When the chicks begin to hatch we make it a practice to throw a cloth over the glass door, so as to prevent the youngsters crowding toward the light, and piling up on top of each other, either in the egg trays or in the nurseries below.
All Good Chicks Hatch in 20 Days
Many people have an erroneous idea in regard to the time required for hatching. If the temperature has been carried at a correct point during the entire period the eggs will begin to pip on the afternoon of the 19th day, and the morning of the 20th day should find the youngsters coming out of the shells like Pop Corn over a hot fire if the eggs have been of proper strength, but on the morning of the 21st day the hatch should be completed. Generally speaking, chicks which hatch later than the 21st day are weak, and while they may come along for a time, when placed in the Brooder House they generally snuff out, and add to the list of mortalities.
Set Incubators Toward Evening
It is our belief that there is a best time in the twenty-four hours in which to set an incubator. As a rule, it requires about eight hours after the eggs have been placed in the machine for it to come up to temperature. Therefore, if the eggs go into the chamber late in the afternoon, and anything goes wrong with the regulator, the eggs cannot have been in a detrimental temperature for any great length of time before the operator is making his first morning round. We observe the temperature in the egg chamber three times a day as a rule, the first thing in the morning before the eggs are turned; at noon, or a sufficient number of hours after turning and cooling the eggs, allowing a sufficient time to elapse for coming up to temperature; and again late in the afternoon, before the final turning for the day. At these hours of observation any slight alteration of regulator, to meet changes noted in the temperature, is, of course made.
The Hot Water, Coal-Heated, Incubator is a great step in advance, and these machines are now built in sizes from twelve hundred eggs up.
With the old style lamp machine, people who were running a small plant did not need an Incubator Cellar, but the Insurance Companies would not allow the placing of an incubator in the cellar of a house without a special permit, and in many cases would not issue such a permit at all. The hot water machine will, of course, go into any cellar without vitiating the insurance, and, what is more, the machine itself is insurable, just as is any hot water plant in a house.
Tested Only on Eighteenth Day
Until this season, on The Corning Egg Farm, we had made it a rule to test the eggs on the 14th day. Many operators believe in testing the eggs from the 5th to the 7th day, again on the 14th, with the final test on the 18th day. In operating one of the old style machines, with the large trays, it was expedient to remove the clear eggs and those with dead germs to facilitate the turning of the eggs in the trays, but all this arduous labor is done away with in the hot water machine. The trays hold seventy-five eggs, and are so constructed that one tray fits on top of another, and then the trays are simply reversed and the turning is accomplished. This makes it necessary to have a full tray to prevent the eggs rolling and breaking when they are turned in the manner described. Testing the eggs is, therefore, deferred until the 18th day.
When one sees the tremendous saving of time which the coal-heated, hot water machine accomplishes for the operator, it produces a feeling bordering on mirth in the man who has labored with the old style machine and big tray, when thousands of eggs were turned by hand twice a day. Ten thousand eggs in one of the modern machines are handled with less effort and in less time than three thousand could possibly be cared for in one of the other styles of incubator.