Getting the flock out of here - a diary of a crazy chicken man - Page 3

And research I did. I found this site. I read every single post in Sally Sunshine’s thread. I read and read. My ideas started to grow. I discovered that as much as I wanted my local Filipino chickens to give me lots of eggs they probably would never do so. This broodiness is in built. I needed chickens that would lay eggs year round. I then researched breeds. I discovered that good old Aussie Australorps are great egg producers. I learnt about Barred Rocks, Orpingtons and Wyandottes. I became fascinated with Silkies and Polish. I continued to research.

I looked in the classifieds in the Philippines. I could not find hatching eggs. I could not find chicks. I emailed hatcheries – they had meat chicks and leghorns. Leghorns would do – but I wanted more than white birds in my yard. There is also a market for these chickens.

My other issue was who is to hatch these guys? I had to teach Bernie the gardener how to use an incubator. Now Bernie speaks Visayan. I speak English. Most of the time we get ourselves understood but when there is critical specifics – well I get nervous.

I made a problem list

1.       Getting eggs suitable for my needs in the Philippines

2.       Teaching Bernie how hatch an egg in an incubator

3.       Dealing with humidity

I developed the plan

1.       Do a proof of concept hatch in Los Angeles – before I teach Bernie, I should have some experience.

a.       Buy an incubator

b.      Get some local California eggs

c.       Hatch them

2.       Replicate in the Philippines

How hard could it be?

I followed my learned instructions to the letter. On day 18 I candled and saw 18 of 18 viable chicks.

On day 21:

I proved I could do it. I also found a home for all 17 peeps. OffGridMAMA from BYC ended up with 15 in an egg/chick swap.

An hour into the flight and the turbulence started. I began thinking about the horror stories of shipped eggs. Fortunately the special foam with cylindrical cut outs for eggs I ordered from Tx arrived at the last minute. My eggs were well protected. Twenty minutes later, the turbulence stopped. Save a few bumps when we landed in Guam and then Manila, it was one of the smoothest flights I have had across the Pacific. At 6:20am on December 24 I was in Manila. I obtained a customs quarantine permit to transport the eggs. Onto the domestic terminal for the last flight leg of my journey home for Christmas.

The domestic flight was a breeze. 55 mins later I was disembarking in Bacolod City – also aptly known as manokan or chicken country. The carousel started up. Out second was the golf bag – perfect.  I just had to wait for my three boxes. They contained my two hovabators and the kids Christmas presents (as well as 2 trailer tires, a tow hitch, 18lbs of rat poison, computer parts and all sorts of other things that make living in a 3^rd world easier). I waited some more. No boxes.