Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1890 — THE POULTRY YARD. [ARTICLE]

THE POULTRY YARD.

HOW TO MAKE AN INCUBATOR. Having had a number of inquiries from readers possessing some mechanical ingenuity as to the feasibility of making an incubator for the artificial hatching of eggs, we present the plan of Mr. F. E. Parsons, of Lake Mills, | Wis., as described, by himself at one ( of the Wisconsin farmers’ institutes and duly reported in bulletin No. 3. ■With the incubator 'described Mr. Parsons claims to have received a better return in healthy chicks than he received from hens which were incubating at the same time. Mr. Parson says: ‘ secured a sound dry goods box, with matched joints, 8 feet long, 30. inches deep and 30 inches wide. I' removed the cover, stood the box on ' end, with open side to the front. I then passed through it from side to' side, four half-inch iron rods, equal distance from each other, as a resting place for a sheet iron floor. These rods were eighteen inches from the bottom of the box, which was lined with tin up to about two inches above the rods. The sheet iron floor was cut to exactly fill the box, thus dividing it into an upper and a lower room. One-fourth of an inch fro.u the edge of this floor I punched half-inch holes, four on each side, and in the middlfi I cut a six-inch hole. The lower room was intended for the beating lamp and the upper one tor the nest. I made the nest box two

inches smaller than the inside mcM* I urement of the large box, and high enough to reach from the floor to with- : in one inch of the top of the main box. The top of the nest was covered with a wooden top large enough to touch the | main box on all sides, thus projecting over the pest one inch allround., To , this nest no bottom floor, and leU j the front open except four inches at the bottom. I then procured a galvanized iron tank four inches deep, just large enough to fill the inside measurethent of the nest, so that when the nest was placed over it both could be sef upon the sheet ijpn floor of the main box and the tank be exposed to the heat from the lamp below. To clo?e the open part of tlje nest in front I hung a door to the four-inch piece in front of the tank, with a spring bolt to hold it at the top when plosed. In this door T placed a window 6x3 inches, back of which, was a thermometer, inside the nest, by which I could tell the degrees of heat at any time without opening the nest, Inside the nest, on the right and left were cleats, five inches apart, on which the egg-rack rested. In the top of the tank there were eight quar-ter-inch holes for the escape of vapor upward among the eggs, and one at the front top, three-quarters of an inch in size, for the purpose of filling the tank. I closed the front of the outer box with two doors; one hung at the side for the bottom room and one hung at its bottom edge, on a level wish the top of the tank, field in place when closed by a spring bolt. In the cover of the nest-box there were halfincb holes, corresponding with those in the sheet-iron floor below, and also a few quarter-inch holes over the eggs for the escape of heat and draught. In the top of the main box I cut a - inch hole to act as a chimney, and in the bottom a few auger-holes to secure a free circulation of air. ‘ ‘By repeated tests I found that 95 to 100 degrees is best for success, and that twenty minutes’airing and a complete turning of the eggs every day are necessary. I found that removing the eggs from the nest and keeping the incubator closed during the airing of the eggs is the best method, and that by having an extra egg-rack to lay over the filled racks an entire rack of eggs could be turned at once by holding them tightly and turning them over with the hands. The egg-racks are frames one inch deep, with cross strips about an inch and a half apart, bevelled on both sides attop and level with the frame at bottom, covered below with wire screening nailed fast to both frame and cross strips. In the gutters between the strips the eggs are • placed, and will remain firm in place when another frame or rack is placed upon it bottom upward for the purpose of turning the eggs.”