ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION I75 



is ever high and buoyant in the breast of the beginner, 

 who sees a brooder full of downy balls. Failure is 

 not thought of, or, if thought of at all, remotely. Yet 

 it often happens. 



To my mind, the most important time in artificial 

 hatching is from the eighteenth day until the chicks 

 .are all out of the shell. When the chicks begin to pip 

 the shells, do not open the door of the incubator, no 

 matter who^ wants to see in. The curious can 

 look through the glass door, which must satisfy them. 

 There have been more hatches spoiled by opening the 

 door during a hatch to satisfy the curious than you 

 are aware of. 



Keep up the heat, and see that it does not get 

 too high or too low, 105 degrees being about right. 

 But, if you don't watch, the mercury will run up to 

 no or more, or it may drop to below 103, or below 

 100, which is fatal to a good hatch. The cavtse of 

 so many dead chicks in the shell is due to letting the 

 Jieat run down, as well as to opening the door of the 

 incubator. If the heat gets too great, prop up the 

 ■cap of the lamp flue, and the heat will escape. It is 

 the heat escaping from the eggs and chicks which 

 ■causes the high temperature. 



Don't open the door to help chicks out of the 

 ■shell. Such chicks have little vitality, and rarely 

 ■amount to much. Besides, you might kill a dozen or 

 more in the shell in trying to help one to get out. 

 After the hatch is done (Figure 70), and you open 

 "the door, you can help those out of the shell which 

 are partly hatched but can't get out themselves. — 

 [J. H. Davis, Ohio. 



Where several incubators are run it is advisable 

 to have a building on purpose for them. This should 

 be partly underground, so as to be as cool as pos- 

 sible, for a half dozen lamps burning continuously 



