54 MY POULTRY DAY BY DAY 
It will, of course, take him years to see all the capital he has 
embarked converted into cash, but the assets are there, and he is 
undoubtedly successful. He has been lucky in keeping his fowls 
entirely free from disease, but it is not all ‘luck ” that has done 
that. He has been painstaking and thorough. 
The other man who made the adventure into the poultry world 
is young, keen and clever. Although a professional man he 
is handy with hammer and saw, and has constructed several 
magnificent poultry-houses. Fortunately he had no lack of 
capital. 
But his very enthusiasm often led him astray. He wanted 
to create a perfect poultry farm in twelve months. It cannot be 
done ; at least, it cannot be done by a novice. There are many 
pitfalls for the unwary in poultry-farming, and during his first 
season he found his share of them. 
Incubators are ticklish things, especially to those without 
experience. A few degrees of heat too few, and the eggs do not 
hatch ; a few too many, and they get roasted. Lamps occasion- 
ally play tricks, and a whole hatch may be destroyed in an hour. 
An incubator requires unremitting attention. I know of one 
man who has one incubator with a capacity for 5000 eggs. 
Imagine an accident with that number. This big hatch is watched 
day and night until the chicks appear. 
And one may feed the chickens wrongly. An expert will 
say that it requires on an average two eggs to get a chick and 
three to produce the adult hen. Some people get a tremendous 
mortality among chickens between the ages of one day and one 
month. After that there need be few casualties. 
Still, in spite of mistakes—some of them costly—the young 
professional man won through. He began with that little know- 
ledge which is a dangerous thing. Now he has real knowledge 
and real experience behind it. Anyone looking at his farm as it 
is to-day, with its 1000 head of stock, soon to be swollen into 2000, 
would hardly believe that it was only twenty months old. 
Out of a barren field and woodland he has created a first-class 
egg farm. He has spent money, lavishly if you will, but that 
