Hello!
How was everyone's Christmas? Hopefully you spent it with family and enjoy lots of great food! I received an incubator for Christmas from my grandpa. Since having chickens I have raised chicks, but I haven't incubated any or had a hen go broody.
I allowed the bator to regulate the temps to 99.5 F, and the humidity. I am trying the dry hatch method so I'm keeping the humidity low-ish(right now I'm at day 5 and its sitting at 31%, adding a bit of water tomorrow). It is a circulated air incubator, just an inexpensive styrofoam one from Atwoods. It has an automatic egg turner so thats a plus. I have placed 12 serama eggs in it along with 3 silkie eggs, 3 cochin eggs, and a couple from Zelda(one of my bantam hens). Today is day 5 and so far so good. I'll be candling them in a couple of days and I hope to end up having a good fertile rate and eventually a good hatch rate.
I have been extremely excited about the setting! Haha I often run into the "incubation room" just to make sure the temp and humidity is right. Since I still live with my grandparents, I was very happy to hear my grandma tell me I could finally bring the brooder inside of the house for these babies(it has been in the feed room).
How many of y'all have used an incubator? How was your hatch? How many hatches have you had? I'm very interested in what methods others have used!
I forgot to mention in my first few posts, you can find me on instagram: @thepoopcoop and on backyardchickens.com: @collegegardener
Hope everyone has a Happy New Year full of happy cluckers!
I live in Arkansas too. I have my coop but no chickens yet. I am excited to get some. One hatchery i've looked at doesn't ship small quantities until spring. I want the pretty ones....found you on Instagram.
ReplyDeleteWhich hatchery have you looked into? Have you found backyardchickens.com yet? It helped me out a lot when I first got chickens. I would also look into finding a local breeder first before ordering from a hatchery. Ask around at your local co-op for anyone in the area that keeps or breeds chickens. Also, on backyardchickens.com there is a forum for people in different states/areas and you can usually find a breeder there. I'm not sure which part of Arkansas you're in, but you'd be surprised with the amount of backyard chickens around here :) Also, feel free to ask any questions anytime you need to! I'll help best I can!
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