Hatching Chickens

I have a huge affinity for chickens.  The last 2 years I have gotten orders of chicks mailed to me from large hatcheries from around the country.  My laying flock has 20-30 hens in it (maybe more, I haven’t counted in ages) and about 5 roosters.  There are all sorts of breeds which make them appealing to watch and also an adventure when you go to gather eggs as they are all different colors, shapes and sizes.  They live in our backyard and are so much fun!

This year for Christmas my husband got me an egg incubator.  He picked out a deluxe incubator with an automatic egg turner, circulation fan and hydrometer.  I set my first batch of eggs on Christmas day and they began hatching last week.  What fun this is going to be!  We are up to 10 chicks that have hatched and there are still some more set so hopefully they will hatch as well. 

I have learned a lot during this first hatch.  First off, people get really into this hatching thing.  When I search for answers to my simple questions about hatching I am faced with an information overload which, I suppose is a great issue to have. Sometimes, I just want a basic answer and that can be hard to find without scanning through pages and pages of information.  I have also learned that I am a little bit anxious and don’t follow the “rules” very well.  Rules like, stop turning the eggs at day 18, don’t ever open the lid to the incubator after day 18, wait until they are totally dry before moving them to the brooder and many more rules that I am sure I am breaking.  The first 5 eggs that pipped were in the egg turner, still turning.  They have since hatched and are all doing fantastic.  After one hatches and has dried 3-5 hours then I move it to the brooder as I don’t want it to get stuck in the egg turner that is still turning for the other chicks.  Bottom line, I try to think like a hen.  Is a hen keeping a scratch pad by her nest so she knows when it is day 18 and she should stop rolling them around?  Does she never get up the last 3-4 days of incubation so she can keep the humidity just right?  Maybe so, but watching my hens work I am going to highly doubt they follow the rules either, I know I have some rouge hens out there.  We are getting a great hatch out percent so really I think we are doing ok.  Maybe I will figure out that I should follow the rules to get a better hatching percent but for the mean time I feel like we are doing great.  The biggest change I will make for the next hatch is to save up the eggs and start them all at once.  For the first hatch I just put eggs in as I collected them so there were a few a day over about a week’s time and now they are all staggered while hatching.  Next time I want to start them all at once so they will be similar in age and size when hatching. 

 

This has been such a fun experience and I can’t wait to get my next set going!  Happy hatching!