Do not be in a hurry for the hen to lay. She will produce her egg at her
own time and no sooner. As soon as it is laid, take it out of the nest
with a teaspoon and place it in the small box you prepared earlier,
replacing it with a dummy egg. Remove the second egg likewise. Turn the
removed eggs daily. As a general rule an egg is laid every morning until
a clutch of from four to six eggs is completed. There are occasions when
a hen will produce only two or three eggs to a clutch, and many times
she will skip a day between eggs. When the third egg is laid, remove the
dummy egg, dust the nest again with insect powder, and place the other
eggs back in the nest. The evening is a good time to do this.
When the hen takes to her nest entirely, separate the cock and hen by
replacing the wire partition. The hen's bath should be withheld for the
first eleven days she sits. On the sixth day you should candle the eggs.
Cut an oval hole slightly smaller than the dimension of an egg in the
bottom of a small cardboard box, and place an egg on the hole. From
beneath, shine your flashlight through the egg. If the egg is clear it
is infertile, but if slightly red with a dark spot it is fertile. If the
eggs are all clear remove them and the nest, and after a few days start
over, letting the cock run with the hen again. If there are fertile
eggs, place them back in the nest, where the hen will continue through
the setting period, which is fourteen days from the day she took to the
nest steadily.
After the eleventh day allow her to bathe daily as the moisture from her
feathers tends to soften the egg shells and is an aid to the chicks in
picking their way through.
When the hen takes to the nest, it is a good plan, because of her
inactivity, to restrict her diet somewhat--particularly the egg food and
greens. She will likely leave much of this anyway, and she should never
take any that has soured, as she may do if it is left in the cage partly
uneaten all day.