ANCIENT ARTIFICIAL INCUBATING 



sion only contains about 250 chicks, thus preventing over- 

 crowding. Two such cages will transport each 1,000 young 

 birds, so that a man with a donkey easily manages 2,000 of 

 them, and by nightfall has probably sold the entire lot at a dis- 

 tance of five or six miles from the establishment. 



Once in the village the chicks become the property of the 

 women, who take great care of them during the first week. 

 For two or three days they are kept in cages in lots of twenty 

 or thirty and fed on broken grains slightly moistened. At 

 night the cages are taken into the houses and sometimes cover- 

 ed with a bit of cloth. After these first few days the young birds 

 are strong enough to forage for a living; they are then allowed 

 to roam about freely and at night are kept in a sort of oven 

 placed in a comer of the courtyard. This oven is made of un- 

 bumt clay and in shape is like the letter U laid on 

 one side— see drawing. The top is slightly perfor- 

 ated. The entrance is closed by a heavy stone to 

 keep off foxes and other vermin. 



When the young chicks are fairly feathered 

 they are plucked perfectly clean and slightly 

 greased. This adds greatly to their health, but 

 detracts much from their beauty. It strikes a 

 stranger as something extremely novel to see 

 hundreds of perfectly naked chickens basking in 

 the sun or running about. 



It is difficult to get any exact figures as to 

 the nimiber of these incubatories, but judging 

 from those personally known to me, and their 

 distances apart, I should estimate the number at 

 150, with an average production of 300 000 per sea- 

 son. This estimate must be well within the mark, 



ovens. For this particular incubatory the attendants consist 

 of two men and a boy. 



In the month of January, about the 10th, fires are lighted 

 in all the ovens and on the floor of the central hall. The en- 

 tire building is thoroughly warmed to a temperature of 1 10 de- 

 grees Fahrenheit. This heat is continued for three weeks, 

 when the temperature is allowed to fall to 100 degrees Fah- 

 renheit. 



The fires are at first composed of gelleh or dried cow dimg, 

 but when the eggs are placed in the oven coarse broken straw, 

 mostly the joints, and sheep or goat dung is used. The fuel 

 is placed in the trough between the hall and the ridge, and is 

 lighted at one or more places, according to the degrees of heat 

 required. This is the only means of regulating the heat. Ther- 



as the population of Egypt is nearly 7,000,000 

 and fowls form a very large part of the Egyptian 

 diet, so that 45,000,000 eatable fowls would be 

 a short supply. 



The ordinary form of the incubatories is an 

 oblong 100 feet in length by 60 feet in width, the 

 height varying from 12 to 15 feet. 111. 1, though 

 not drawn exactly to scale, shows the general 

 arrangements. The outer chamber A is divided 

 into three rooms, the middle one masking the en- 

 trance to the ovens and thus excluding the outer 

 air. The door leading from A into the central hall 

 is very small. B represents the ovens of the upper 

 tier. C is the man-hole; the attendant stands in this 

 and manipulates the eggs. D D are spaces in the 

 central hall for the reception of the yoimg chicks. 

 These spaces are marked off by ridges of dried 

 mud about 9 inches in height. Fig. 3 is a, door 

 giving access to the interior of the oven. Arovmd 

 the walls and parallel to it runs a raised ridge 6 

 inches in height; between this,and the wall the fires 

 are lighted. In the top of the dome is a small 

 aperture about 2 inches square for the exit of smoke and reg- 

 ulating the heat. 



The outer wall, 4 feet thick, is generally built of simdried 

 bricks, the mortar simply mud. The space contained within 

 the walls is divided as shown in Fig. 1. The circular ovens 

 are built up and the spaces between them and the wall filled 

 in with brick and mortar, the same as the outer wall. Each 

 set of ovens, the upper and lower, is perfectly independent and 

 is covered by a dome having a very small aperture in the 

 crown. 



Fig. 2 represents the elevation on the line A B of Fig. 1. The 

 height of the lower oven is 4 feet, that of the upper one 9 feet. 

 The interior diameter between the ridges D D is 15 feet. 



Fig. 3 represents the elevation on the line C D of Fig. 1, and 

 shows the disposition of the central wall and the doors of the 



1— PLANS OF EGYPTIAN INCUBATORY 

 Fig- I — Ground plan. AAA, rooms maskin? entrance to incubatory. B B B, ovens where e^gs are 

 hatched. C C, manholes admitting attendants to upper tier. D D, hallway. Fig. II — Sectional view length- 

 wise. AAA. upper chamber to ovens. EBB, lower chambers. C C C, manholes. D D, fire spaces. 

 Fig. Ill — Sectional view lengthwise — same lettering as for Fig. II. 



mometers are not used. The attendants endeavor to keep 

 the heat a trifle greater than that of their own skin. 



While the oven is being warmed, notice is sent out to the 

 villages that the establishment will purchase eggs on such a 

 date. The country people arrive with large crates containing 

 from 1 000 to 2 000. These are purchased outright by the 

 establishment at the rate of $4 per 1.000. 



The floor of the oven is covered with a coarse mat made 

 of palm leaves; on this a little bran is sprinkled to prevent 

 the eggs from rolling. The attendant changes the position 

 of the eggs twice a day, taking those from near the manhole 

 and placing them on the outer edge of the circle, and vice versa. 

 At the end of six days the eggs are held up one by one towards 

 a strong light. If they appear clear and of a uniform color, 

 it is evident that they have not succeeded; but if they show an 



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