SUCCESSFUL CHICK GROWING 



and eggs and not leave it for forty-eight hours. Nor should 

 she be disturbed for that length of time, that the germs may 

 get a good start, for during the first forty-eight hours more 

 germs are killed than during any other period of incubation 

 under hens. 



After two days I should gently remove each hen each day 

 for fifteen to twenty minutes, until she would come off by her- 

 self when her nest was opened for her each morning. If they 

 are taught to come off daily they will stay off but a short time 

 and if properly fed their bowels seldom become deranged. They 

 even take on flesh while incubating. When it can be so arrang- 

 ed that the place or room where they are nesting can be at a 

 temperature of 45 degrees, then we can hatch in winter as well 

 as in spring— if the eggs are gathered before the germs are 

 chilled. Oftentimes the eggs are declared infertile when the 

 trouble is that they have not been gathered often enough 

 through the wintry day to save the germs from chilling. The 

 woman who had the best success raising chickens for me never 

 allowed the hens to come off the nests by themselves. She 

 took them off each day and returned them in fifteen minutes. 

 Almost invariably all the eggs had chickens in them and nearly 

 all the eggs hatched. She it was who raised for me twenty-two 

 Brahmas, in two broods which weighed 53 10-16ths pounds in 

 sixty-one days and at 100 days old weighed 107 pounds. 



INDIVIDUAL COOPS 



In any latitude after the middle of April, or at any time 

 after the frost is out of the ground, the very best plan is to 

 arrange a little coop and yard that is to be occupied by the 



ARRANGEMENT OF NESTS FOR SITTING HENS 



By the use of the arrangement of nests illustrated above one is enabled to readily care for ten 

 sitting hens. Fully described by Mr. Felch. 



brood when hatched, and form the nest upon the ground. Fill 

 the ground with boiling water, make the nest of chaff and hay 

 not over ah inch deep and set your hen. The moisture in the 

 earth will help to secure a good hatch. If during incubation 

 the weather has been very dry, pour water around the nest the 

 17th or 18th day — ^it may save one or more chicks from stick- 

 ing in the shell. In case you use this kind of nest, see that the 

 hen comes off daily for two or three days after the second day 

 and she wiU form the habit of coming off at a regular time — if 

 you are regular in giving her fresh water and feed. 



FOOD FOR SITTING HENS 



Let her food while incubating be principally wheat, with a 

 little corn and oats. If set inside a, house furnish her a grass 

 sod or have the coop so slatted that she can reach through and 

 get the grass. I repeat, be sure she has vegetable growth, grit, 

 wheat, oats and a Uttle com while incubating, and see to it that 

 she leaves the nest daily for at least fifteen days. 



TEMPERATURE OF BROODING HENS 



The hen that hatches the eggs in twenty-one days will have 

 a healthier, hardier brood than the one that hatches in nineteen 



days or that continues the work to the twenty-third or twenty- 

 fourth day, which often occurs with sitters of low temperature. 

 It is folly to set a hen of low temperature in winter or one of 

 high temperature in summer, for both will rot the eggs and give 

 you no chicks. In selecting a hen in winter one used to it can 

 tell by feeling the lower body if she should be set. If it feels 

 bare and hot she is the one you want but put no more eggs 

 under he than will touch her bare skin. If more eggs are set 

 the chances are that in her turning them several will get beyond 

 her body, a cold night will freeze the germs and before the three 

 weeks are up half the germs will be killed. If care is not taken 

 to secure a hen with this proper heat, bad results are often the 

 case. How often we hear men say: "I set three hens on eggs from 

 the same breeders; two gave me good broods, the other not a 

 chick." It is often the case that a hen sticks to th • nest and 

 apparently bids fair to be a good hatcher, yet she has not heat 

 enough even to start the germs. Now suppose you set her with 

 several others in similar nests. During the three weeks she 

 changes nests with one or more, thus spoiUng not only the hatch 

 of her own nestful of eggs, but one or more of the others. Or 

 she retards the hatch to 24 or 25 days, and several cripples come 

 out, with more or less chicks that do not grow up to be average 

 specimens of the breed. All this one worthless hen and careless 

 owner can accomplish and such poultry keepers are the ones 

 loudest in favor of incubator raised chicks. 



Now, my reader, you can save all this trouble by care and 

 forethought, by attending to the little things. One may care 

 for a dozen incubating hens as easily and in the same time as 

 he can for one or two. He may give up a room to ten or twenty 



sitters and arrange a tier of nests Uke the 



accompanying cut. 



TIER OF NESTS FOR SITTING HENS 



These nests are fifteen inches square, 

 fitted with sods the under sides of which 

 are scooped out two inches deep for a 

 space 9 by 7 inches near the center of 

 the sod. The bottom of the scoop should 

 be flat. Place the sod, grass side up in 

 the nest and press down the portion above 

 the excavation. Cover the bottom of the 

 nest with tobacco dust and carboUc lime 

 and build the nest not over one inch thick 

 with soft hay and chaff. To do the work 

 most satisfactorily, wait tiU you have 

 ten hens that wish to sit. Warm a few 

 dozen china eggs and place the hens upon them. If they 

 settle down you are safe to put the warm eggs under them. 

 You can care for those hens in fifteen minutes each day 

 by gently removing them, closing the door for fifteen minutes, 

 then dropping the door which becomes an incUned plane for 

 them to walk up into their nests. Those that do not, you 

 can forcibly return, and then close the door until the next 

 day. You can care for twenty hens in a few minutes. 

 While the hens are off you have time to cleanse the nests 

 that have been fouled and to remove any hens that have 

 sickened from any cause, but when removed daily few will be- 

 come sick. When these ten birds have hatched their eggs give 

 to each eleven chicks until the number of chicks is exhausted 

 and reset the hens thus relieved from raising a brood. 



In the foregoing pages I have given the feeding formulas 

 for feeding young chicks. As fast as you have eleven well 

 dried chicks remove a hen with them to larger boxes that have 

 ample hay and chaff in the bottom and feed her with cake made 

 from our formula. No. 1. It must be baked hard and then 

 crumbled into scalded milk, with the pulverized egg shells. 

 She will settle down to her box for twelve hours or more. 



145 



