Pennsylvania!! Unite!!

Sure does!

Welp, good news is, the hatching eggs I got from dhetzel are in a nice safe spot free of sunlight till I can get them into the incubator (should be soon). Bad news is, while I was testing out the old Styrofoam incubators I got they started to smell pretty bad after a couple of hours of having them on continuously and I got kinda panicked. So, I'm building a cooler-bator! Got all the bits I need, just the tedious part of putting it all together. Will have pics when I'm finished with it!

Here's hoping with Keith's help I can get this finished and get them in either tonight or tomorrow (they're technically still resting from their trip home).

fangedknight said:

Welp, good news is, the hatching eggs I got from dhetzel are in a nice safe spot free of sunlight till I can get them into the incubator (should be soon). Bad news is, while I was testing out the old Styrofoam incubators I got they started to smell pretty bad after a couple of hours of having them on continuously and I got kinda panicked. So, I'm building a cooler-bator! Got all the bits I need, just the tedious part of putting it all together. Will have pics when I'm finished with it!

Here's hoping with Keith's help I can get this finished and get them in either tonight or tomorrow (they're technically still resting from their trip home).

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I forgot to tell you the incubators were a little dusty from disuse. Do you have any compressed air? If you blow out the electrical elements, I think the smell of toasting dust will go away.
Take them outdoors to blow the dust out (probably goes without saying).

I am getting 3 free hens on Friday. Anything to bump up my egg laying numbers will be good, even if they don't kick in until spring. I sure am glad I got that older 10 nesting box thing-a-ma-jig.

The person I am getting them from also has 2 Muscovy ducks, but I have a friend who is interested in them. If they do not integrate well into his flock, I will take them in.

My silly broody was on the wrong nest last night when I got home. The eggs were pretty chilly, but I have read that they will usually be okay. We shall see!

Tristan+4 said:

Ok, third time is a charm. I always come back to this thread and try to catch up, but end up getting distracted and looking at pictures of chickens on Instagram.

Now 13 weeks in to the 14 birds we added to our flock the last week of August. We have also added a mixed? bantam rooster of some sort who got picked up by animal control for being loud and disorderly walking down the street. Lol! We have named him Tyrion for any GOT fans out there.

Here are some pictures because, chickens.

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Naming a loud bantam Tyrion!? Brilliant!

AnneInTheBurbs said:

I am getting 3 free hens on Friday. Anything to bump up my egg laying numbers will be good, even if they don't kick in until spring. I sure am glad I got that older 10 nesting box thing-a-ma-jig.

The person I am getting them from also has 2 Muscovy ducks, but I have a friend who is interested in them. If they do not integrate well into his flock, I will take them in.

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Anne if you need more layers I actually have 4 girls that are laying like crazy right now (I have a light for them cause it's cold outside) that I'm wanting to rehome/sell in order to make room for my show stock. They're 4 golden wyandottes, they lay really well and they're really sweet. Also great in the cold cause fluff. I just have to try and see which one of my birds is laying the double yolks because if it's one of the golden girls I want to make sure I at least keep her.

Drumroll Please! *brrrrrrrrrppptt!*

I am pleased to announce that we've selected some eggs from our own stock just to see what might hatch and added in the Black Ameracauna eggs into our new cooler bator! I have dubbed it, the Colema-bator! Since it's a Coleman cooler.

Here we are testing the fan out, after wiring literally everything. Alas the fan was working but it wore out the batteries too quickly, no worries though we should be able to rig something up, if not, it's still plenty warm in there.


We have an access hose/pipe for when it gets to lock down so I can keep the humidity up.

Lights on for the final run test to make sure everything works! I made sure to caulk on top of the lid just in case.


Set up in the sitting room of the addition, since it's a nice steady temperature in there. I did wind up plugging up the pipe/hose since it was really letting out too much air. There's plenty of cracks and vent holes besides it.


Here they are! There's a couple duck, a couple mysteries, one Robin egg (Red sex link), two Eartha eggs (Blue Egger from @dheltzel ), 3 Black Ameracauna eggs (also from dhetzel), and a couple random wyandotte eggs. We'll see what happens.


I will say that it's still settling down from when we popped the eggs in, however I'm not worried, temp is good, humidity is just a bit high. Now what we wound up doing was salvaging a fan and the egg turner from the old styrofoam incubators, unfortunately we had to trim down the egg turner a lot, but we have spare trays in case something happens. So we can technically do 21 eggs in this incubator at once, I'm not going to because I don't want any directly under the light bulbs, other than that we should be good!


Here's a better pic of the vent holes and you can see the little plastic food container with the sponges in it, the sponges were already damp, and I'm not going to add any water in until I need to. Much like along the same lines as a reptile enclosure. Last I checked the humidity went up to 60%, a little worrisome, I know, but I'm sure they'll be fine. Here's hoping that they're fertile! I'll be candling on day 6.

dheltzel said:

I wish there were. AFAIK, the only source of them is Sand Hill Preservation Center in Iowa. They clearly need some selective breeding to enhance their hardiness and appearance, but they are pretty neat looking birds and supposedly lay like most leghorns (ie, a lot).

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I found a farm near Cincinnati that has them for sale.

AnneInTheBurbs said:

Where is he located? I could maybe take a couple of hens...



Thank you!



Glad you found a home for them. The gentleman I bought the ACs from said his were excellent layers, and that his Roo (Darth Vader! ) provided excellent fertility. Maybe you got a bad batch. Who knows...



Thank you dear!



Aha. If my girls don't lay enough for me in the spring, I do have an alternative home for them. A friend of mine is turning a high school into a large day/morning/afternoon care center. It has a large yard, and he is going to set up a small coop with a few old hens for the kids to observe and play with. This will be more like a chicken retirement home, haha. I will decide who is not laying for me in the spring and give him a few.

Those CCL girls are great layers. My egg production has picked up, since a couple CCLs have started to lay. I am getting anywhere from 3-8 eggs a day from 33 (approximately) chickens, 6 of which are roos. I also have several girls molting.

Also, my one Cali Grey is molting now, and she seems to be having a hard but fast molt, so she should be back to laying soon.

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He is located in Reinholds. I think he is wanting to sell as a whole but worth a try.

I’m glad your CCL are laying. My CL is a weenie and doesn’t go out in the cold. She stopped laying for the winter. The CCL I had was a heavier and hardier bird. She laid in the winter. Her daughter is laying well.