Hubbard's poultry secrets. 25 



place a quarter of a mile from the house, and set her under a 

 heap of brush. About one hundred feet from where she set, 

 there was a brook so I didn't have to bother with water. I 

 made the nest and placed six common eggs in it, and then put 

 the hen on her nest and covered her up for twio days. At the 

 end of the second day, I uncovered her to give her a chance to 

 come out, and to make sure that she would go back herself. 

 The next morning she came off. I took the six common eggs 

 out of the nest and placed eleven very choice Buff Orpington 

 Eggs in their stead. I set her on the I2th of June, left her a 

 pan of whole corn and didn't go near her again until her twen- 

 ty-one days were up. That evening, I took a lantern and went 

 to see how many chickens she had. I found from the eleven 

 eggs she had hatched nine chickens. I took out the shells of 

 the two eggs that didn't hatch. I then put a few drops of oil 

 of sassafrass in the bottom of the nest to rid the chicks of lice, 

 and keep ants and mites from bothering them. I then left her 

 alone. The next day she didn't leave the nest at all. The 

 following day the farthest she got from the nest was to the 

 edge of the brush heap where the sun could hit the chicks. 

 She never offered to feed them at all that day. I was really 

 surprised at that. The next morning when I went to see her, 

 I found she was about one hundred feet from her nest in a 

 shallow ditch scratching and calling her flock for the worms 

 and grubs she was scratching up, and they were piling over 

 one another to get them. I had never seen chicks so strong 

 and so large for their age. They really looked as though they 

 were a week old. The old hen had already shown me where I 

 had been making a great mistake, and that was by feeding the 

 chicks too soon after they were hatched. I had been making 

 a practice of feeding the chicks when they were 24 hours old, 

 thinking it was right, as they seemed to be very hungry then. 

 Now, instead of feeding her chicks at the age of 24 hours, 



