Report on the Poultry Industry in America (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ...arrangements for artificial hatching and rearing at these last-named places are very inadequate, and by no means satisfactory. 60. Ventilation.--One of the prime essentials for successful hatching is an abundant supply of oxygen for the growing embryos, only obtainable by them from sweet, fresh air, which is also necessary that the lamps may burn freely. To secure this result with a building underground is much more difficult than when it is level with the earth. Hence we should have expected that special provision would have been made to meet these special conditions. Such, however, is not the case. In the great majority of Incubator cellars visited, the only ventilation available is from above, either by windows or ventilators near the roof. As a consequence, in almost every instance the air was foul and stuffy, even where this top ventilation was used to the fullest extent, which was not often. As mentioned already (par. 59) the only real attempt made to meet the need was at the Cornell University Plant, by means of wooden shafts bringing air into the centre of the room, but even there it is insufficient. At one place on my calling attention to this point, the weakness was freely admitted, and acknowledgment was made that fresh air found its way in " just how it can." Where the only inlet for air is above it must be contaminated by the burning lamps before reaching the egg chambers, with the result that the germs are subjected to antagonistic influences from the earliest stage. Mr. Wheeler at Geneva attributes the large amount of loss by death in shell entirely to this cause. Where, in addition to want of an efficient and sufficient supply of fresh air direct to eggs and lamps, there is the crowding of too many machines into a given...