850 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 May, 1899. 
PULSE, RESPIRATION, TEMPERATURE. 
Bearing in mind the given standard of the above in health, and b 
adapting the methods we suggested for ascertaining the same, there should be 
no difficulty to discover whether the animal is in health or not. 
Increased pulsations, accelerated respirations or elevated temperature do 
not always indicate ill-health; for instance, exertion or excitement will cause 
the above irregularities, but there is this great difference in disease, the irregu- 
larities are persistent and are always accompanied by other morbid signs, 
whereas in a healthy subject they are only temporary. 
Poultry. 
THE JNCUBATOR. 
EVIL EFFECTS OF BAD EGGS. 
Wir regard to bad eggs in incubators,’there are two points which arise: 
First, as in the unfertiles, the comparative coolness of the egg; and, secondly, 
the evil which the decaying germ does to the air in the incubator. Ventilation 
in incubators is all important, and should there be the least smell from bad 
eggs the whole hatch suffers, and often suffers until it becomes a complete 
ailure. 
‘If eggs are tested on the seventh and fourteenth and nineteenth days, 
there is no fear of the terrible catastrophe of a bursting ege in the machine. 
When this happens, all the eggs should be removed at once from the 
incubator, the drawer or tray thoroughly cleaned, the eggs carefully wiped 
with a hot, damp cloth, if there is the least taint of the exploded ege upon 
them, and the machine must not be closed again until every smell of the egg 
has gone, or a good hatch may be given up altogether. 
Sometimes explosions occur owing to an egg being cracked. Then 
decomposition goes on, and the result is truly awful. 
All this may be avoided by the careful testing of the eggs at these stated 
intervals. 
/ HENCE EGGS OF EQUAL SIZE, 
Another point about eggs in incubators is that they should be about the 
same size, if possible, as the heat varies in most incubators, according to the 
comparative distance from the source of heat, which is generally a tank or hot 
plate suspended above the eggs. Large eggs would be hotter than the small 
eggs. 
8 If different-sized eges must be used, then the smaller eggs should be 
slightly raised, so as to get the same amount of heat. 
Then, again, the filling up of incubators with eggs at an earlier stage of 
incubation is also bad. I never can quite see why people do it, as one does 
not save much time and runs a great risk. 
Say there is a 50-egg machine, and 10 unfertiles are taken out at the 
end of a week. Whatis the use of filling up the machine with another 10 
eggs? At the end of three weeks the 40 eggs are due, but there are 10 
eggs to go a week. You therefore either leave the machine a week to clear 
these out, or you put 40 more into the machine, and the complications 
increase, whereas it is far the best to let the 40 have a good chance and 
then fill up with 50 at the end of three weeks. ; 
itis much more difficult to regulate the temperature in an incubator when 
there are eggs of different periods of incubation in the same drawer. 
‘ 
