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Have everything ready beforehand and start your hatching operations early in the year. In sections where the climate is temperate, February, March, and April are the best months for hatching. The early hatched pullet is the one that begins to lay early in the fall and continues to lay when eggs are high in price.

A good hatch.

Dust the hen thoroughly with a good lice powder before placing her on the nest.

Select uniform, fairly large sized eggs for hatching.

Operate the incubator according to the manufacturer’s directions to produce the best results.

Test the eggs for fertility on the seventh and fourteenth days.

Do not open the incubator after the eighteenth day until the chicks are hatched.

Given proper care and attention, the hen is the most valuable incubator for the farmer whose poultry operations are of moderate size.

Do not allow the mother hen to range over the farm with the chicks.

Confine the mother hen to a brood coop until the chicks are weaned.

Toe-mark the chicks as soon as they are hatched. This enables one to tell their ages later.

In cool weather place from 10 to 13 eggs under the hen; in warm weather from 13 to 15 eggs.

Chicks should not receive feed until they are 36 hours old.

When artificial incubation is used, start the brooder a day or two before putting in the chicks, to see that the heating apparatus is working properly. Brooder lamps should be cleaned every day.

In the case of hen-hatched broods, the coop for hen and chicks should be well ventilated, easy to clean, and large enough to insure comfort. To allow the hen to range over the farm with the chicks will often be the cause of heavy losses.

For the first three days chicks may be fed a mixture of equal parts of hard-boiled eggs and rolled oats or stale bread, or stale bread soaked in milk. When bread and milk are used, care should be taken to squeeze all the milk out of the bread. From the third or fourth day commercial chick feed may be fed until the chicks are old enough to eat wheat screenings or cracked corn.

To insure rapid and uniform growth of the chicks, provide in addition to a grain feed a dry mash to which the chickens will have access at all times.

For additional information on incubation and brooding, request Farmers’ Bulletins 585 and 624.

An excellent range providing shade and shelter for growing chicks.

If possible locate the brooders on ground that has recently been cultivated, thereby eliminating the danger of tainted soil and possible disease.

Chicks having access to a shaded range, such as shown above, develop and thrive better in warm weather than those not having such range.

For the production of infertile eggs, exhaustive information relating to the care of poultry and eggs, along with individual advice on such subjects—write to U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, c/o Animal Husbandry Division, Washington, D. C.