Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1916-02-23
POUL 1t Y
CONSULTING DEPARTMENT
Choosing an Incubator

If good make of incubator is used
and properly operated the cause of
poor matches is generally due to some
outside condition that has affected the
eggs, writes a correspondent of the
Country Gentleman. The incubator, no
matter how good, cannot vitalize eggs
with weak germs, nor can it hatch the
best of eggs without intelligent opera
ton. But if the eggs are hatchable the
machine will hatch them fully as well
as the hen and in much larger quainti-
ties.
Many persons expect too much from
incubators. Hatches of 95 to 100 per
cent are the exception, not the rule,
and it should be remembered that the
average is much less. When small
fiocks are kept and allowed freedom,
as on most farms, matches of 70 to 80
per cent are very good. Many of the
large poultry plants do not average
more than go per cent. When the
hatch fails, though the machine has
been properly operated, look to the
stock for the cause. %
The prospective purchaser of an in
cubator is, if without experience,
greatly perplexed by the claims made
for various types of machines. There
are two general classes of incubators
hot air and hot water heat, each
class having machines of the moisture
and non moisture type.
The hot air heated machines are
those in which fresh air is taken in at
the lamp, heated by it and passed
through the egg chamber, usually first
passing over a metal radiator above
the eggs, then over the radiator above
onfnxifaor the oh a m
ber The hot water machines are
heated by tanks or pipes above the
egg trays in which water heated by
lamp circulates.
: Incubators of the radiator type, ell
Their hot air or hot water, obtain ven
tilation through special openings. The
ventilation of machines in which the
heaed air enters the egg chamber is
through this heated current of air. 1t
has been claimed by some that this
method of allowing the heated air
from the lamp to enter the egg cham
Der is detrimental to good hatch on
account of the liability of the lamps
throwing off gases. This, however,
does not prove to be the case, for one
of the most successful incubators
manufactured has this method of heat
ing and ventilation. | have in mind
three prominent makes Of machines,
one Of each type, that have given in
our experience equal results when
worked under the same conditions
with eggs from the same stock pre-
served for Matching by methods that
assure equal fetility.
The question of whether a machine
using moisture is better than one of
the nomenclature type is one that the
buyer must decide. There are in use
as many of one os of the other, and
they give equally god results. The
questions of moisture and heating are
really matters for personal solution.
Experience has shown MS that incuba-
tors built to use moisture pans do not
give good results when the pans are
not used. Nor are nomenclature ma
chimes improved by the use of mois-
ture pans.
Mammoth incubators are all heated
by hot water circulating from coal
stoves. Most of them are of the nom
moisture type, though one manufac-
turer has recently included moisture
pans as part of the regular equipment
of his machines, believing moisture
has proved somewhat helpful in Sc
curing god matches. But both types
have given good results.