We received our incubator!!! Katie figured out how to set the temperature and humidity. It beeped every few minutes for way too many hours, but now things seem to have settled. This model will beep until we fix whatever we need to so that it stays at the correct levels for the chicks. We plugged it in on Thursday, expecting to pick-up the eggs on Friday. Good thing!
For this first batch we got the following eggs:
- 3 Ameraucana
- 2 Silkie
- 3 Blue Laced Red Wyandotte
- 3 Orpington
- 3 Copper Maran
These are all Lizzie’s choices. I gave her chickens as part of her Christmas gifts. If our timing is right, the chicks will be hatching around the 28th or 29 of March. They will be 1 week old when we move to the farm. I think that will make for a special homecoming.
Apart from organizing the move, our pressing concern now is how to manage these chickens once they are ready to leave our house. We have the barn, but it might be warm enough for them to explore the outdoors. We need to quickly have an area fenced and secured for them.
I hate having to build a coop, but that would be the best solution. That way, they can winter in the barn, but the other seasons, be on pasture. This implies building a chicken tractor. I’m pretty handy with tools, but framing and such…not so much. But people have been building coops for a long long time, and there are loads of plans online, so watch us go!
So count down starts today! 21 days to go. In about a week we will candle the eggs. This is the process of placing the eggs on a strong light to see if it is fertile. If so, they stay in the incubator. If not, the are discarded. Then the eggs go in lockdown until the 18th day. We then remove them from the egg holders and place them directly on the mesh near the bottom of the incubator. This allows the chicks to peck the the shells and land on a solid surface.
Very exciting! Next week, we’ll give you the results of the candling. Stay tuned.
Unruffled Farms 