Week Two!

I'm a day late on this update. Merry Christmas everyone!

I candled the eggs today-- all of them, and threw out nine of them. Two were clear (infertile), one of the small white ones from the second seller, and the other, unfortunately, an infertile Marans egg. I also tossed some partially developed ones that quit on me.

Say Goodbye to My Little Friends-- 7 of today's discards

I have left:
11 Marans eggs (three iffy and getting the benefit of the doubt)
9 Americaunas from my first seller.
5 random eggs from the second seller (three of which are iffy, but are getting another chance)

The eggs from the first two sellers are both due the 1st at about 6 am. I have been having temperature issues, so they may be a little late or early. I will be 'locking down' (not moving the eggs or opening the incubator' on Wednesday, which is good timing, as my nephew is getting married that day and I won't be home to move them anyway!

Tuesday night I will be removing the eggs that should be hatching from their egg cartons and let them prepare for hatching. I have hatched in the egg cartons before and have lost a few chicks from them hatching upside down. I have kept them in the cartons thus far just to improve the ease of rotating the eggs.

This is the point at which I start getting really nervous about having any of the chicks hatch at all.

So, Am I Saving Money?

The general question is, am I saving money by hatching these chickens myself?

The short answer is a simple 'no'. However, it is much more complicated than that. We won't have a definitive answer until we have a final hatch, but right now, if every single chicken hatched, we'd have to price them at $2.00 each to break even. On egg cost alone. That doesn't even count the incubator expense, though it DOES include the cost of shipping the eggs.

However, twelve of the remaining eggs are highly valuable Marans eggs, which may help to recap the expenses. Hopefully that will balance out the total wash out that the second purchase was. Of the sixteen eggs I received from the second seller one was broken in half, one was visibly rotten, and six more have proven to be infertile. Those are bad numbers! The others are much more what I would expect, with the majority of eggs showing growth and the case of one little chickie already dancing around.

I have also been very picky about purebreds. If I had wanted mutt eggs I could have gotten them cheaper. I am hoping that sticking to purebred chickens will also increase my chance to earn back what I spent and start paying off the incubator.

How the Marans hatch has a lot to do with whether I will save money or even make it. If I have a good hatch rate, then I potentially have earnings in sight.

Of course, all of this is just counting money. The experience is a whole other thing!

Week One!

A week ago today I set the first eggs.

I set some Marans eggs today-- twelve of them. They are a glorious color and I really hope we get some beautiful chicks out of that bunch, though most are promised to my mom.

I also candled the eggs today and I had to throw away six eggs that were all definite infertile eggs. When I candled them they were completely clear. They were all from the second seller. Shocking, right? I'm not surprised. Another reason I will not be using that seller again.

The good news is that I had some obvious development and even got to see one embryo jump in response (I guess) to the light. It was about the size of the tip of my pinky.

My camera is on the fritz, so I will have to post candling pictures at a later date.

I have 32 eggs total in the incubator now. I have thrown out a total of 9 eggs due to mailing breakage and infertility.

Day Two

The incubator temperature is finally exactly where I want it. There has been some fluctuation, but not enough to worry me as it has always been between 99.2 and 100.1. Fluctuation isn't great, but as the higher temperature was for only a short time, I have hopes that it won't be a problem.

My incubator: all wrapped up! 

There is definitely an issue with an incubator that has no insulation. I have to keep the incubator wrapped in a blanket at all times, though I leave the air intakes completely open and unblocked, it wouldn't do to suffocate the little chicks. I've considered knitting a cozy for it, but I don't have the time right now to do it.

I am still tilting the incubator back and forth at least three times during the day. I make sure that I'm gentle and that the angle does affect all of the eggs. I don't see why this shouldn't work. It's not THAT different from what a turner would do.

I'm afraid there will not be many interesting pictures for a little while, as I do not intend to crack into the incubator to handle the eggs or candle them (look through them with a light to see how they are developing) until this weekend. I will try to get pictures then.

Here's a neat fact: at about 42 hours incubation the chicks' hearts start beating. Isn't that amazing?

Day One

I set the eggs yesterday at 6:44 pm, so today is the official Day One.

I am trying an experiment with this batch that I have never done before. I am starting the eggs large-side up in egg cartons and, instead of turning the eggs individually three times a day, I am changing the tilt of the entire incubator (carefully!) at least three times a day. This helps a lot, as I have noticed that this incubator loses heat easily and is a little on the slow side to regain temperature.

Right now it's at the perfect 99.5 degrees. Hopefully it will stay consistent, but I will be keeping a hawk eye on the temperatures and everything, which I can do since I work from home.

The new group of eggs we got in the mail only got an 8 hour rest, rather than 24 hours, and, frankly, it's because I cared less about them then I was worried about a staggered hatch. Hopefully it was enough rest, but, as most of them are either bantam eggs or pullet eggs, it wasn't worth putting everything to risk and staggering everything.

So, we have 26 eggs in the incubator (I will get pictures up tomorrow). I have put the smaller eggs together as, if they are bantams, I have had those hatch in only 19 days. I will be watching them carefully.

It might seem funny, but I talk and whistle to the eggs when I do interact with them, so that they will know my voice when they hatch. We've seen that behavior in broody chickens and ducks in the past, and we mimic that. We may be delusional, but I really think that the chicks knew who their 'mama' was when they hatched after I used to sit in with them and read out loud to my kids and we'd sing to them. That group of chickens really thrived and we saw them being encouraged by hearing us while they were hatching.

Eggs are Here!

I am impatiently waiting for FedEx to arrive with my incubator, but my first batch of eggs to hatch has arrived.

Box in from the mail. Despite all the warnings our Mailman put it on its side.

Opening...

Snug as a bug...

Bad picture: One broken egg.

Opening the second box.

Only one egg cracked, look at the beautiful colors!

Resting for 24 hours before going to the incubator.

I bought them on ebay and they arrived quickly. Most are blue, one is olive green, and there are a couple pinks. I received 14 in the mail and one was cracked, so it had to go into the trash.

They now have to rest at least 24 hours big-side up before being place in the incubator to begin the hatching process. This allows the air-sac to get into place and everything to settle from shipping.

Incubator: Anticipation

I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my incubator. Of course, if I end up with not eggs to put in it, I'll have to wait even longer. I may even have to beg some off of my young friend who raises chickens and generously offered to give us two of his-- which, of course, we couldn't take advantage of! Too sweet, really.

I don't want to reinvent the wheel, so I decided I want to share a idiot proof incubating site that already has all the how-tos, so I didn't have to make it myself:
http://www.howtoincubate.com/

There's another one that I knew of a few years ago, I'll post it when I find it again. It was pretty neat, with lots of candling pictures.

(Candling is when you shine a light through an egg to see the shadow of the embryo through the shell... pretty tough in darker eggs, as you can imagine! It's a blast to do with the kids, because they just giggle like crazy to see the chicks move around and chick and jump. I've had a fun time telling my boys about when I had them in my tummy and they would do the same things. It would be so cool if we could just shine a light through to see the baby move in people, wouldn't it?)

I'm trying to decide where I want to put the incubator. It's tough, because, with the three boys, we get a lot of traffic. The laundry room seems like a good place for it, but it doesn't hold a steady temperature overnight, and that's no good. There's the kitchen, but, well.... chickens smell. I have a sensitive nose, too. Blech! There's the boy's playroom, which may be the best bet as long as I can put it someplace out of casual reach... AND where the cats won't be overly curious. I have this horrible vision in my head of a cat sleeping on the nice warm incubator and frying my eggs by lying on the thermostat.

I suppose they could always go in my room. Hmmm. Did I mention that, to me, incubators with eggs SMELL?

I kid you not, I can smell a dirty diaper across the house. I'm crazy that way... well, a lot of ways, but in this way in particular.

I canNOT wait for my incubator to arrive!

Incubating Thoughts

So, I took the plunge and I ordered an incubator. I actually ended up not going with either the Hovabator type or the gorgeous Brinsea, but a middle territory that, hopefully, will be the incubator love of my life. I got a Clear Top Turbo Fan Incubator from ebay. It has a digital thermostat, which, after having a Hovabator, was a must for me.

Don't get me wrong-- Hovabators make a wonderful first incubator. I just don't think they clean-up as well as plastic models, and are fragile for those of us with young children who tend to climb on everything.

BTW: Brinsea is having an incredible sale on their incubators right now. With our budget, it was still out of reach for me, but I highly recommend investing in the Brinsea Octagon 20 Eco with the turner. Super nice!

I am looking forward to trying out my new incubator, which leads to looking into hatching eggs. There are some really great resources for finding hatching eggs online:

BackyardChickens.com
Egg-bid.com
Ebay.com (search: hatching eggs)
hatchingeggs.net/
gabbardhatchingeggs.com/

One of my favorite chickens off all time came from an egg I hatched from Gabbard Farms. They have really great quality chicken eggs.

Of course, that doesn't even branch into waterfowl and geese. But, first things first, I start with chickens!