“When the hens begin to lay, straw should be spread in their nests and this should be renewed when they begin to set, for in such bedding are bred mites and other insects which will not suffer the hen to be quiet, with the result that the eggs are hatched unequally or rot.

“A hen should not be allowed to set on more than twenty-five eggs, although such is her fecundity that she lays more than that in a season.  The best time for hatching is from the spring to the autumn equinox.  Eggs laid before or after this season, or the first eggs laid by a pullet, should never be set.  Hens used for setting should be old rather than young, without sharp beaks and claws, for those so equipped are better employed in laying than in setting.  Hens a year or two years old are better fitted for laying.

“If you set pea-cock eggs under a hen, you should wait ten days before adding hen eggs to the nest, to insure them all hatching together, for the period of incubation of chicken eggs is thrice seven days and that of the eggs of pea-fowl is thrice nine.  Sitting hens should be shut up day and night, except for a time in the morning and evening, when they are let out to eat and drink.

“The keeper should make the rounds every few days and turn the eggs, so that they may be kept warm all over.  It is said that you can tell whether an egg is fertile or sterile by putting it in water:  for if it is sterile it will float, while if it is fertile it will sink.  Those who shake their eggs to ascertain this fact make a mistake for thereby they destroy the germ in them.  It is also said that you can tell a sterile egg by the fact that it is transparent when held against the light.

“To preserve eggs they should be rubbed with fine salt or soaked for three or four hours in brine, and then cleaned off or packed in chaff or straw.  Care should be taken to set eggs only in uneven numbers.  The keeper can tell whether an egg is fertile or not four days after it is set, by holding it to the light, when he should throw it out if it is found to be empty and substitute another for it.

“The new hatched chickens should be taken from every nest and given to a hen who has only a few to care for.  When in this way a setting hen has less than half her eggs left unhatched, they should be taken from her and put under another hen which has eggs still unhatched.  It is not well to give more than thirty chicks to a hen.  Chicks should be fed for the first fifteen days in the dust to protect them from injuring their tender beaks on the hard ground:  their diet being crushed barley mixed with cress seed and soaked in wine, for prepared in this way the grain is digestible.  They should be kept away from water in the beginning.  When they begin to have feathers on their legs the mites should be carefully picked off their heads and necks, for these banes often destroy them.  Deer’s horn should be burnt around their coops to keep snakes away, for the very smell of those vermin is fatal