to receive chicks based on a 2/3 hatching success rate. Any chicks hatched in excess of this rate, the operator would sell to the entrepreneur. Dead and unfit chicks were culled and used as feed for poultry. In 1750, French naturalist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur published a detailed report of the ovens, and declared that "Egypt ought to be prouder of them than her pyramids." The book Egypt: Familiar Description of the Land, People and Produce published in 1839 placed the number of egg-ovens at 450, and noted that the Egyptian government generated significant revenue through a heavy tax on the poultry farmers. An 1895 report from the American Counsel in Egypt stated there were "150 egg-ovens, each with a hatching capacity of 300,00 each season". The report also stated the importance of the poultry industry in Egypt. In the 1910s it was reported that Egyptian poultry farmers used these incubators to produce over 90,000,000 chickens per year. In 2009 the Food and Agriculture Organization published a survey of the traditional hatcheries in three of the Governorates of Egypt, in an attempt to assess risks of Avian influenza in the country. See also Ancient Egyptian agriculture Fayoumi References External links The Egyptian Egg Ovens Considered More Wondrous Than the Pyramids, Atlas Obscura Agriculture in Egypt Agricultural technology Ancient Egypt Fireplaces Ovens Poultry farming