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Monday, January 12, 2015

Chick hatch - Day 1

How exciting!  We're going to hatch chickens!.  I told you guys, more chickens will always make me happy, happy. 

At this time, Lucy and Ethel (Reds) are each laying 1 egg a day.  We have one Easter Egger, Mama, that is old enough, but winter in preventing her from laying.  The others will be old enough by February, but again, winter. 

MawMaw (Superman's mom) is getting two dozen eggs a day via her Red Star flock plus a few Easter Eggers.  At this exact moment we have nine dozen of those eggs, in our fridge, for eating.  Obviously, we are well stocked with eating eggs.

Aunt N (MawMaw's aunt) has some Easter Eggers that are laying, as well.  Put all these Easters and Reds together and we have an overload of eggs.  What better way to handle an overload of eggs than to hatch a batch or two?

So, I'm starting my first hatch with 31 Easter Eggers, 4 reds from MawMaw, and 6 from my own backyard.  The eggs from my back yard make me especially happy since I know and am so fond of Lucy, Ethel, and Ace, the parents of my six little eggs.  I'm also collecting for our next hatch!

Here is Ace with Lucy and Ethel (red), Mama (grey), and Martha (black). 
These 4 are his main ladies.
  

We set the eggs on Saturday, January 10, so they should start peeping and pecking around January 30.  It takes twenty-one days for a chicken egg to hatch.  Both Saturdays, between beginning and end, we will candle the eggs to see what is going on inside.  To candle you simple pass a light through to see if what you have is a chicken baby.  I will definitely have a candling post, but in the meantime, it looks something like this:

 
 
In order to keep the eggs accessible and yet out of the way, we chose to put the incubator under our dinning table.  It is out of the way of drafts and easy to get to, in order to check on the turner, water levels, and temp.  We want each kiddo to have a big part in each step.  Here they are setting our first batch of chicken eggs, incubator style:
 
Sissy

Bubba

Lan

Putting our first few eggs in. (These being set are from
our own back yard.)

A full incubator is a happy incubator.
 

Lid on and little boys proud.

Now for the wait...

 



       

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