My first hatch story

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Well, just finished my first hatch, it is now day 23! Here is my hatchin story. WATCH OUT, A LONG ONE For the past few years I have been buying chicken and pheasant chicks from hatcheries and only hatched out a few of each under broody hens, well this year I purchased a Little Giant brand bator from a local farm supply store, with auto turner and "turbo" fan. Cost about $80 total and looked like it may be worth about $10, just not much to it. Sat in the living room and read all the instructions and put the bugger together, went well and only took a little while. It was a week before I was going to start incubating, but I just had to plug it in and try it, seemed to work good. I have 60 mixed breed hens and 3 roos and wanted to collect extra green(americauna) eggs for the first week, so I stored them in the bator with the turner on and the heat off in the basement, which is ALWAYS 60 F. and 50% humidity. You know, a 100 year old brick farm house. Pulled the eggs out and stabalized the bator at 99.5-100 on the 2nd of April, and filled one water channel which brought it to 30% humidity. I filled the bator on April 3rd, with all the green eggs collected for the week marked with dates to see if storage effected them and mixed eggs layed that day(47 total). I had purchased a truley calibrated electronic therm./hygrom. (like I use at my work) to see if everything is correct. I noticed the therm. that I got with the bator(man is this cheap) was only 1 degree off and left it in but never gave it much attention. I checked and recorded the temp. and humidity every day up to day 18, high temp of 101.5 and low temp of 99, it seemed to flucuate every day, and I was adjusting every couple of days, even though the basement stayed within two degrees the whole time. The humidity stayed between 22%-32% and I added water about every third or forth day, just a little. I candled at seven days with a home made candler and had to cull six eggs(not fertile) and it did not matter the color of the egg or the placement in the bator(I did see some hot and cold spots in the bator so I kept track of the placement). Then candled at 14 days and had to cull six more, just looked like the embyo died. This brought me to 35 eggs with little chicks moving around in them(really cool). At day 18 I took the turner out and put small clean sponges on the bottom of the bator under the screen and soaked them and filled all the channels, put the eggs on the screen, stabalized the temp at around 100, and left it alone. I also put one red plug in the top vent opposite the fan for the first time. Within a few hours I had humidity forming on the windows and the meter was reading 70%. The early morning of day 21 I had SEVEN little chicks running around, playing soccer with the unhatched eggs, really cute. The kids thought it was the greatest. By the end of day 21 I had around twenty little ones and they all looked great(but cramped). Yesterday, day 22, I pulled out 24 dry chicks and put in a small makeshift brooder in the basement before I take them down to the brooders in the barn with my 75 chicks I got this week from the hatchery. Well this morning I took the last five dry chicks out of the bator and put with the others. I just have one more chick trying to pip out of the shell but very slow, so I left it in the bator for today. They all look healthy and very colorful. The end result, started with 47 homegrown eggs, culled 12 during candling, 1 chick died half out of shell, four eggs did not hatch, one still pipping, and 29 very lively chicks, and one VERY smelly Little Giant incubator(which I have to clean tonight). No where near 100%, more like 65%, but a great time. I think I may purchase some Maran eggs and try them this month. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks All Craig

-- craig swanson (cswanson@lasermachining.com), April 25, 2002

Answers

That's great Craig, sounds like you're doing everything right! I hatched out some Marans last month, they sure are cute little buggers! Best wishes.

-- cowgirlone in ok (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), April 25, 2002.

Wow, you have that down to a science for sure! THe only advice that you might be able to use is that larger hens and larger roosters do well if given a 5-8(hen) to 1(roo) ratio of hens to roosters and then medium ones can fertilize around 7-10 or so and the bantam roosters can fertilize around 10 or a few more. That is what it said in a book about fertile eggs. Don't know if that helped, but you have it down so well that there was not more to add!:~)! Good job Mama hen!

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), April 25, 2002.

Might look at The Influence of Some Factors on the Hatchability of the Hen's Egg, 1934, STB037.PDF, 2.1M,http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/historicpublications/techbull.htm it is an old article (1934) but has some insights that might interest you.

-- BC (desertdweller44@yahoo.com), April 25, 2002.

Love new chicks! Congratulations! I just got some on Monday from Murray McMurray; Buff Orps, Buff Cochin, Blue Cochins, Polish, RIR, an Auracana, and some Barred Rocks. They're so sweet. I also have some hatching out in the henhouse--they started hatching yesterday. I got four yesterday (I have 5 setting hens), I need to get off here and go check to see how many more hatched last night and this morning. Oh yeah, the reason for this post; what does a Maran look like? I'm not familiar with that breed?

-- Sharon (cheesyemail@notreal.com), April 25, 2002.

Sharan, Here is a site with Marans pictures. They lay nice dark brown eggs. Marans

-- cowgirlone in ok (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), April 25, 2002.


Wow, I like the dark dark color of those eggs ! Where did you purchase the eggs or did you already have Marans? I've been afraid to buy eggs from mail order. Afraid they'd arrive broken, not fertile or some other problem. What's your experience with purchased eggs?

-- cindy palmer (jandcpalmer@sierratel.com), April 25, 2002.

Cindy, I got my hatching eggs from Bill Braden. Here is his ad (the bottom one) marans club You can also buy them on www.eggbay.com I have some other marans that I got from a lady in PA.. It's hard to find chicks, but the hatching eggs are pretty easy to get ahold of. Best wishes!

-- cowgirlone in ok (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), April 25, 2002.

Sorry about that! When you click on the marans site you then need to click on the "Members Ads" to get to the ads. Sorry about that!!!

-- cowgirlone in ok (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), April 25, 2002.

Are the Marans the ones with the black meat?? I have the same incubator as you do craig, minus the egg turner, and really enjoy it. Sounds like you did pretty good for a first hatch. Be careful of how you clean that incubator...........some cleaners will make for a bad environment for the next hatch. I usually just do lots of water and then give it a sun bath.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), April 25, 2002.

Diane, the Marans don't have black meat-darn! My chicken coop is getting crowded with all the different poultry I keep getting. If I could get a dark egg laying, black meated chicken that layed an egg every day and tasted good, I'd have it made. LOL!

-- cowgirlone in ok (cowgirlone47@hotmail.com), April 25, 2002.


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