HATCHING AND REARING ARTIFICIALLY. 



Operating the Incubator — Pedigreeing the Eggs and Marking 

 the Chicks — Feeding and Caring for the Youngsters. 



By M. L. Spink. 



To obtain fine hatching eggs one must raise several 

 generations of breeders which have shown perfect health 

 from the eggs to the breeding pen. These leggs should be 

 as nearly "new laid" as possible, and never over fourteen 

 days old. 



We heat our machines for three days, running the 

 lamps very low. When the temperature has registered 103 

 degrees for twenty-four hours, the eggs are placed in the 

 machines and left untouched for two days. After that, they 

 are turned night and morning by rolling gently to the 

 center of the tray, and we are careful to push the small 

 ends of the eggs slightly down. The eigliteenth day, at 

 night, we sprinkle the eggs with water heated to 100 de- 

 grees, place the pedigree trays in position and close the 

 machines for good. The eggs usually begin hatching the 

 twentieth morning and are all out about eight hours after- 

 ward. 



Trap Nests Employed. 



We use trap nests and mark the hen's number on the 

 egg she lays. Thus we can tell the hatching quality of 

 each hen's eggs on the seventh and fourteenth days by test- 

 ing. We keep a season's record of each bird's eggs and at 

 any moment Can remedy a fault caused by sterilitj' or dead 

 germs, and we can also record the number of healthy chicks 

 from each bird in the breeding pens. 



The twenty-first day we remove the trays, punch tne 

 webbs of the pedigreed chicks and leave all chicks in the 

 incubator till the night of the twenty-second day. The 

 brooders have been whitewashed and heated to ninety de- 

 grees. We place fifty chicks in a brooder, never more. 



