ARTIFICIAL INCUBATING AND BROODING 



As this principle runs throughout all business, it is per- 

 fectly legitimate advice to say that the probability is against a 

 cheap incubator being as good an incubator as you will require 

 for best results. Be sure you buy a good one, becaiise the 

 incubator is the chief corner-stone of your success in poultry 

 work. Chickens that are poorly hatched start in Kfe with a 

 serious handicap and in the very nature of things cannot be 

 so thrifty, cannot grow so well, and have not so much strength 

 and vigor as chicks that are "well hatched." A well known 

 physical scientist says that "we owe to our children that they 

 be well bom"; similarly we owe it to our chickens that they 

 are well hatched. There is another adage that applies, namely, 

 that "well begun is half done" — hence the importance of the 

 advice to buy a good incubator. 



CONSIDER THE BEST SIZE 



A very common mistake with beginners is to buy a small 

 machine, and then, after a hatch or two, learn that they ought 

 to have had one of twice the 

 size. A case in point was 

 that of a lady in Canada 

 whom I met last summer. 

 She bought a small incuba- 

 tor, took it home, set it up, 

 got an excellent hatch from 

 it, then went directly off to 

 the agent and exchanged it 

 for a 100 per cent larger 

 size, because she wanted one 

 that would do twice the work 

 of the smaller one. She had 

 bought a small one in the 

 first place because she dis- 

 trusted her abihty to run an 

 incubator, and was not cer- 

 tain that an incubator would 

 do as good work as hens; 

 but that brief trial convinc- 

 ed her that she had blund- 

 ered in buying the small 

 size and that it would have 

 been sundry dollars in her 

 pocket if she had bought 

 the larger one at the outset. 

 Fortunately, in her case, the 

 mistake was comparatively 

 easily remedied, because the 

 agent was only eight or ten 

 miles distant and was quite 



willing to make the exchange with her. If she had bought the 

 machine of the manufacturer direct there would have been the 

 difficulty of arranging the matter by correspondence, taking 

 down, crating and shipping the machine back and remitting 

 the difference in price, and paying return freight charges on 

 the larger machioe. 



Consider well the hatching capacity you require for your 

 business and buy a good incubator of the size that will do the 

 work you wish to have done. The time has gone by when there 

 is any question about an incubator doing the work an incubator 

 is wanted to do. It has been abundantly proven that a good, 

 dependable incubator will not only hatch chickens, but will 

 hatch those that are strong and thrifty; the incubator will do 

 better work than \rill the erratic sitting hens. This point of 

 buying a good incubator is suggested by the experience 

 of a lady who mentioned incidentally that she bought 

 an incubator last spring and sold the chicks of the first hatch 

 for enough to pay for the machine and had some $5 over; 

 as she had never used an incubator before, such an experi- 



57— A CONFINED PEN IN FRONT OF THE BROODER 

 This illustration shows a method of confining chicks that should not be practiced in warm 

 weather. The pens should have wire or lath sides to allow of a free circulation of air. 



ence is abundant proof of the good work incubators will do. 



LOCATION OF AN INCUBATOR 



The location of the incubator is a most important question, 

 for upon its right location much depends; as, for example, its 

 accessibihty and hence ease of management, the supply of fresh 

 air for it, and many other aids to good hatches. Taking up the 

 question of fresh air first, because 'it is very important— it is 

 really wonderful that some incubator managers get as good re- 

 sults as they do. The common advice is, "Put the incubator 

 in a cellar," without a thought of how many different shades of 

 meaning are attached to that word, cellar. In some sections 

 of the country there are no such things as cellars, in other 

 sections, as for example, New England, a cellar is a large or 

 small undergroimd apartment intended for the storage of fruit 

 and vegetables to secure them against frost (not forgetting a 

 row of barrels of cider), and such a cellar has usually no facih- 

 ties for ventilation; and, during the winter months, absolutely 



no fresh air reaches it save 

 such as is admitted when the 

 housewife goes down to get 

 supphes. Such a "cellar" is 

 a most unfit place for an in- 

 cubator because the incuba- 

 tor lamp, burning night and 

 day, soon exhausts the oxy- 

 gen of the air, and by the 

 time the germs have devel- 

 oped into embryos and begun 

 to breathe, there is practi- 

 cally no oxygen for them. 

 Oxygen is absolutely essen- 

 tial to life, and a hberal sup- 

 ply of oxygen is needed by 

 the one or two hundred tiny 

 pairs of lungs within the in- 

 cubator if the bodies are to 

 develop strength to survive 

 the struggle for exclusion. 

 Here is where very many be- 

 ginners stumble. They are 

 afraid to allow fresh air to 

 enter for fear of variations in 

 the temperature of the incu- 

 bating apartment, or that the 

 sUghtest current of air, will 

 derange the regulation of the 

 machine, and the direct re- 

 sult of their fear is insuffi- 

 cient oxygen, weakened embryos and a poor hatch; further- 

 more, even the chicks that have sufficient strength to survive 

 to exclusion are to a considerable per cent, debilitated and 

 weaker than they would have been if there had been a suffici- 

 ency of fresh air. 



For many reasons the common house cellar is an unfit place 

 in which to run an incubator; most cellars are too damp and 

 all are lacking in facilities for admitting fresh air, hence it is 

 much wiser to have the incubator room above (or mostly above) 

 ground. 



THE ABUSE OF INCUBATORS 



Many people are unfair to their incubators, either through 

 ignorance or carelessness, or both, and do not give them more 

 than half a chance to do the work an incubator is intended to 

 do. An incubator is precisely like every other kind of machine 

 in that it has to be operated by "human intelligence," and 

 if the operator neglects to apply his intelhgence and common- 

 sense, or has a super-abundance of that impalpable quality 



42 



