Intro and Day 1 of Incubation!
Changing things up on this blog, going to keep the name of the blog because I like it, even if it was meant to be for my Ideal Protein diet.
Anyway...My name is Sarah, I am a 30-year-old single mom currently living in North Carolina. I spent my childhood here then spent from Dec. 1999 to Sept. 2015 in Alaska. My son is six and is currently in kindergarten. Not much else to know about me except I'm a huge nerd.
Well, I bet you're wondering what incubation I am talking about in my title for this post. I'm talking about chicken egg incubation. Serama chicken eggs to be exact. I just got them yesterday from someone who breeds and sells them in New Bern, NC. She sells them by the dozen and usually includes four extra just in case as normally she ships them, but she gave me eight extra so I have 22 eggs currently in the incubator! This is my first time incubating eggs. I've never even had chickens, personally. My oldest sister (who lives right next door) has nine. It was 11, but a few weeks ago she had forgotten to close the coop door at night and something got one of her Isa Browns very early in the morning. It was a very quick grab and go job and as we found feathers in the back of the pasture we figure fox. Then, just this morning something got another of the Isa Browns. I am thinking this time it was the raccoon that lives in the woods closer to my house. It was obvious the poor chicken was dragged through the yard and as the body was left right outside my yard where my yard, my sister's yard, and the vacant yard next door meet, as well as the fact that the head was missing and raccoons are apparently notorious for decapitating chickens it is most likely the raccoon. I've seen this thing and it is huge. Twice the size of raccoons I see dead on the side of the road. I had no idea they could get this big. It's maybe just taller on the back than a Corgi.
I'm not sure why my sister decided to leave the door to the coop open at night seeing as that's how she lost the first chicken. She said she did it because they like to come out earlier than she lets them out, but it doesn't make sense as she never did it until after her first chicken was taken. I can't be angry with her, though, she's very upset by what happened. This flock of egg layers (four of her chickens are Silkies and stay in their coop/run) was her first.
Hopefully with fixing the gaping hole in my fence (which I know the raccoon likes to use) will help with the problem. My sister also decided to no longer leave the door to the coop open and she will just let them out once the sun has come up enough.
So, on to my incubation adventure!
I went with a Nurture Right 360 incubator from Tractor Supply Co. Not my first choice but I opted for something cheaper than a Brinsea, but with good reviews. All the reviews I found for this incubator had basically nothing but great things to say. Any negative reviews were about the fact that the gaps for the air from the fan to come through were so big the chicks would end up sticking their heads in there and getting their heads hit and their beaks broke and that during lockdown (last 3 days of incubation where you don't turn the eggs, don't open the incubator unless absolutely necessary, and turn up the humidity) moisture would condense among the control panel parts and screw everything up. Sounds like really bad problems, right? Well the company happily sends you a guard for the fan holes and an anti-moisture thing you can install in the control panel area. Not sure why they don't include them with the incubator or at least sell them at Tractor Supply Co. but the fixes are simple and the company is very understanding. I went ahead and contacted them for the pieces, but as it was so late in the week and all I haven't gotten them yet. I'll probably just grab some cheesecloth or something and when lockdown begins I'll use a rubber band to hold the cloth over the fan holes. When chicks hatch they won't be able to stick their little heads up there. Not sure what I'll do about the moisture issue, though. Not every had that problem, though. I found maybe two reviews with that and they looked like from the same reviewer but from different places on the internet. What I may do is take the incubator into my guest room which gets pretty hot and install the anti-moisture piece in the incubator in there so that way the heat will help keep the eggs warmer longer.
So far, the only thing I get irritated about with this incubator is the fact that during turning some of my eggs will end up with one end propped up on the edge of the turner. If it's the fat end (where the air sac is) that's fine, but I don't like it when the pointed end gets up there. For incubation eggs need to either be laying flat or be upright, with the pointed end down. This is so that the embryo is in the correct position for when the fully formed chick is ready to hatch and pips internally (when the chick pokes its little beak into the air sac to breath). If improperly positioned, the chick will not be able to pip and will die.
Serama eggs are already more difficult to hatch than regular chicken eggs, so I am trying to take as much precaution as I possibly can. If I'd had more time I would have bought an incubator that would stand the eggs upright as people who have been incubating Serama eggs said they get better hatch rates that way.
I think I will stop this post here and make a new post about the technical side of incubation and what I am doing to try and make sure I will get as successful a hatch rate as possible. I will post pictures in that post!
Have a good day!
Anyway...My name is Sarah, I am a 30-year-old single mom currently living in North Carolina. I spent my childhood here then spent from Dec. 1999 to Sept. 2015 in Alaska. My son is six and is currently in kindergarten. Not much else to know about me except I'm a huge nerd.
Well, I bet you're wondering what incubation I am talking about in my title for this post. I'm talking about chicken egg incubation. Serama chicken eggs to be exact. I just got them yesterday from someone who breeds and sells them in New Bern, NC. She sells them by the dozen and usually includes four extra just in case as normally she ships them, but she gave me eight extra so I have 22 eggs currently in the incubator! This is my first time incubating eggs. I've never even had chickens, personally. My oldest sister (who lives right next door) has nine. It was 11, but a few weeks ago she had forgotten to close the coop door at night and something got one of her Isa Browns very early in the morning. It was a very quick grab and go job and as we found feathers in the back of the pasture we figure fox. Then, just this morning something got another of the Isa Browns. I am thinking this time it was the raccoon that lives in the woods closer to my house. It was obvious the poor chicken was dragged through the yard and as the body was left right outside my yard where my yard, my sister's yard, and the vacant yard next door meet, as well as the fact that the head was missing and raccoons are apparently notorious for decapitating chickens it is most likely the raccoon. I've seen this thing and it is huge. Twice the size of raccoons I see dead on the side of the road. I had no idea they could get this big. It's maybe just taller on the back than a Corgi.
I'm not sure why my sister decided to leave the door to the coop open at night seeing as that's how she lost the first chicken. She said she did it because they like to come out earlier than she lets them out, but it doesn't make sense as she never did it until after her first chicken was taken. I can't be angry with her, though, she's very upset by what happened. This flock of egg layers (four of her chickens are Silkies and stay in their coop/run) was her first.
Hopefully with fixing the gaping hole in my fence (which I know the raccoon likes to use) will help with the problem. My sister also decided to no longer leave the door to the coop open and she will just let them out once the sun has come up enough.
So, on to my incubation adventure!
I went with a Nurture Right 360 incubator from Tractor Supply Co. Not my first choice but I opted for something cheaper than a Brinsea, but with good reviews. All the reviews I found for this incubator had basically nothing but great things to say. Any negative reviews were about the fact that the gaps for the air from the fan to come through were so big the chicks would end up sticking their heads in there and getting their heads hit and their beaks broke and that during lockdown (last 3 days of incubation where you don't turn the eggs, don't open the incubator unless absolutely necessary, and turn up the humidity) moisture would condense among the control panel parts and screw everything up. Sounds like really bad problems, right? Well the company happily sends you a guard for the fan holes and an anti-moisture thing you can install in the control panel area. Not sure why they don't include them with the incubator or at least sell them at Tractor Supply Co. but the fixes are simple and the company is very understanding. I went ahead and contacted them for the pieces, but as it was so late in the week and all I haven't gotten them yet. I'll probably just grab some cheesecloth or something and when lockdown begins I'll use a rubber band to hold the cloth over the fan holes. When chicks hatch they won't be able to stick their little heads up there. Not sure what I'll do about the moisture issue, though. Not every had that problem, though. I found maybe two reviews with that and they looked like from the same reviewer but from different places on the internet. What I may do is take the incubator into my guest room which gets pretty hot and install the anti-moisture piece in the incubator in there so that way the heat will help keep the eggs warmer longer.
So far, the only thing I get irritated about with this incubator is the fact that during turning some of my eggs will end up with one end propped up on the edge of the turner. If it's the fat end (where the air sac is) that's fine, but I don't like it when the pointed end gets up there. For incubation eggs need to either be laying flat or be upright, with the pointed end down. This is so that the embryo is in the correct position for when the fully formed chick is ready to hatch and pips internally (when the chick pokes its little beak into the air sac to breath). If improperly positioned, the chick will not be able to pip and will die.
Serama eggs are already more difficult to hatch than regular chicken eggs, so I am trying to take as much precaution as I possibly can. If I'd had more time I would have bought an incubator that would stand the eggs upright as people who have been incubating Serama eggs said they get better hatch rates that way.
I think I will stop this post here and make a new post about the technical side of incubation and what I am doing to try and make sure I will get as successful a hatch rate as possible. I will post pictures in that post!
Have a good day!
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