Читать книгу Making Home Profitable - Kate V. Saint Maur - Страница 10

Table of Contents

Keep fresh water in vessels into which the chicks can get only their bills in the outer compartment. Never neglect seeing that they are all safely cuddled up to the heat at dusk.

During the bright, sunny hours in the middle of the day let the chicks have plenty of fresh air in the playroom; at feeding time, when they are all busy, give the hover compartment a thorough airing.

When Biddy is doing the brooding, remember she is pretty sure to need dusting with some good insect powder. The nest box she sat in should have been cleaned, and a handful of camphor balls scattered under the hay of the nest. Moreover, each hen should be dusted before setting, twice during the twenty-one days, three days after the hatch is out, and each week so long as she broods the chicks.

Fresh air, warmth and good food prevent many troubles almost impossible to cure if once contracted; so look to the little things.

Thirty hours must be allowed for the proper digestion and assimilation of the yolk, which is absorbed into the abdomen immediately before the chick breaks through the shell. When Biddy has done the hatching do not move her to the brood coop for twenty-four hours, unless she is flighty and keeps getting off the nest, in which case it is better to keep the chicks in a covered box by the kitchen stove until some more motherly hen can be persuaded to adopt them. Always try to set two or three hens at the same time. Good hens that are well fed and have not been bothered with vermin seldom give any trouble about the last twenty-four hours.