Hatching our first chickens!
After a few months away from the incubator (due to focusing on work and pregnancy) we decided to capture the season whilst it’s still with us and incubate some more eggs. We turned to eBay and ordered 24 fertile chickens eggs. This was going to be the first time we hatch chickens on our smallholding - you wouldn’t think we were here 18 months! I think every smallholding needs chickens and this was a good time to increase the number of chickens that we had!
First time hatching chickens
The breed that we ordered were Hyline Silver crossed with Lohman Brown variety which by all accounts are a hardy independent birds that are good at foraging and give both good quantity of eggs and decent amount of meat. Dual purpose bird was perfect for our needs! The eggs arrived a few days later with no trouble.
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Our incubator (Brinsea Ovation 28 Eco) can hold 28 eggs so we also managed to put aside 4 eggs from our own backyard hens and sneak them into the ’bator too. You never know, right? I say “managed” because our girls have been broody since April so they had stopped laying eggs! They are in their second and third years now so the instinct is strong and nothing we did seemed to break them out of their natural desire to hatch baby chicks! But we still have one hen that graces us with an egg now and again and 4 of them went into the incubator.
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The incubator was set on 11th May 2018. This time we tried using a dry incubation method which I read about in various poultry groups and forums previously and which yields decent results for other homesteaders. The premise of it is to set the water humidity high at the start and then leave it be, when the water evaporates there is no need to keep refilling it. This requires less fuss and was brilliant as our focus on the incubator was reduced again due to midwife appointments and trying to prepare everything we needed for the birth and the baby. We let the incubator do its thing.
First time hatching chickens
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During the incubation we had some power cuts and it was still reasonably cold up here in Orkney so the conditions were far from ideal, but 23 days later on 2nd June 2018 we heard our first chirp inside a pipped egg and a day later 17 chicks were in the brooder: 13 eggs we ordered from eBay and all 4 of our own were hatched! This was a result of 61% hatch rate with no candling and no work! Not bad at all!
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Here is a video of us discussing the success we had. As you can see, Charlie was very excited about it too!
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Two days later 1 chick has died - it was the last to hatch and one that didn’t look very healthy from the start, so we weren’t surprised when we discovered it dead in the brooder. Nothing goes to waste on this smallholding, so we donated it to our corn snake Dipus who loved a fresh snack!
We also placed 8 eggs that one of the broody hens had abandoned. She was sat on them for 3 weeks but decided to leave the nest so we thought there might be a small chance of them hatching in the incubator. However, we had no such luck and the eggs ended up in the compost heap - I guess Momma Hen knew best!
Next up: Brooding Baby Chicks!
Next up: Brooding Baby Chicks!
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