Tomorrow is Lock Down Day!

When I started this incubation process 17 days ago, I was feeling pretty uneasy and nervous about the very real possibility of making novice mistakes and losing chicks. The first week was pretty intense - constantly watching the temperature and being sure to turn the eggs on schedule.  After I made it past that point, something changed and I started to feel more confident.  I don't know if it was just getting into the groove or actually seeing the baby chicks develop each time I candled - but something clicked.  The last 10 days have flown by - and tomorrow is lock down day already. 

Before the actual lock down, I will go through the following steps:

1.  Carefully remove all of the eggs to a safe spot lined with a soft fluffy towel.
2.  Add water to the chambers to bring the humidity level up (ideally to 65-70%)
3.  Line the wire floor with non-slip shelf liner.
4.  Candle the eggs one more time to remove any that are clearly not developing.
5.  Put all the good eggs back in and close the incubator. 

Because my incubator is in a very bright room, I will candle the eggs tonight after dark - so I can more easily see what is going on inside.  After this, I can just keep an eye on my temperature and humidity levels AND watch for signs of pipping through the incubator windows. (I am so excited for these little babies to arrive!)  I will also be busy getting my brooder ready for them to move to 24-48 hours after hatch.

I carefully removed the eggs to a safe area. On the right side of this picture, you can just barely see my pitcher of very warm water, it should be at least 100 degrees so that the temperature in the incubator doesn't drop too much.

Under the wire floor, is the plastic humidity chambers.  I filled these with very warm water.

The non-slip shelf liner waiting to be installed.

Now my chicks will have a safe, non-slip floor to walk on.  Without this, the wire floor would be quite difficult for the newborn chicks to walk around on - making them more susceptible to splay leg.

All my eggs are back in ready for lock down.  The four eggs below the wooden chopstick are my the ones I am most unsure of in terms of development/viability.  I will candle tonight, and if still unsure, will try another process called water candling.

It should be noted, that my incubator does not have an automatic egg turner - and I have been hand turning the eggs at least 3 and up to 5 times daily.  If my incubator had an automatic egg turner, I would remove it for lock down.

I'll do my best to keep you posted on the progress of my peeps.  Thus far this has been a great experience and I hope to add some more members to my feathered family very soon.  Wish me luck!

Incubation Status from day 7

I'm now up to day 8 of the (approximately) 21 days incubating my chicken eggs.  So far it's been a little bit of a worrisome experience for me.  Because these are (potentially) living beings, I take it very seriously.  I don't want to make any dumb mistakes.

I started with 37 eggs and expectations of about a 50% hatch rate (if I'm lucky).  Last evening (after dark) I candled all of the eggs at the last turning of the day before going to bed.  I tried to take some photos to show what I saw and I think they came out fairly good considering they were taken with my smart phone.

I turn the eggs 3-5 times per day to keep the developing embryos from becoming attached to the outer membranes and the eggshell.  This process needs to be done quickly and delicately so as to not allow the temperature to drop too low for too long and to not accidentally crack or break any eggs.  The developing eggs need to be turned regularly for the first 18 days

Because I am trying to spend as little money as possible on this whole process, I did not invest the extra $45-50 on an automatic egg turner.  This means that there is a lot more hands on time involved for me (every few hours).  If I am successful with this little venture and decide to breed more chickens in the future, I will most likely make the investment.  And speaking of hands on, I am always sure to wash and dry my hands before handling the eggs to remove any oil and bacteria that could contaminate the eggs and cause hatching problems.  It's also nice to have warm hands when handling the warm eggs.

Here is one of the colored eggs being candled.  It's a good one!  I could see the the blood vessels and the dark spot which is the eye of the chick!  As I am a novice, I can not discern the tiny beginnings of a beak, limb buds and tiny digits on the wings and feet that will make toes and wing sections - but according to all my research, by the end of day 7, they are there!

This white egg (a Brabanter) is much easier to see inside of via candling.  Another good one - developing on schedule.  This is truly amazing to see so up close and personal.  My mother in law was here with me and as a retired RN, she was almost as excited as me.  A new life (of any species) is a miracle.

Since I candled the eggs to check on development, I expected to find some eggs that were not fertile (and thus were not developing) and/or some that died after beginning to develop - and I did.

Here is a Brabanter egg that is not fertile.  All I could see was the yolk and no developing blood vessels.

Here is a bantam Cochin egg that, sadly, died early on in development.  The blood ring makes it very clear.

All in all, I had 9 out of 37 eggs that were either infertile or died quite early during development.  Candling is recommended to pick out these eggs so they don't go bad and explode in the incubator.  So, now I am down to 28 eggs.  If by some miracle, all of these eggs survive to become chicks, my hatch rate will be 75%.  That's pretty good.  Since I am new to this, I don't know if, like in humans, once you make it through the first trimester, healthy birth (or in this case, hatching) is more likely.  Obviously I have more to learn.

According to the gentleman from whom I purchased the Welbar and Maran eggs, he averages a 50% hatch rate.  I am doing better than that so far.  (Although seeing through those dark egg shells was quite challenging - so when in doubt, I kept it in the incubator).  I did lose 5 of the 12 Brabanters - and that breeder warned me that those eggs are extremely difficult to hatch in an incubator - so I am not terribly surprised - but I am a little disappointed.

The big surprise to me is that all of the 14 cream crested Leg bar eggs appear to be developing right on schedule.  Those were the eggs from my hens - that were anywhere from a few days to up to 2 weeks old.  These eggs are also the descendants of the rooster that I lost to a fox more than 2 weeks ago.  It's good to know that I can (hopefully) continue to keep this beautiful breed.  I may even be able to get a Kareem Abdul Leg bar, Jr.  ;)

Well here are the final stats as of the end of day 7:

• 28 developing eggs (started with 37)
• 7 cream and/or gold Brabanters (started with 12)
• 4 silver and/or gold Welbars (started with 6)
• 2 copper Marans (started with 2)
• 1 bantam Cochin (started with 2)
• 14 cream crested leg bars (started with 14)

I plan to candle again on day 12 or 14.  I'll report back after I do. 

Until then, keep looking for the everyday miracles all around you.

I NEED more Chickens.

All the eggs just before going into the incubator

It's been a rough spring and summer so far for my chickens.  I believe that it is important for the girls (and boys) to have free ranging time - but unfortunately that sometimes comes at a cost.

We've been at our current location for a little over 2 1/2 years and have had chickens from the very beginning.  We moved into our little farm in the beginning of winter.  Our property is surrounded by farmland and woods and very close to a state park that has over 7,000 acres of wooded land.  With all this beautiful country around us, comes lots of different predators - and chickens are just about on the bottom of the food chain.  Right from the start, we had a coyote take all 6 of my chickens after an ice storm destroyed their run.

After this heartbreaking event, my husband and I were determined to provide a safer and more permanent home for our flock.  We sold our cute little chicken coop that housed up to 6 hens and was on wheels.  Since we moved from 1/2 acre to 12 acres - we could now have more!  We invested in building a BIG coop (at least to me) 8 x 10 ft. with a run of twice that size.  It's super secure with fencing that goes a good foot under the ground.

Despite having this fantastic coop and run, I still feel that my chickens have a better quality of life with some free ranging time each day.  With this free ranging, comes danger.  Well, this year has been the worst - to the point that I actually started to think that the fauna in our area told each other about an all you can eat chicken buffet at Pear of Hearts Farm.  We still have a flock, but it's quite young and are now only getting 1 or 2 eggs a day if we're lucky.  I actually had to buy eggs last week for the first time in probably 4 years... gasp!

So, I decided that I need more chickens and I need them now... or at least pretty soon.  I really didn't want to pay $10-15 (and up) each for young hens that are just about to begin laying - and I also didn't want to mail order chicks (as it's not the correct season in the local feed stores to buy them).  I went to an animal auction with the intent of getting a good deal on some interesting varieties of chickens - but was disappointed with a poor selection of hens and a whole lot of roosters!  (On a side note, there were more adorable bunnies and pigs than I could have imagined... and don't get me started on those goats!  OMG!)

If you know me, you know that when I get an idea in my head, I don't give up easily.  I wanted more chickens, I wanted a nice variety of breeds to get different colored eggs, and I wanted them now.  So what's a girl to do?  Go to the internet, of course!  I searched Google, Facebook, eBay, Craigslist, and Let Go.  On these sites, I was able to find leads to a few different varieties of hatching eggs, a never used incubator at a great price (box was open and it was dusty), and lots of information on how to hatch eggs.  (Of course I also looked to my stack of books on chickens that I have hoarded over the past several years too.)  So here I go!

Because I lost my only standard rooster (a Cream Crested Legbar) just last week to a fox, I knew that the eggs I had and would get for the next week (at least) would be fertile.  So I stock piled my blue Crested Cream Legbar eggs.  I am not terribly hopeful about the hatch rate for them, as the hen laying them is quite young - so I put all I had in the incubator.  I also have one Black Sex Link x Ameraucana hen who is laying, and I'm hoping that she may have hooked up with said rooster before his demise. Thus, into the incubator went a whopping 1 egg from her.  Next, I asked my super nice neighbor if she could spare any bantam Cochin eggs - and she was kind enough to share 2 with me (it's been super hot and those ladies aren't laying much at all).  At the same time, I sent out a request to a chicken group I am a member of on Facebook, and a local member sold me 6 Welbar eggs and 2 Copper Marans.  Finally, I scored a dozen cream and/or gold Brabanter eggs from a breeder about 35 miles away.  So, into the incubator 37 eggs went this morning!

That's A LOT of eggs.  If the impossible happens and all 37 hatch, I will be selling some chicks... ha ha!  But, in reality, I am expecting about 50-85% hatch rate.  Some of the eggs (although kept at a proper temperature) were more than a week old.  At least 1/2 were less than a week old, and the one dozen Brabanters were just laid yesterday.  So, in my typical optimistic (yet realistic) way,  I am prepared for the lower end of that scale.

I know that I haven't been great posting on this blog for the past few months.  When the kiddo is home all summer, things get moved down the priority list - and other things that can't be ignored (yard work, lawn, garden, etc.) get moved up.  Irregardless, I am hoping that this new endeavor of hatching eggs gets me back on track.  I'm planning to update my progress (and setbacks) here.  So stay tuned!

This is a picture of a gold Brabanter chick, it was shared with me by the breeder from whom I purchased the eggs.  She's the Mr. T of chickens!  ("I pity the fool!)  Can you even stand the cuteness?

Here's an adult cream Brabanter hen. Now you see why I waited a week to start incubating all those eggs!

Here's a shot of my crested cream legbars (and the rooster, Kareem Abdul-Legbar, may he RIP)