In the present-day incubator of either type we are wholly at the
mercy of sudden climatic changes of vapor pressure. For the slower
changes from season to season some control by greater and less
amounts of supplied moisture, or by ventilator slides is available,
but little understood and seldom practiced.
It will certainly be of interest to my readers to know the actual
hatches obtained with the prevailing type of box incubator. By
actual hatches we mean the per cent. of live chicks taken out of the
machine to the per cent. of eggs put in. The ordinary published
hatches, based on one per cent. of fertile hatches, are a delusion
and a snare. When eggs are tested out many dead germs come out with
them and the separation of microscopic dead germs from the infertile
egg is, of course, impossible. Such padded and show hatching records
do not interest us.
Where incubators are run on top of the ground I have found the
results to be poor and to improve, the bigger and deeper and damper
and warmer and less ventilated the cellar is made. The reason for
this is plain. In such a cellar the vapor pressure of the air is not
only greater but is less influenced by the shifting vapor pressure
of the outside air. In a good cellar the operator, though his
knowledge of the factors with which he deals is grievously
deficient, learns, through long and costly experience, about what
addition of moisture or about what rate of ventilation will give him
the best results. In the room more subject to outside influences,
the conditions are so constantly changing that uniformity of
practice never gives uniform results, and hence the operator is
without guidance, either intelligent or blind, and the results are
wholly a product of chance.
As proof of my contention I may give results of a series of full
season hatches for 1908, each involving several thousand eggs.
First, a state experiment station, the name of which I do not care
to publish. Incubators kept in a cement basement which has flues in
which fires were built to secure "ample ventilation." This caused a
strong draft of cold, dry air, making the worst possible condition
for incubation. The hatch for the season averaged 25 per cent. and
was explained by lack of vitality in the stock.
Second, Ontario Agricultural College. A room above ground, moisture
used in most machines and various other efforts being made to
improve the hatches by a staff of half a dozen scientists. Results:
Hatch 48 per cent.--incubator manufacturers call the experimenters
names and say they are ignorant and prejudiced.
Third, Cornell University: dry ventilated basement representing
typical conditions of common incubator practice of the country.
Results: Hatch 52 per cent., results when given out commonly based
on fertile eggs and every one generally pleased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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