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Show CHICKS DYING IN THE SHELL Common Trouble In Hatching and Ona Causing Many Failures Unnoticed Unno-ticed for Marty Years. Chicks dying in the shell is a very common trouble in hatching and one which causes many failures each year. There was no attempt to discover why chicks die in the shell until the hatching hatch-ing of them with incubators became popular, although this trouble predominated predom-inated when old biddy sat on the eggs long before the incubator was even thought of. There were only a few under each hen at the most, and nothing noth-ing was thought of it, but when the incubator in-cubator came into the field and made it possible to hatch them by the hundreds hun-dreds the cause of chicks dying in the shell came up for discussion. Remember that the secret of securing secur-ing high per cent hatches depends as much upon strongly fertilized eggs laid by healthy, vigorous birds as upon proper incubation. The more frequent causes of chicks dying in the shell where the incubator or operator is at fault are irregular temperature, neglect neg-lect in turning the eggs, improper ventilation ven-tilation or more frequently caused by operating the incubator in a poorly ventilated room. The directions accompanying ac-companying an incubator are generally general-ly to be relied upon, and if these are followed carefully no greater trouble should be experienced with the chicks dying in the shell where eggs arevin-cubated arevin-cubated by artificial than by natural means, due allowance being made (or the experience of the operator. Why chicks die in the shell is somewhat some-what of a difficult question to answer, for the causes are not always the same. Perhaps mot in two cases in twenty will the conditions under which the egsg are incubated or the f ' piiaiii : Strong and Vigorous Chick. conditions surrounding the eggs before be-fore they were placed in' the incubator be tbe same, hence the eause must necessarily differ greatly. It is, therefore, there-fore, difficult to give any definite instructions in-structions that will apply in all cases. A few chicks failing to come out of the sfiell is no indication of faulty incubation, in-cubation, nor does it necessarily mean a weakness in the breeding stock. However, when a large number die in the shell you should look about for the trouble, and this is not always easy to find. - |