20 EGU MONEY 



finement in overheated brooder houses and lack of sufficient 

 exercise in pure air have seldom produced a developed chick 

 with the constitution and vigor required tc make it a first 

 rank egg producer. 



Conditions That Affect the Hatch. 



Oftentimes a lack of success in rearing the chicks is 

 attributed to improper brooding or feeding when the real 

 fault lies in the manner of incubating. When the hatching 

 is done by healthy hens which perform their work faith- 

 fully, the chicks, as a rule, come from the shell strong and 

 vigorous. This is due in large measure to the fact that the 

 sitting hen is almost invariably surrounded by r.n atmos- 

 phere pretty near as pure as the outdoor air. This air, 

 circulating constantly through her plumage, lipplies to 

 the eggs that amount of oxygen which is highly important 

 to a successful hatch. Incubators are frequently operated 

 in cellars, rooms above ground or in especially constructed 

 incubator houses, where fresh air is pretty nearly excluded 

 in an endeavor to maintain a reasonably constant tem- 

 perature, or, in the early season, a fair degree of warmth. 

 However well an incubator may operate under such cir- 

 cumstances, it brings chicks out of the shell in no condition 

 to take up the business of proper growth and development. 

 A chick not well hatched is never a profit-maker. 



Healthful Brooding. 



Occasionally a hen avoids the best laid plans of her 

 owner and makes a nest for herself in a brush pile in a secluded 

 comer of the farm or perhaps under the floor of a poultry 

 house, lays there a sitting of eggs and in due time brings 

 off a flock of chicks. If she is not molested by her owner, 

 by four footed enemies or by hawks or crows, in nine chances 

 out of ten she will raise a large per cent of the chicks she 

 takes from the nest, without brood coop or other apparatus 

 of later day poultry keeping and ofttimes without any food 

 from her owner's bins. Chicks so raised are almost invaria- 

 bly strong. Their growth is not so rapid as is possible under 

 different conditions, but their development is thoroughly 

 normal and of the kind that accompanies health and vigor. 



