Chick Time!!

Our chickens are finally old enough now that we could attempt to hatch our first eggs!!! Eeeeek! We were so excited! We had a ton of research to do...what incubator is best, what do we need to do to have a successful hatch, do we need a fan or an automatic turner?

I checked out books from the library, read blogs and forums, asked questions in Facebook groups, and read tons of online reviews. Ultimately, we decided that the best incubator for our current situation would be the HovaBator 1602N with automatic turner and fan kit. If you are looking for one, you can find it here:  http://amzn.to/1W1SAKc  We chose the automatic turner because, although I could manually turn the eggs, I know with our schedule one of us wouldn't always be available to turn the eggs 3 times a day.

I am part of an amazing group on Facebook that teaches the "SimpleHatch" method, which is what we have used. The short version is that we use two old school thermometers (not digital), both calibrated to be accurate at 100 degrees. One is set up as a dry bulb for an accurate temperature reading inside the incubator. The other one is set up as a wet bulb: you slide it into a 100% cotton wick (we use an old t-shirt hem) that falls into the water well inside your incubator and gives you your "wet bulb temp", which can then be converted into a humidity percentage. You want your humidity around 65% (or approximately 90 degrees on your wet bulb) for heathy and happy chicks. We also only candle our eggs on day 17 (so hard to wait, but the more you handle, the more of a chance to injure your precious chicks). The only eggs we candle on day 10 are our blue and green eggs because they are more porous and more likely than other colors to become contaminated...and no one wants a bacteria bomb in their incubator...yuck!! If you are interested in more information, comment below or message me and I'll be happy to help and share the group info with you!

Still wet in the incubator...our first two chicks!

So, once we got our incubator all set up and our thermometers calibrated, we set our very first batch of Breda eggs on February 16. During incubation, we added water as needed to keep our humidity up and then after we candled eggs on day 17, we ended up with 13 eggs developing normally (we had one that had quit developing earlier on). We pulled the egg from the turner and put them in lockdown. No one opens the incubator for any reason during lockdown.....surprisingly, Little Farmer G and Little Farmer T did really well with this. Little Farmer G just kept peeking in the windows on the incubator and saying "Awwww, how cuuuuuttteee!!! Look! Another one hatched!" If we have to add water for humidity during lockdown, we use a straw or tubing to assist through one of the air holes in the incubator. After the 21 day incubation period, we woke up one morning to 2 fully hatched chicks and many more pips!

Two of our cuties at just a couple of days old. 

After it was all said and done, we ended up with 9 healthy chicks. 4 didn't end up hatching. One of them was turned toward the wrong end of the egg away from the air cell, the others we aren't fully sure what happened. We would have loved it if everyone had hatched, but for our very first hatch ever, it wasn't too bad! We learned a lot and will change a few things the next time around, but we ended up with these cuties! Three of them have made their way to a new home, but the remaining 6 are still part of our farm.

Here are a couple more pictures of the Bredas as they have been growing up! It's so fun to watch their little personalities coming out! They love foraging, dust bathing and practicing their flying! 

Here are some of the chicks at a week or so old!

And here they are now...almost 5 weeks old and spending their days outdoors now. They look so silly at this stage!