CHAPTER XXIII
THE FIRST HATCH
On February 3 the incubator lamps were lighted under the first invoice of one thousand eggs. The incubating cellar was to Sam's liking, and he felt confident that three weeks of strict attention to temperature, moisture, and the turning of eggs, would bring results beyond my expectations.
After the seventh day, on which he had tested or candled the eggs, he was willing to promise almost anything in the way of a hatch, up to seventy-five or eighty per cent. In the intervals of attendance on the incubators he was hard at work on the brooder-house, which must be ready for its first occupants by the 25th. Everything went smoothly until the 18th. That morning Sam met me with a long face.
"Something went wrong with one of my lamps last night," said he. "I looked at them at ten o'clock and they were all right, but at six this morning one of the thermometers was registering 122°, and the whole batch was cooked."
"Not the whole thousand, Sam!"
"No, but 170 fertile eggs, and that spoils a twenty-dollar bill and a lot of good time. What in the name of the black man ever got into that lamp of mine is more than I know. It's just my luck!"
"It's everybody's luck who tries to raise chickens by wholesale, and we must copper it. Don't be downed by the first accident, Sam; keep fighting and you'll win out."
The brooder-house was ready when the first chicks picked the shells on the 24th, and within thirty-six hours we had 503 little white balls of fluff to transfer from the four incubators to the brooder-house. We put about a hundred together in each of five brooders, fed them cut oats and wheat with a little coarse corn meal and all the fresh milk they could drink, and they throve mightily.
The incubators were filled again on the 26th, and from that hatch we got 552 chicks. On the 21st of March they were again filled, and on the 13th of April we had 477 more to add to the colony in the brooder-house. For the last time we started the lamps April 15th, and on the 6th of May we closed the incubating cellar and found that 2109 chicks had been hatched from the 4000 eggs. The last hatch was the best of all, giving 607. I don't think we have ever had as good results since, though to tell the truth I have not attempted to keep an exact count of eggs incubated. My opinion is that fifty per cent is a very good average hatch, and that one should not expect more.