Simulated Natural Nest Incubation~Experiment #1 So it begins....

[Beekissed]

Looks like I may be dusting off the ol' cardboard box again this year and doing a little heating pad incubation again, unless God sends me some broodies. I'll be incubating 20 eggs from my two WR breeders in the regular 'bator and then will do a dozen of the WR/BA mix hen's eggs in the nest bator. What's really bad is that if I don't get some broodies before then, I'll be taking both incubators along with me on a trout fishing trip smack in the middle of the incubation period. We'll see how that goes...the nest box traveled very well last year and it didn't harm the hatch in any way that I could tell, so I hope that goes as well this year also.

I'll pray for broodies....that would solve so, so many problems for me right now!

 

[TexasLisa]

Looks like I may be dusting off the ol' cardboard box again this year and doing a little heating pad incubation again, unless God sends me some broodies. I'll be incubating 20 eggs from my two WR breeders in the regular 'bator and then will do a dozen of the WR/BA mix hen's eggs in the nest bator. What's really bad is that if I don't get some broodies before then, I'll be taking both incubators along with me on a trout fishing trip smack in the middle of the incubation period. We'll see how that goes...the nest box traveled very well last year and it didn't harm the hatch in any way that I could tell, so I hope that goes as well this year also.

I'll pray for broodies....that would solve so, so many problems for me right now!

I am so sorry Bee. I would send you my two broodies (Australorps) but they can't seem to decide which nest is the best one to sit on. :/ Of course this is causing problems in the coop.

When are you leaving on your fishing trip? I had forgotten about that.

Lisa

 

[Beekissed]

I am so sorry Bee. I would send you my two broodies (Australorps) but they can't seem to decide which nest is the best one to sit on. :/ Of course this is causing problems in the coop.

When are you leaving on your fishing trip? I had forgotten about that.

Lisa

Hey, girl!!!!!

Where ya been? How's every little thing? How's your hand? Been missing you!!!!

Leaving 5/10 and getting back 5/16. I can leave enough food and water for the chooks but Jake's a whole 'nother breed of cat....he'd eat 6 days of food in one setting and possibly kill himself in doing so. He has a history....

Going to ask my brother to come out mid-week and feed him another 3 day's worth....he eats that amount in one setting twice a month, so I know he can handle that.

I'd take your broody and with many thanks. I'm going to let eggs build up in the coop nests in hopes of someone getting a bright idea that it's time to sit.

 

[ShidelsRestBB]

Well....I've got it all set up and now it's step out on faith time, so I prayed over the nest and will see what God can do. I'm experimenting with incubation in a natural as can get setting to see if I can hatch chicks in this manner. This is my first foray into incubating chicks, so total newbie here. I've read up, watched videos, listened for years about other hatches but this will be my first. I got to thinking about how we all do it artificially and about how the hen does it and thought maybe I could blend the two and get good results. I'm using soil/leaf litter as my humidity source and will check it when I turn the eggs to see if it needs moistening. I'm using a heating pad for heat and a feather filled pad for an insulator over that pad. I will be turning the eggs by hand a couple of times a day and also letting air get into the nest at that time. I'll also rotate eggs from out on the edge to in to the middle, randomly, much like a hen would do when she shuffles eggs and I'll do this as I turn. I've not marked the eggs for turning...I intend to just "peck" them a little to roll them, much like a hen does. It will all be very random, much like a hen...she doesn't mark an X or an O to make sure she is turning them all equally and fully. At day seven or eight I'll candle just one egg from the middle of the nest to see if a chick is developing, but after that I will not handle them or pick them up...just use my finger nail to move them in the nest for "turning". I won't take out any eggs that are not developing because I won't know they are or if they are not. I'll just go on faith on that part of the incubation. ***These eggs are from pullets that are mated to a very young and not very vigorous cockerel and I've seen fertility in some of the eggs we've been eating but not all, so this hatch may be affected by these variances...but I still expect a good outcome. ***** Step 1: Lined a cardboard box with a trash bag and placed moist bedding/soil/leaf litter from my coop in a layer over that. Placed a couple of handfuls of snow on top of that for more moisture. Step 2: Made a "nest" on top of that with some fresh hay. Step 3: Eggs collected over the past week from three different breeds of chickens, will choose the most uniform, large, clean eggs from the group~chose 18 eggs for this hatch. Heat source for "broody": 12x15 in. heating pad with 6 digital settings. Thermometer: Meat thermometer that has been tested against my old mercury style thermometer for the last 2 days and is always right on the mark, exactly. Step 4: Arranged eggs in nest with pointy ends toward the middle, WRs/Dels/BAs from left to right. Covered lightly with disinfected rooster feathers for added insulation and humidity control. Step 5: Inserted meat thermometer into side of box, placing tip in middle of the nest, between two eggs....you can just see the pointy metal tip in the pic above. Step 6: Covered eggs with fake broody heat, warm side down. Step 7: Placed box on windowsill in the coolest room in the house...gets slightly warmer when evening sun hits it but have placed a feather padded pillow between box and window to insulate against direct warmth on the box. I want some temp fluctuation because that's how it is out on a real broody nest, so I'm not much into controlling all ambient temps. Have old thermometer standing by to monitor temps in the window sill so I can compare them to the temps in the nest. Step 8: Covered heat source with a feather quilted(below) and fleece covered pad~The Little Red Hen~who will later also brood the chicks while stretched over a fence wire frame and holding the heating pad in her "belly". The chicks will get under her much like they do the heat plates for chicks...but for a much cheaper price and a more controllable temperature gauge. So...that's my experiment. I was going to conduct this on the floor of my coop but for this first time I'd like to monitor it more closely to see how widely the temperatures fluctuate in this setting. That's why I chose the coldest room, so that it would still be much like outdoors. I'll run the vaporizer in that room each time it rains or snows outside to simulate the increased moisture in the air and will also add a little moisture to the "ground" under the nest when needed. This morning at daybreak this room was 40 degrees in that windowsill. It was around 5 degrees outside at that time.

Looks good. Will try this method.

 

[Beekissed]

I'd read the rest of the thread, as this method was tweaked a good bit before I was successful in a hatch and a lot of the fluff~literally~ was trimmed from the method.

 

[mangobees]

I just read this entire thread, took me a couple of days!
What an amazing journey

 

[Beekissed]

It was definitely an interesting experiment and, if I had to incubate in that manner again, I'd surely do it....after refining the method it seemed to have excellent results, comparable with others using actual incubators.

 

[lpyrbby]

It took me a few days to get through a good chunk of the posts. Any new attempts? Did you get that article drafted? I am TRYING to wait on a broody but...well...I might be getting a little impatient. I really enjoyed the information throughout the thread and would love to know of a good process to start with...just in case I can't stand it any longer

 

[Beekissed]

It took me a few days to get through a good chunk of the posts. Any new attempts? Did you get that article drafted? I am TRYING to wait on a broody but...well...I might be getting a little impatient. I really enjoyed the information throughout the thread and would love to know of a good process to start with...just in case I can't stand it any longer

No new attempts since the last successful one....been doing it with broodies since then. No, I didn't get around to writing the article...just got sidetracked and never got back.

 

[Zombified]

Hey Beekissed, I'm not sure if I mentioned this or not, but I did try this method when I had my ducks! My hens got eaten by a bobcat while we were fixing the fence. They were all sitting on nests!

So, I had a good bit of success until I sadly dropped something on the eggs(don't want to get into it, it was fairly traumatic for me). Not all of them got crushed. At the end, I don't think I had enough humidity. All the eggs that were left had pips, but only two actually came out. One was deformed and sadly passed away a couple days after she hatched. Her name was Hephaestus. The other one passed away the morning I was going to go get him some companions from another duck breeder. So, no more ducks right now.

However, we also moved shortly after all of that, so, all things happen for a reason. Moving ducks from Texas to Kentucky would not have been easy! Not to mention, we were staying in an apartment and then a trailer before the move, soooo... Woulda been crazy. And probably impossible.

BUT, here in Kentucky, we're on a farm. I'm hoping to get some ducks again next year, possibly. I would like to order some eggs and try this idea again.


ETA:
Oh, I went through the threads. I did already talk about all of this, haha, sorry.