HATCHING AND REARING WITH HENS. 



The Writer Firmly Believes in the Natural Methods of Hatch= 



ing and Rearing Exhibition and Breeding Stock and 



Tells How the Work Should be Donfe, from Making 



the Nest to Separating the Weaned Chicks. 



By A. C. Smith. 



The art of raising chickens by hens, never well understood, 

 is being fast lost sight of. It is the old method. The few of 

 us who still cling to and advocate the natural method of 

 hatching and rearing are classed as "ultra conservatives" and 

 "has beens," etc. Still I believe in the old hen, and to my 

 mind for the production of nice show specimens of good, hardy 

 breeding stock, she will, nine times out of ten, discount any 

 brooder that ~was ever built in the hands of ninety-nine out 

 of a hundred men. 



The hen is pretty cheap labor and her life services and 

 carcass thrown in can be had for from fifty cents to one 

 dollar and board. She is' always on hand, never sleeps 

 through any kind of a calamity, regulates the warmth of the 

 chicks better than any device of man ever has or ever can; 

 is sure to insist on sufficient exercise and when marauders 

 threaten her flock can appear to be the maddest thing on 

 earth, not excepting the proverbial hornet. 



This setting hen is complained of as a common nuisance 

 because she will break the eggs, crtish the life out of young 

 chicks, will transfer lice from her body to the young, and 

 last, and perhaps the most seripus complaint of all, she will 

 lead her youngsters off early in the morning into the wet 

 grass where they become drenched and chilled only to finally 

 droop and die. 



All these are- just complaints, perhaps, but if one one- 

 hundredth part of the thought and one-one thousandth 

 part of the expense that has been expended in perfecting 

 artificial chicken raisers had been applied to the question 



