Читать книгу Making Home Profitable - Kate V. Saint Maur - Страница 8

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Looking back over the memories of my farm initiation, it seems as if I had not fully realised the possibilities of my new undertaking until the first incubator was inaugurated. As I have already told you, I did all the first year’s hatch under hens, and still set every hen that evinces any desire to assume the cares of motherhood, because it seems Nature’s plan to keep the egg machine in good working order. If a broody hen is not allowed to sit, it takes several days of incarceration to break up her desire, then several days more after she is freed before she commences to lay, and invariably the sitting fever will attack her again within a few weeks. Now, incubation takes only three weeks; brooding of chicks, another four or six weeks, and Mrs. Biddy has had a complete rest, followed by vigorous exercise while scratching for her babies. So when she is returned to the yard she is in perfect condition to produce eggs. Let Biddy sit whenever she wants to, but don’t wait her pleasure in the early spring, for you might have no young chickens to sell when they bring good prices.