ARTIFICIAL, INCUBATION. Primitive Plan.

Te Aroha News, Volume XII, Issue 1786, 9 November 1895, Page 2

ARTIFICIAL, INCUBATION. Primitive Plan.

The use of incubotors in hatching eggs has been known and practised in China for several hundred years. It is a large and profitable industry, but the system followed is of a very primitive nature. The hatching house used is usually a long shed built of bamboo, the walls plastered with mud, and thickly thatched with straw. Along the ends and ono side of the building are a number of small straw 1 baskets plastered with mud to prevent them from taking fire. A tile forms the bottom of each basket. Upon this the heat acts, a small fire-place being below each baskets. Upon the top of tho baskets there is a straw cover, which fits closely, and is kept shut during the process. When the eggs are they are put in the baskets the "fire is lighted beneath them, and a uniform heat maintained. In forp\ or five days after the eggs have, been subjected to this temperature they are taken carefully out one by one, to a door, in which are a number of holes nearly the size of the eggs. They are held against these holes,' and the attendants, looking through them, are able to'tell whether they are good or not. In nine or ten days after this—that is, about fourteen days from the commencement—the eggs are taken from the baskets and spread out on shelves. Here no fire ’heat is applied, but they are covered, over with cotton and a kind of blanket, under which they remain fourteen days more, when the young ■chickens break their shells and come forth. The natives engaged in this business know exactly the day when the young chickens or ducks will come forth, and are ready for their arrival. They are generally sold two or three days after they are hatched.