CHAPTER VIII 
INCUBATING 
I have advised buying day old chicks the 
first year as a more sure way of ending the 
season with a certain number of pullets of 
a profitable age, but the following year it 
would be cheaper to hatch your own chickens 
or at least part of them. A few remarks on 
the work of caring for incubators may be 
helpful. 
The old way of hatching with hens is 
nearly an out-of-date method for any poultry- 
man whose plant numbers several hundred 
and who is running that plant for profit. 
This is so for several reasons; viz.: 
First, hens to be most profitable must be 
brought to laying age some time in the early 
winter. As pullets raised by the ordinary 
poultryman take six or seven months to 
reach this laying age, this requires that the 
chickens must be hatched in the latitude of 
central New York State by May 1 at the 
latest. 
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