IM- PROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR HATCHING EGGS AND FOR REARING BIRDS ARTIFICIALLY
Year: 1864

page_text: LETTERS PATENT to Carlo Minasi, of 218, Kentish Town Road, in the
County of Middlesex, Professor of Music, for the Invention of "IM-
PROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR HATCHING EGGS AND FOR REARING BIRDS
ARTIFICIALLY."
Sealed the 11th November 1864, and dated the 21st May 1864.
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by the said Carlo Minasi at the
Office of the Commissioners of Patents, with his Petition, on the
21st May 1864.
I, CARLO MINABI, of 218, Kentish Town Road, in the County of Middlesex,
Professor of Music, do hereby declare the nature of the Invention for "IMPROVE-
MENTS IN APPARATUS FOR HATCHING EGGS, AND FOR REARING BIRDS ARTIFICIALLY,"
to be as follows:-
My improvements in hatching eggs consist in apparatus for the application
of heated sand or other material, as herein described, over or on the upper
surface of the eggs by means of a box, tray, or covering, the bottom of which
is composed of a fabric or yielding material not necessarily waterproof, but
sufficiently close in its texture or quality to retain the sand or material used,
and which may be any convenient granulated material of such weight or
character that it may press sufficiently upon the yielding bottom of the tray
to cause it to press against or be in contact with a considerable portion of the
upper surface of the eggs, or allow them to be imbedded in or against such
yielding bottom, and in forming the apparatus with a tray or bed for the eggs
to rest in or upon, consisting of a plate with holes therein, so as to allow the

page_text: under surfaces of the eggs to be exposed to the atmosphere, and their sides to
be surrounded by fur or feathers, or any convenient packing or clothing
placed upon it, and around the eggs. The heat requisite for warming the
sand may be applied by hot water tubes passing through it, or by a metal box
resting upon it and holding water, the circulation being kept up by a lamp,
or the warmth may be applied by a plate heated in any convenient manner.
My improvements in apparatus for rearing birds consist in a box or
chamber to be placed over the hatching apparatus, and deriving heat there-
from, into which box the young birds when hatched are to be placed; the said
box being constructed with a series of passages with tops or coverings, or
upper linings of flannel or cloth, or other warm material, or with curtains
or strips of such material bagging or hanging down, so as to rest lightly
upon the birds, and allow them to crawl or crouch beneath them; or instead
of a series of passages, there may be if preferred 'only one passage or chamber
in the box, but fitted with warm material applied as set forth.
SPECIFICATION in pursuance of the conditions of the Letters Patent, filed
by the said Carlo Minasi in the Great Seal Patent Office on the
19th November 1864.
TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, CARLO
MINASI, lately of No. 218, Kentish Town Road, in the County of Middlesex,
but now of No. 208, in the same Road, Professor of Music, send greeting.
WHEREAS Her most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her Letters
Patent, bearing date the Twenty-first day of May, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, in the twenty-seventh year of Her reign,
did for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto me, the said
Carlo Minasi, Her special licence that I, the said Carlo Minasi, my executors,
administrators, and assigns, or such others as I, the said Carlo Miuasi, my
executors, administrators, and assigns, should at any time agree with, and no
others, from time to time and all times thereafter during the term therein
expressed, should and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Channel Islands, and Isle
of Man, an Invention for "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR HATCHING EGGS,
AND FOR REARING BIRDS ARTIFICIALLY," upon the condition (amongst others)
that I, the said Carlo Minasi, my executors or administrators, by an instru-
ment in writing under my, or their, or one of their hands and seals, should
particularly describe and ascertain the nature of the said Invention, and in

page_text: what manner the same was to be performed, and cause the same to be
filed in the Great Seal Patent Office within six calendar months next and
immediately after the date of the said Letters Patent.
NOW KNOW YE, that I, the said Carlo Minasi, do hereby declare the
nature of the said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed,
to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the following state-
ment thereof, reference being had to the accompanying Drawings, and to the
figures and letters marked thereon, that is to say :-
My improvements in hatching eggs consist in apparatus for the application
of heated sand or other material, as herein described, over or on the upper
surface of the eggs by means of a box, tray, or covering, the bottom of
which is composed of a fabric or yielding material sufficiently close in its
texture or quality to retain the sand or material used, and which may be
any convenient granulated material of such weight or character that it
may press sufficiently upon the yielding bottom of the tray to cause it to
press against or be in contact with a considerable portion of the upper
surface of the eggs or allow them to be imbedded in or against such yielding
bottom, and in forming the apparatus with a bed or beds for the eggs to rest in
or upon, consisting of a plate with holes therein, so as to allow the under sur-
faces of the eggs to be exposed to the atmosphere and their sides to be
surrounded by fur or feathers, or any convenient packing or clothing placed
upon it and around the eggs. The heat requisite for warming the sand may
be applied by heated water heated in the box by means of a lamp or gas flame,
the box being with this object constructed of metal and formed with a false or
rigid bottom likewise of metal and situate over its yielding bottom, the part
where the lamp or flame is applied being an extension beyond the yielding
bottom.
The accompanying Drawings illustrate the manner in which this part of my
said Invention is to be and may be performed.
Figure 1 is a plan view of the apparatus; Figure 2 partly a longitudinal
section and partly a side elevation; Figure 3, an end or frout elevation, and
Figures 4 and 5 transverse sections at Z, Z, and Y, Y, in Figure 1. Similar
letters deuote corresponding parts in all the Figures.
A is a wooden table or stand, and B, B, B, supports thereon for the box,
tray, or covering C, for the application of the heated sand; D is a casing
enclosing a chamber d for. lamp or gas flame, and d*, a door (to the chamber)
with glass panel, so that the burning of the lamp may be observed without
opening it; c is the bottom of the box C, composed of a bag or series of bags
of flannel or other fabric or material holding the sand or granulated material.

page_text: in such manner that the bottom c may yield readily to the form of the
which are to be pressed upwards against it.
eggs
The Figure 6 is a full-sized section of a portion of the box shewing particu-
larly this bottom c and the manner in which it is suspended from the false
or rigid bottom ex by split tubular clips and rods c³, both sliding within
tubular recesses in the bottom c*. By removing the rods the yielding
bottom c may be removed when desired; c' is an opening for supplying water;
is the boiler or place beneath which the lamp or flame is to be placed, being
the extension (above referred to) of the rigid bottom c* beyond the yielding
bottom; and is a heating coil or flue passing through
flue c.
to the top
Or, instead of the arrangements above described, any description of sand bath
in a fabric or yielding material, as applicable to the upper surface of the eggs
may be substituted, and the heating may be effected by hot water tubes passing
through the sand, or by plates, or in any convenient manner. In the Drawings
the supports B, B, I, are disposed so as to receive between them two sliding
removeable beds or trays F, F,.(for the eggs) shewn in Figure 2, and also in
the detached views Figures 7, 8, and 9. In Figures 7 and 9 f is the plate
on which the eggs are to rest, being covered with a padding or cloth as shewn,
and having holes for placing them so as to allow the sides of the eggs above
the plate to be surrounded by the fur or feathers or other clothing and their
under surfaces beneath the plate to be exposed to the atmosphere, which is
allowed to pass to them through holes f in the frame of the tray. If the
padding on the tray be of flannel, or be not too thick or close in its texture or.
quality, it may be applied loosely to the plate and continued across the holes
in same, bagging down through them when the eggs are in place which
arrangement will allow sufficient access for the atmosphere and keep off
accidental cold currents.
The Figures 10, 11, and 12 shew a modification of the removeable bed or
tray F, consisting simply of a spring mattrass, similar to a spring mattrass for
a bed, but of small dimensions and with very light or easy springs, arranged
in the form of a box and covered with a flannel or other suitable covering
not stretched, but rather placed full and in pleats or folds, to allow plenty of
material as a cushion or seating for the eggs and permeable to the atmo-
sphere, which, as in the former instance, is allowed access through the holes f*
in the frame of the tray. Fur and feathers or other clothing are intended to
be used on the top of the mattrass to surround the eggs as before. Or, instead
of the beds or removeable trays F being constructed in accordance with either
the Figures 7, 8, and 9, or the Figures 10, 11, aud 12, as above described,

page_text: they may be made with a combination of the two arrangements by construct-
ing them with a plate with holes therein for placing the eggs as in the former
Figures, and with a flannel cushion over the holes or under them, and with a
separate coil spring beneath each hole. In order to bring the upper surface
of the eggs into sufficient contact with the heated yielding bottom of the
box C, the beds F, F, are to be pressed upwards till the eggs become im-
bedded to about one-half or one-third of their entire surface, and for this
purpose each bed is provided with an elevating board or lifter G, see
Figure 2,
and also Figure.13, which is a detached plan view of same, in which it will be
seen that the two pairs of flaps are of differing height for use according to the
adjustment required by the size of the eggs, and if desired additional adjust-
ment may be obtained by any convenient number of packing boards, g, g, as
shewn in Figure 2.
For simplicity in the Drawing, the parts F, G, g, are omitted from the
Figure 5. In using the apparatus I apply a thermometer for observing
the temperature of the yielding bottom c, which I keep as nearly as may
be uniformly at about from 100 to 104 degrees of Fahrenheit for the period
of incubation, being 21 days for the eggs of the ordinary fowl, at the expiration
of which I remove the young chicks to be reared to the box or chamber I
over the hatching apparatus, placing them first at the warmer end imme-
diately over the boiler and surrounding or wrapping them in flannel for
about 24 hours. This part, which I call the "hospital," is screened off by
the partition from the remainder of the box I, and covered with glazed
lids hinged to the partition, and, apart from combination with other
I next
features of my said Invention is not new or peculiar thereto.
remove the chicks to the larger division of the box I, which, when fitted
with the arrangements next to be described, I call the "artificial mother."
These arrangements, which are not represented in the Drawings, form the
subject of my improvements in apparatus for rearing birds, the said improve-
ments consisting in a box or chamber to be placed over the hatching apparatus,
and deriving heat therefrom, into which box the young birds when hatched are
to be placed, the said box being constructed with a series of passages with
tops or coverings or upper linings of flannel or cloth, or other warm material,
or with curtains or strips of such material, bagging or hanging down so as
to rest lightly upon the birds, and allow them to crawl or crouch beneath
then; or instead of a series of passages there may be if preferred only one
passage or chamber in the box, but fitted with warm material applied as set
forth.
The constructing a top or cover to or over the larger division of the box I,

page_text: over the hatching apparatus, or to or over a portion of such division in manner
following, and which by experiment I have found to answer exceedingly well,
will sufficiently illustrate this feature of my Invention; that is to say, I take
short lengths of soft and loosely twisted strands of worsted or cotton, say, of
about one-quarter or three-eighths of an inch in diameter when twisted, and
fasten them on a frame of parallel wooden slips or bars arranged in a plane
and so that the ends of the strands may bang downwards like a fringe or set
of parallel rows of fringes, or if very closely packed like a mop, and I place
this frame, furnished in the manner described, so that it may rest upon the
edges of the rim of the box I (or it may be otherwise supported) and so that
the bottoms of the strands may touch or almost touch the top surface of the
bottom of the box. The strands may be placed more widely apart in one
part of the frame than in another, so as to accommodate different sizes of
birds, or one covering may be substituted for another, as the birds progress
in growth. It will be found that they will crouch underneath the covering
and among its passages or promiscuously among the strands, coming out occa-
sionally to seek food, which may be supplied.in a part or parts of the box not
provided with the covering described, but if preferred partly screened from
cold by a perforated cover or otherwise. And, further, as affording more
space for pecking and room for the exercise or movements of the chicks it will
be found convenient to furnish a stand or tray adjoining the box I, as shewn at
M in several Figures of the Drawings, the floor m of the stand being even
with the box, and the side of the box adjacent to the tray, or a part of this
side, being removeable and replaceable so as to open and shut off the access
as the attendant may wish.
The stand, which however does not constitute a feature of the Invention,
may conveniently be made, as represented in the Drawings, so as to be remove-
able at will from the patented apparatus.
In witness whereof, I, the said Carlo Minasi, have hereunto set my hand
and seal, this Twenty-eighth day of September, in the year of our
Lord One thousand eight hundred and sixty-four.
CARLO MINASI. (L.S.)