324 



HOMES AND GARDENS 



November, 1905 



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A Pen of Silver Bantams 



Faverolles and Black Langshans 



replaces the trays in the incubator. About the fifth day the 

 eggs are tested with the ovoscope, or egg tester, which is 

 merely a little frame with a handle and a pivoted egg cup, 

 and the unfertilized eggs are removed from the apparatus. 

 The instrument is most simple in principle and sufficiently 

 accurate for the purpose in hand. Testing must be done at 

 night or in a dark room. The operator holds the ovoscope 

 in his right hand, brings the egg, with its large end upper- 

 most, very near a gas or candle flame and turns the cup with 

 his thumb. If the egg is fertilized, the embryo, which bears 

 a general resemblance to a red spider, is seen in the interior. 

 If, on the contrary, the egg appears transparent, it has not 

 been fertilized and it must be removed from the incubator, 

 for, if allowed to remain, it would putrefy and vitiate the 

 air breathed by the embryos, to the injury of the health of the 

 chicks. 



About the nineteenth day hatching commences and special 

 attention is required. Now the chicks begin to " dig " ; that 



Toulouse Geese and Barbary Ducks 



is, to break their shells. From the nineteenth to the twenty- 

 first day, inclusive, the attendant takes care to keep the broken 

 ends free, and in testing the eggs removes, examines and re- 

 places them as quickly as possible in order to avoid chilling 

 them. 



The newly hatched chicks are immediately placed in the 

 drier, a square box heated by hot water to a temperature 

 somewhat lower than that of the incubators. Two or three 

 hours' incineration in this temporary prison transforms the 

 slimy and sorry-looking chicks into pretty birds with fluffy 

 silken plumage, bright eyes and lively mien. They run about, 

 seeking seeds and grains, but the attendant is careful to give 

 them no food for twenty-four or thirty-six hours, which inter- 

 val is needed for the absorption of the yolk, nearly all of 

 which remains in the stomach of the chick. 



During the first day the young chicks are placed on the 

 ground for a few minutes every hour, in order that they may 

 take some exercise. After a number of these excursions the 

 poor creatures cry with hunger. They are 

 appeased with a few crumbs of stale bread, 

 but the soft mash which is to form their first 

 regular food is withheld until the third day. 

 At the same time they are transferred to 

 the brooders, or " artificial mothers," so- 

 called. These usually consist of boxes some 

 twenty feet long, covered with glass, and 

 flanked by smaller compartments with solid 

 roofs and walls of wire netting. The 

 brooder is heated by a vessel of hot water 

 which is movable along a slide fixed at the 

 middle of its height, by a thermo-siphon, 

 or simply by a lamp which furnishes a cur- 

 rent of warm air. The duties of the at- 

 tendant are to keep the lamp or thermo- 

 siphon in order or to renew the hot water 

 daily, to give food and drink to his guests 

 and to keep their apartments scrupulously 

 clean. When the doors of the brooder are 

 opened in the morning the chicks come out 

 into the lateral apartments, eagerly inhale the 

 fresh, cool air, run about, and, if they feel 

 cold, take refuge again in the central apart- 

 ment, which they enter by a flight of steps. 



