Hatching Chicks

I made a promise a while back to share our experience with hatching our own chicks. We found someone selling some fertilized eggs and bought a still-air incubator. We bought 3 dozen eggs, marked them with an "o" on one side and an "x" on the other. They had to be turned 3 times a day. Good thing we go to bed late, so we didn't have to worry about really watching the clock.

One night, half way through the 3 week incubation, the power went out for two hours. We didn't know what that would do to the eggs. We eventually found out.

When day 19 arrived, we stopped turning the eggs. And we kept an eye on those eggs! We saw many of them shaking and knew it would be any day! Ugh. Those eggs kept us waiting; the eggs were late. Apparently, that two hours made a difference. And maybe the temp wasn't quite warm enough, though it was a little difficult to regulate.

Then one morning...FINALLY! We saw a crack and kept a close watch on that little egg. It took all day.

We decided it was ugly in a cute sort of way. We kept it in the incubator until it was dry. Little chicks sure create a huge disturbance to the rest of the eggs while they flop around. So much for not turning the eggs during the last 3 days!

It was a much cuter creature when it was dry. And seemed so lonely all by itself.

Until more of the eggs started to hatch.

All in all, we didn't have much success with hatching eggs. Out of 36 eggs, 8 hatched and 4 survived. We did learn some things though and plan to try again with eggs from our own birds sometime.

We bought a dozen chicks from the mill in town and now have 16 chicks that have fully feathered out. Just two days ago, we moved them from the coop into the yard with a shelter. It's a temporary situation until we can build something a little bigger for them. We're only waiting until they start laying so that we can replace our 2-year-old hens. We figure that won't happen until November.

Additionally, we have two turkey chicks. The first two we had died. That's when we found out that turkey chicks need to be kept warmer than chicken chicks. Some information is more important than other information. The turkeys are still in the coop, but their pen is being prepared. November is also their big deadline. ;)