5th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2014 Hatch-A-Long

[JLaw]

@Fowlman Has some of the best Runners in America. He may be able to help you find some.

Is that spelled correctly? that link he has 8 posts and no pics. I sent a pm any ways just to be sure figured would double check with ya.

 

[cluckcluckluke]

Quote:
They are amazing. Your making me well jeleous.lol
Wheaten Aras are so cool as well.

 

[ronott1]

Is that spelled correctly? that link he has 8 posts and no pics. I sent a pm any ways just to be sure figured would double check with ya.

He is Walt Leonard and he is an APA Judge. Ok, I just checked and I did get the wrong usename.

@fowlman01 is the correct one.

 

[JLaw]

He is Walt Leonard and he is an APA Judge. Ok, I just checked and I did get the wrong usename.

@fowlman01 is the correct one.

ok thanks again. I'm going to make wife mad getting my ducks lol

 

[Mypeeps2013]

Sell the kids make some money. Just make sure you post they are goats or the cops might be knocking on your door lol.

Hilarious!!! love it!!

 

[chicken pickin]

Woo Hoo!!! Very excited thank you Ron and Thank You Chicken Picken!!!

Your Welcome!

I will send you a pm.

 

[Cynthia12]

I am currently hatching 36/36 eggs. All are still swimming. Still at 100% hatch rate. The leghorns are the white one's in the pic. Except there is also a brown leghorn in the mix so I am not sure how many of hers are in there. I only have two white leghorns. Then the one brown leghorn.

No way! You must be doing something right!

 

[Penny Hen]

I have goats and want them for milk but you have to think that to get milk you have to breed them and then you could have up to three kids... so I want milk but at the same time I dont want my two goats to turn into 8! but I'm with ya on wanting to make my own cheese!

Get a Nubian or an Alpine and have her bred by a Boer. When the kids are 6 months old take them auction and you will sell them for enough to feed your goat through the winter. The auction down near Colombia, TN gets good prices.

 

[Penny Hen]

Will that help the air cells get bigger?

In an indirect way, yes. It will suck some of the moisture out of the air and reduce the humidity making the fluid in the eggs evaporate faster.

 

[Wunjo]

I am currently hatching 36/36 eggs. All are still swimming. Still at 100% hatch rate. The leghorns are the white one's in the pic. Except there is also a brown leghorn in the mix so I am not sure how many of hers are in there. I only have two white leghorns. Then the one brown leghorn.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Cynthia12


No way! You must be doing something right!

Well I took the cleanest and best eggs that I could. I had around 60 plus in the storm cellar ready. The max they was held was 10 days. Then this time I actually washed my eggs. I read that it was actually better to wash them. My last two hatches all eggs was fertile but I lost them between 7 days and hatch time. I had always heard not to wash them and then I read that if you loose them between day 7 and hatch that a bacteria gets to them and that the dirty eggs caused this. I candled them before setting to make sure they was not porous. Before touching them in the incubator to candle I wash my hands with Dial antibacterial soap. I disinfected the incubator before setting them. I made sure that they were all uniform in size. I also floated them to make sure there was no duds before setting. Added a fan to incubator. I was so disappointed last time that I researched and researched on finding a solution. Last time my temps fluctuated and I solved that by putting them in a room with an infrared heater set to a temp of 70 degrees. I have only opened the bator three times to candle and put water in the outside tray. I could have more than filled the trays with the other eggs but many was porous and not uniform. I had planned on setting two incubators full. My husbands aunt gave me her incubator but when I got it, it was old and really dirty and I just didn't trust it. It literally looked like it was from the 80's lol. Then I had complaints in the house.... Your hatching too many eggs... We don't need that many chickens. That's a lot of feed. What if you get 80% roosters and so on. So everyone agreed to 3 dozen. Not thinking I would have success with them. Now they are still telling me what if they all hatch. I said I'll give them away to family hehe. I will just keep em though.

What they don't know is that I want this to turn into a small little business. The feed is cheap here and everyone seems to want fresh farm eggs. A 50lb sack of layer feed is just $9.25. I get my grit from the river down the road. We only buy 100lbs of feed a month so $18.50 for the feed. We get 11 eggs a day so around 28 dozen eggs a month and $2.00 a dozen. So $56.00 for sold eggs minus the $18.50 for the feed. We profit around $37.00 a month from them, and I still don't have enough eggs to supply our customers. One of our customers has an at home bakery and she uses our eggs in her bakery. She prefers ours over the store bought farm eggs. Then I was thinking of selling hatching eggs on a local buy sell trade website for $6.00 a dozen. Yeah I work hard to keep the chickens up but what else am I going to do in my spare time hehe. I think of it more as a hobby.