INTRODUCTION 



PERSON who is at all well informed will not dis- 

 pute the claim that the poultry business in the 

 United States is now an important national 

 industry. As a matter of fact, it is one of the 

 most important, not alone in this, but in every 

 other civilized country, for poultry and eggs 

 are much esteemed the world around as a highly 

 nutritious and palatable human food. These 

 articles are admitted to have only one rival as a natural, com- 

 plete and nutritious food, namely, milk and milk-products. 

 The poultry industry rests solidly upon the actual value of 

 poultry and eggs as food and will endure, therefore, as long as 

 mankind exists. Its future will be identical, in a true sense, 

 with that of the human race. Increase of population will 

 mean a corresponding increase in the production of these well- 

 nigh indispensible food products. 



Just how much the modem incubator and brooder have 

 had to do with the recent rapid development of the poultry in- 

 dustry in this and other countries is hard to estimate, but un- 

 questionably they have been one of the most important factors. 

 Hatching chickens by artificial means is almost as old as history, 

 for it was practiced before the dawn of the Christian Era and 

 has been practiced continuously in Egypt, China and other 

 oriental countries down to the present day For an authen- 

 tic account of how hen eggs are hatched at present by artificial 

 Tneans in Egypt, see report of the United States consul in the 

 following pages. For many years past, in fact, during at least 

 ^hree or four centuries, chickens have been hatched artificially 

 in European countries, notably in France, England, Belgium 

 and Denmark; but it has remained for Yankee genius to modern- 

 ize and practically perfect the present popular-sized incubators 

 rand brooders and to devise ways and means of hatching and 

 a-aising chicks in large numbers by their use on the city lot, the 

 village acre and ihe ordinary farm. 



There is no longer room to doubt that the incubator and 

 brooder method of hatching and raising chickens and duck- 

 lings is a marked improvement over the hen method. It is an 

 improvement in the sense that it is cheaper, also that it is better, 

 also that a far greater number of chickens and ducks can be rais- 

 ed by the use of incubators than could profitably be raised with 

 hens. The reader of this book will learn that broiler plants 

 now exist and are being successfully operated in this country 

 where thousands of chickens are raised in limited quarters by 

 artificial means, and that duck ranches ex^st and are in success- 

 ful operation where from twenty to fifty thousand ducklings 

 are raised each season. All these chickens and ducklings are 

 produced by artificial means and it would be practically im- 

 possible to produce the same number by the hen method. To 

 do so would require many acres of land, thousands of square 

 feet of building and a small army of men and women to take 

 care of the hens. The invention and perfection of the modern 

 incubator has made all this possible, hence so far as the market 

 poultry business is concerned, it owes a very great deal to arti- 

 ficial incubating and brooding. 



When we come to consider the incubator and brooder on 

 an ordinary farm, the thought suggests itself and gradually 

 takes the form of actual belief that sooner or later the incuba- 

 tor and brooder will supplant the hen as a sitter and mother in 

 the production of poultry, for it is well known that on hundreds, 

 yes, thousands of farms, taking the country over, the hen meth- 

 od has already been abandoned by the farmer and his wife, 

 and incubators and brooders are being used simply and solely 

 because they do better work with less labor, hence are more pro- 

 fitable. The number of farms on which this condition exists is 



increasing from year to year and the question arises, "How long 

 will it be before every intelligent and progressive farmer or 

 farmer's wife who wishes to better his or her condition, will 

 find other and more profitable work for the hen to do than to 

 sit on her eggs and serve as mother to a brood of chicks for a 

 mmiber of weeks, and will call to their assistance the artificial 

 hen and mother — modem inventions that are able to do the 

 work better and cheaper?" 



We believe it is only a question of a comparatively short 

 time when the American hen will be used almost exclusively 

 for the production of eggs, rather than have her valuable 

 time wasted in doing work that can be done better and cheaper 

 by artificial means. The hen has a monoply in the production 

 of eggs. We can hatch her eggs for her and raise her chicks, 

 but we cannot manufacture eggs that will hatch. She will 

 always be in demand, therefore, and it is plainly to the advant- 

 age of poultry keepers to use her exclusively for egg production. 



The following extract is taken from a report on artificial 

 incubation and the annual egg yield per hen, appearing in the 

 United States Statistics of Agriculture for 1902, based on the 

 census of 1900, published by the Department of Agriculture, 

 Washington, D. C: 



"The continued use of the incubator tends to make the 

 hen forget, in a measure, her maternal instinct. This fact 

 assumes gigantic importance when it is remembered that it has 

 been discovered that there are 600 embryo eggs in the ovary 

 of the hen. It has been further ascertained that two-thirds of 

 this number can be secured in the first two years of the hen's 

 life, provided suitable measurers are employed. If the tendency 

 to become 'broody' can be suppressed and more time can be 

 given to egg laying, incubation being left to the artificial incub- 

 ator, and if, in addition, egg producing food be fed, the problem 

 of getting the greatest number of eggs from the hen in the first 

 two years of her life will be very near solution." 



The question is, how many of these 600 embryo eggs can 

 we coax out of record layers during the first two years of their 

 laying period, meaning from the time they are six months to 

 thirty months old? That is the important point for practical 

 poultrymen to consider, and clearly it is one of absorbing in- 

 terest and far-reaching importance. 



Do we rightly appreciate the importance of this question? 

 Let us see if we do. The government statistics, based on the 

 census of 1900, report that the average egg yield per hen on the 

 farms in the United States during the year 1899 was 5 5-10 doz- 

 en, or sixty-six eggs per hen. 



On the other hand. Prof. G. M. Gowell, of the Maine Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station, reports that by proper feeding, 

 by the use of trap nests which unfailingly record the best layers 

 of a flock, and by discarding the poor layers, they have produc- 

 ed a hen with a record of 251 eggs in 365 days and scores of 

 them with records ranging from 200 to 251. 



Notwithstanding the improvement made in the past five 

 years, it is doubtful if the average hen on the average Ameri- 

 can farm, where she is still used as a sitter and mother, lays to 

 exceed one hundred eggs during three hundred and sixty-five 

 days; indeed, it is doubtful if she lays more than six or seven 

 dozen eggs during the year. Poultrymen the country over 

 have repeatedly demonstrated that an average flock of stand- 

 ard-bred fowls can be induced to lay from one hundred and fifty 

 to two hundred eggs per year, imder proper treatment. When 

 we consider that the hens of America laid during the year 

 1890 over six hundred million dozen eggs, we obtain a glimpse 

 of the national loss resulting from the average hen laying only 

 seventy-five to one hundred eggs per year, when she could have 



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