. 

 Some are born layers, some are born mothers, and some are 

 born too lazy to get off of the nest at the call of Nature. 

 The hen born a typical egg type is of no use as a setter, neither 

 is the hen that is born a typical meat type; she is too lazy 

 to care for her chicks, even if she is fortunate enough to 

 hatch any and not kill them all by standing on them. She 

 is too stupid any way, and the typical egg-type hen is too 

 nervous and has no time to attend to them. She thinks 

 of nothing but manufacturing eggs. So we will have to 

 look for a hen between the above types, which we have in 

 the dual-purpose type, with the following characteristics: 



First, she must have prepotency large; that gives her the 

 mother instinct; next, she should be in normal condition, as 

 indicated by her breast-bone ; that is self-evident, for a hen out 

 of condition lacks more or less of the animal magnetism that 

 is an aid to successful incubation. I need not mention good 

 health, as indicated by good red comb and wattles, as every- 

 one knows that. The hen should be four fingers abdomen, 

 since anything heavier is more or less liable to break the 

 eggs and anything less than that would not be large enough 

 to cover sufficient eggs. If the Hen is a three-finger abdomen 

 hen, her pelvic bones should be about 7 /ie or J / 2 of an inch 

 thick; if she is a four-finger abdomen hen, her pelvic bones 



