The Newtown bee., 1895-01-11
Live Farm Topics.
IscURAToRs AND BRooDERs.
THE SITUATION OF THE MACHINES.


 THE SITUATION OF THE MACHINES.
 Success in artificial incubation and rearing depends, to some extent at least, upon the situation of the machines. While it is perhaps true that thorough ly built incubator, with thick walls. will hatch in almost any situation, yet it is equally true that it will hatch much more successfully in some situation than in others; the better the situation, the better the results are likely to be.
 There are few requisites of the best situation for an incubator that it will pay every operator to secure, the first and perhaps the most important is that the machine be situated where there will be the least possible fuctuation in the temperature. While the automatic regulator is supp0sed to adjust itself to all variations of temperature, and will do SO after time, yet it is impracti- cable to make it so sensitive that it will instantly respond to each change, and in the time bet :. cen the change in the tenn perature outside the machine and the action of the regulator to meet it, more or less injury may be done to the eggs. If the changes are both sudden and great, even the best regulator may be unable to accomplish all that is neces. sary; for in a sudden and great drop in the mercury, the fl Ime of the lamp, fully large enough to secure the requisite heat at the higher temperature, may be wholly inadequate to do this at the lower. Even with sitting hens it has been found that situation affects the results, and the hens which sit in shel- tered places produce better results than those whose nests are in exposed situ- ations; and hens act with more or less It cannot, therefore, be expected that machi ne, devoid of in- telligenee, can do as well in ;emperat- ure that Is constantly changing as in one reason an incubator should never be where the sun can shine directly upon it, or in direct drafts of air, both of which tend to cause variations in the and the latter of which 1 nay extinguish the lamp. l
 A second important requisite of situ- ation is that it be where fresh air can be constantly furnished without sub- ] ecting the machine to a draft. The | of the oil uses up the supply | 'f oxygen in the air and produces car J oonic acid gas. Life requires the pres snce of oxygen and the absence of car ,onic acid gas, and to secure these re- luisitss fresh air. must be constantly If these requisites are not provided the germs in the eggs are likely o become weakened, and even to be so that when the three weeks # incubation are completed there will 'e either lot of weakly chickens or lone at all.
 To meet these two requisites, it is ad- isable that the incubator be placed in ome underground or partially under round room, like cellar or basement. Iere the temperature changes slowly. Iere, too, fresh air in sufficient quantity an be admitted without causing draft md, here, also, the machine can be laced out of the direct rays of the sun. ome use building dug into hillside, ne top double in thickness and the valls carefully packed. use 8 cellar, 'ith cemented bottom, and lighted ut the windows are SO small that the m cannot reach the incubator. Breeders should have house set part for this operation, even if they are the out door pattern, early in the ,ason especially. Later, the out door rooders may be used in the open air. he brooder-house I prefer to have a bard floor, windows that admit the sun ght on the southerly side of the house Id room about the brooder to secure ' Iercise for the chickens, which, if very .rly in the season, cannot be advanta- a ,ously allowed to run out-of-doors. T he house need not be expensive. Even II building enclosed on three sides, open
 the south-a mere shed-will answer
 one uses outdoor breeders, ough an inclosed house is better. we used breeders in cellar and had ally good success with them, but efer house set apart to their use. It m not necessary however, to exercise if much care in the location of brooder rs in that of an incubator, for matched d, ick has much greater vitality than g unhatched germ. Still the more vorable the situation of the brooder, Ter things equal, the more satisfactory Il be the growth and development of ? chickens.-[H. Sewell Brown in untry Gentleman.