Chickens that are raised in farms are almost never hatched by their mothers.
Electric incubators are a modern invention, but the practice of artificial incubation itself is thousands of years old.
The Ancient Egyptians were the first to use poultry hatcheries.
They fascinated foreign travellers who had never seen anything like that before.
Many of these travellers left bewildering accounts of the strange method Egyptian used to get their chicks.
One writer claimed that the eggs were hatched by attendants who sat on them.
The French naturalist and scientist Rene Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur produced the firstaccurate descriptionof the hatcheries in 1750.
Reaumur travelled to Egypt, and visited numerous hatcheries where he watched poultry farmers work.
The eggs are placed on the ground floor, arranged on a bed of flax or straw.
The upper rooms are used for lighting fires, using dung of cows and camels mixed with straws.
This allows the fire toburn slowlyin a more controlled fashion.
This continues for about two weeks, after which the fire is extinguished.
The eggs are finally hatched on the twenty-first day.
It wasnt until the later part of the 19th century, that the first commercial incubator became available.
A traditional Egyptian hatchery using petrol lamps to warm eggs.
They still do not use modern equipment such as thermometers or thermostats to regulate the temperature in the hatcheries.
If the eggs are found to be too hot, they are sprayed with water.
The egg shells are translucent enough to show its contents.
These skills have been handed down for generations within certain families.
The techniques of their profession are a closely guarded secret.
But traditional hatcheries of Egypt could soon be gone.
