ROUND ONE—THE FIRST NEST
Do not be in a hurry for the hen to lay. She will produce her egg at her own time and no sooner. As soon as it is laid, take it out of the nest with a teaspoon and place it in the small box you prepared earlier, replacing it with a dummy egg. Remove the second egg likewise. Turn the removed eggs daily. As a general rule an egg is laid every morning until a clutch of from four to six eggs is completed. There are occasions when a hen will produce only two or three eggs to a clutch, and many times she will skip a day between eggs. When the third egg is laid, remove the dummy egg, dust the nest again with insect powder, and place the other eggs back in the nest. The evening is a good time to do this.
When the hen takes to her nest entirely, separate the cock and hen by replacing the wire partition. The hen’s bath should be withheld for the first eleven days she sits. On the sixth day you should candle the eggs. Cut an oval hole slightly smaller than the dimension of an egg in the bottom of a small cardboard box, and place an egg on the hole. From beneath, shine your flashlight through the egg. If the egg is clear it is infertile, but if slightly red with a dark spot it is fertile. If the eggs are all clear remove them and the nest, and after a few days start over, letting the cock run with the hen again. If there are fertile eggs, place them back in the nest, where the hen will continue through the setting period, which is fourteen days from the day she took to the nest steadily.
After the eleventh day allow her to bathe daily as the moisture from her feathers tends to soften the egg shells and is an aid to the chicks in picking their way through.
When the hen takes to the nest, it is a good plan, because of her inactivity, to restrict her diet somewhat—particularly the egg food and greens. She will likely leave much of this anyway, and she should never take any that has soured, as she may do if it is left in the cage partly uneaten all day.