THE BROODY HEN 77 
To work an incubator successfully needs some skill, and there 
are times when any amount of skill will not prevent an “ accident,” 
and an accident with large incubators is an expensive amusement. 
I know of a pupil on a poultry farm, a keen business man with 
plenty of intelligence, who hatched 16 chickens out of 390 eggs 
because he failed to control the heat properly. There have been 
worse disasters even than this. No less than 100 per cent. losses 
have been recorded before now. I am not, of course, blaming the 
incubator. It is a most perfect instrument in competent hands. 
I merely point out that no incubator yet invented is fool proof, nor 
is it half so simple or half so safe as dear old Biddy the broody. 
Anyone can handle Biddy and see her safely through her hatch. 
She will do the rearing without any help. If left to her own devices 
she will hatch her eggs perhaps under a hedge and walk in one fine 
day as proud as a peacock with her brood behind her. But it is 
better on the whole to keep her under control. There are such 
things as rats and stoats in the open which will take toll of the baby 
chicks without protest on the part of the mother. It is rather a 
strange omission on the part of Nature that the mother hen should 
not show fight to a rat, especially as she will, during the incubating 
and rearing periods, defend herself against much bigger animals, 
including the dog. I have seen a rat sitting on the broody coop 
preparatory to attacking chickens, with the mother making no 
move to defend her charges. 
It is wise, therefore, to choose your own place and your own time 
for setting Biddy on the eggs. I found nothing better than 
orange boxes placed in a shed for the purpose of hatching chicks. 
Each compartment of the orange box held a broody hen and I put 
twelve eggs under each. The Board of Agriculture recommends 
only ten eggs to be under each hen, but if one gets a large broody 
a dozen eggs will hatch out right enough. 
But first of all you must make sure that your broody is broody. 
She had better be observed on her nest for a few days before using 
her to incubate. Meanwhile you had better be making a nice soft 
nest, made preferably of hay, in the orange box compartment, 
and. be sure that it is with a depression in the middle and the edges 
