. Commercial poultry raising; a thoroughly practical and complete reference work for the amateur, fancier or general farmer, especially adapted to the commercial poultryman. Poultry. CHAPTER XXII. ARTIFICIAL BROODING If artificial incubation is practiced it necessitates artificial brooding, unless the hatches are small, in which case the chicks can be given to hens, though this practice really defeats the idea of the incubator, which is to conserve the hen's time. It takes at least four weeks to wean a brood of chicks, sometimes six weeks, and during this period the mother hen is a non-layer.
. Commercial poultry raising; a thoroughly practical and complete reference work for the amateur, fancier or general farmer, especially adapted to the commercial poultryman. Poultry. CHAPTER XXII. ARTIFICIAL BROODING If artificial incubation is practiced it necessitates artificial brooding, unless the hatches are small, in which case the chicks can be given to hens, though this practice really defeats the idea of the incubator, which is to conserve the hen's time. It takes at least four weeks to wean a brood of chicks, sometimes six weeks, and during this period the mother hen is a non-layer. In fact, she seldom starts to lay for a month after she has weaned her brood, due to the fact that she is usually so run down and out of condition, as the result of her maternal efforts and responsibili- ties, that she must first rebuild her vitality. This represents a great deal of lost time so far as egg production is concerned, and the time lost is usually during April, May and June, the months of heaviest laying. Farmers are the greatest patrons of this combination method, and their idea is to escape the care of the brooder, which they regard more or less with suspicion. It must be admitted, of course, that no brooder is equal to the hen as a mother; we can- not improve on nature in this respect; but we can do the work a whole lot cheaper with the brooder, and this is an important con- sideration. Were it not for artificial incubation and brooding it would be impossible for commercial poultry plants to conduct their opera- tions on such a vast scale. It is not practicable to raise large numbers of chicks by hens. In the first place, it is virtually im- 295. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Roberts, Howard Armstrong, 1885-. Philadelphia, D. McKay
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublishe, booksubjectpoultry
