Fourth: One of the most successful poultrymen in New York State, who
has, without knowing why, hit upon the plan of using a no-moisture
type of incubator in a basement which is heated with steam pipes,
which maintains temperature at 70 degrees and has a cement floor
which is kept covered with water. Results: Hatch 59 per cent.
Fifth: As a fifth in such a series I might mention again the
Egyptian machine with the uniform vapor pressure of the climate and
the three chicks exchanged for four eggs.
While an official in the United States Department of Agriculture, I
gathered data from original records of private plants covering the
incubation of several hundred thousand eggs. Such information was
furnished me in confidence as a public official and as a private
citizen I have no right to publish that which would mean financial
profit or loss to those concerned.
Of records where there were ten thousand or more eggs involved, the
lowest I found was 44 per cent. and the highest, that mentioned as
the fourth case above, or 59 per cent. The great majority of these
records hung very closely around the 50 per cent. mark.
The following is a fair sample of such data. It is the record
of hatching hen eggs for the first six months of 1908, at one
of the largest poultry plants in America:
Eggs Chicks Per Cent.
Month Set Hatched Hatched
January 4,213 1,585 37 2-3
February 6,275 2,339 33 3-4
March 17,990 6,993 38 1-3
April 18,819 10,265 54 1-2
May 24,458 14,438 59
June 13,100 6,614 55
------ ------ ------
Total 84,855 42,234 50 p.c.
The Future Method of Incubation.
The idea of the mammoth incubator which would hatch eggs by the
hundred thousand and a minimum of expense is the dream of the
American incubator inventor. We have long had available such methods
of insulation and regulating the supply of heat as would point to
the practicability of such a dream.
The past efforts in this direction have fallen down for the
following simple reason: All eggs were placed in a single big room
with a view of the man's entering the room to take care of them.
Contact with cold walls, the opening of doors, the hatching of
chicks or introduction of fresh eggs set up air currents, the hot
air rising and the cold air settling until great differences in
temperature would be found in the room. No systematic regulation of
evaporation was contemplated, as the principles at stake or the
means of such regulation were unknown.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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