68 
DOMESTIC FOWL. 
In selecting the eggs to be sat upon by the hen, choose recently laid, 
handsome, moderate-sized, but rather large eggs. If you wish to raise hen- 
birds, examine the eggs by candle light, and if the vacancy at the extremity 
is a little to one side of the apex, the chicken will be a female; if exactly 
under the point of the shell, it will be a male. 
The number of eggs to be hatched by the hen must in some degree de¬ 
pend upon her size. A moderate sized hen will very''’nicely cover nine eggs, 
but many hens bring up eleven or thirteen. An odd number of eggs is 
always chosen, as they have a centre egg which the others lie round in the 
nest. Those hens which sit best are generally short-legged, and are well 
furnished with feathers. The hen having received her eggs may then be 
left to herself; she may have water placed at a convenient distance, and 
her food may bo given to her near the place of sitting. 
The hen sits on her eggs twenty-one days, during which period she seems 
in a dozy state, and requires but little food or exercise; some hens will feed 
every day, but others will go for several days without leaving the nest, or 
taking the least kind of nourishment. 
THE BIRTH OF THE CHICKENS. 
Now comes a great and wonderful event—in place of a yolk and a white 
in which nothing can be discerned, we have a living animal and a broken 
shell. For twenty-one days it has been gradually forming, by the power of 
the Divine Being, into a lively little thing of beauty. It has been doubled 
up in its close prison; yet as the time comes for its emergence into a world 
of life, it has strength given it to set itself at liberty from its shelly coniines. 
It pecks at the inside of the shell till it breaks, and then the impatient 
chick makes its entrance to the world in which it is to live. The length of 
time required for this process varies from one hour to six. 
Some hens will sit for days together without leaving their eggs; and 
when this is the case, she should be lifted from the nest once a day, and fed 
separately in the yard, after the other fowls. 
When chickens are thus hatching, it is best to leave them entirely to 
themselves; but sometimes it will happen that a chick has not sufficient 
strength to break the egg-shell; a small tap may in such a case be given to 
it, but never before you are certain that the little inmate of the shell 
requires it. 
As soon as the hen becomes a mother, a great change is seen in her 
character—all her former feelings and habits give way to maternal solici¬ 
tude. A good hen attends to her brood with the most persevering fond¬ 
ness ; she will attack the fiercest animal who dares to molest her progeny. 
The cock too enters into her feelings, and commences his work of scratching 
for the young ones. W e had last year a fine brood of chickens, but the 
parent hen was accidentally killed by the blowing to of the stable-door. 
The cock, however, took to the chicks, nestled them, fed them, and 
brought them up with all a mother’s care. 
