Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-06-03
COMBINE VIRTUES OF NATURAL
AND ARTIFICIAL INCUBATION
The Hens Time Is Valuable
and Should Be Conserved
\as Much as Possible
Centralize the Sitting Hens
in a Coop Built For the
Purpose
BY Robert Armstrong
Expert Poultryman and Writer.

Owners of small floclSs of chickens,
specially farmers, will continue to do
their Matching by hens because they
have not the time to devote to rearing
the chicks by artificial means. There
is wisdom in this, but on the other
hand the hens time is valuable, too.
Why not perform the Matching with
machine, and leave the responsibility
of brooding to the hens? The idea Is
entirely practical-and economical.
The hen will continue to be the
means of Matching and rearing chick
ems for large number of poultry
keepers, especially those who have
small fiocks, or those who have not
the time nor inclination to adopt arti-
fetal brooding methods, despite the
fact that the natural way has several
disadvantages; mainly-the difficulty
of securing broody hens early enough
to produce fall layers, specially if the
winter is severe and the loss of the
hens time from the laying house,
wherein she would have probably laid
"a couple dozen of eggs. To offset
this loss, however, there is no gainsay-
ing that the natural method has it's
advantages.
Easier TO Incubate Than Brood
All things considered, the hen is a
better brooder than man has yet in
the same may be said o fher as an in
cubator, although the relative merits
of artificial and natural incubation do
not seem to be as important as the
brooding. In other words, incubators
have reached a state of perfection
whereby their efficiency compares very
favorably with the best efforts of
Mistress Biddy. We are better able
to initiate Matching, perhaps, than
brooding, because in the first process
we are better able to control our
charge" The egg is incapable of
voluntary motion; it cannot stray from
the conditions best suited to its detel-
opment neither has 1t propensity for
immoderateness. The chick, on the
contrary, is guilty of many indiscre-
tions, and sometimes he is incorrigible.
Frequently, our greatest efforts are
unable to Illustrate an evil, and what
is more hopeless, we have not the gift
of being able to divine the strange con-
volutions of the chicks mind.
Strong, vigorous chicks are not al
ways obtained from properly incu-
bated eggs, whether the Matching is
done artiflcially or naturally. A sue
cessful hatch depends on more than
the methods of incubation; it goes
further back, to the selection of strong.
fully matured breeding stock, we'll
mated, and properly fed and housed.
The novice, therefore. is often ready
to condemn his incubator when a few
unmatched eggs are found on the trays
after hatch is completed, when in
reality the quality OF the eggs is en-
tirely at fault. Moreover, the eggs
usually set in machine are a collec-
ton from an entire flock and on a
much larger scale than those set under
a hen. The hen very often steals her
nest and sits on none but her own
hnf of Er1 f,,s
two or three unmatched eggs under a
hen, whereas the same per cent of un-
Matched eggs in an incubator seems
unsatisfactory and wasteful.
Use Machine For Two Weeks
Assuming then, that the poultry
keeper wishes to have his chicks
brooded by hens. he would do we'll to
consider combing the virtues of the in
cubator as time saver. Briefly, the
scheme is this: Place the eggs in
machine for the first two weeks, and
after they have been tested for fertil-
ity and dead germs, give the known
to-be-fertile eggs to the hens for the
remaining week of incubation. In
many cases they will hatch every egg.
This method not only saves two weeks
of the hens time, an Item of vital i'm
portance on the egg farm, but 1t also
enables the poultry keeper to COM
mence his Matching two weeks earlier
than If he first waited for the hens to
become broody. Furthermore, it
saves the loss of time incurred by the
hens sitting on infertile eggs or those
which are too weak to develop.
When the eggs have been kept in
the incubator until the eighteenth and
nineteenth day the results in chicks
hatched under hens by this plan have
been very satisfactory. Generally.
the matches secured from three hens
make comfortable broods for two hens,
whereupon the remaining broody hen
is made to sit over again on another
lot of "fertiles" from the incubator.
No Need For Storing Eggs
1t is not necessary to start with the
incubator filled with eggs. They may
be placed in the machine in units of
about twenty or WhataXer number is