PHEASANTS IN COVERT AND AVIARY 



it perfectly level, in a room free from draughts, and in as 

 quiet a place as possible. Two or three days before eggs 

 are expected to chip you will start your incubator, bringing 

 up the temperature to 104°. We will now suppose the eggs 

 to be chipped. You will remove the bulk of them from 

 under the hens, only leaving a few with each hen to hatch 

 herself and keep her quiet. Place them in an incubator, 

 taking care not to disturb them until ready for the rearing- 

 field. You will know this by the eggs you have left under 

 the mothers. The only attention required by the incubators 

 is to attend to the lamp, and to keep the heat regularly up 

 to the 104°. By doing so you will insure strong chicks ; as 

 a rule with me they turn out stronger than those left with 

 the hen. Your hens will have now brought the ones 

 left under them. Count them up (you will already know 

 what you have in the incubator) and transfer them along 

 with their mothers to the coops in the rearing-field. As 

 soon as the hens have settled down, empty the incubator, 

 take chicks to coops and make batches up. The hens 

 will be perfectly quiet and make no demur. A lot of 

 attention is now required by these, as the chicks are apt to 

 get from under the hens and consequently chilled ; in such 

 cases place them again in the incubator until recovered. 

 I have saved many by these means. I prefer this method 

 of hatching to bringing out altogether under hens, as I 

 consider immediately after the eggs are chipped to be the 

 most critical time in the life of the chicks, many being 

 trampled to death in the sitting-boxes by excitable hens, 

 before they have fairly left the shells. You will now wash 

 out your incubator and make ready for the next batch of 

 eggs which will be at the point of chipping. Repeat the 

 process and so on through the season. You will frequently 

 find hens refusing to sit, after doing so for some time ; or 



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