Hatching chicks has been one of the nicest experiences ever with a four year old there to watch the little things pecking through their shells to come into the world. With 5 of our chickens (including the two roosters) having passed due to a neighbor’s dog attacks so we believe, we were reignited to see the new life, the spawn of Zeus and Che (the roosters) coming alive to keep on their legacy. We hatched 38 eggs to be exact (with a 79% hatch rate, pretty amazing we think), including 18 by Honey, the broody hen we have outside, and the rest in an incubator that Jeff built.

For those of you interested in hatching your own eggs, they obviously must be fertilized. Jeff built an incubator (you can get instructions for cheap and easy or creative and highly efficient incubators on countless sites online and YouTube videos), and hatching after 21 days, we had to make sure that the temperature stayed around 99-99.5 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity around 40-55 degrees until the last 3 days when it needed to go up to 65%. The eggs needed to be rotated twice daily and there did need to be good air flow as well. Other than that, the process was fairly simple, but one does have to keep an eye on the stats to make sure things are square and also to turn the eggs and refill the water for stability in humidity. Then, watch the hatching begin!

Share this: Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Pinterest

Reddit

Tumblr



Like this: Like Loading...