Eggs are set! I cleaned the bator initially on Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, just to get the major mess out as best I could using just hot water and soap. Today I sanitized the water chambers with a diluted bleach water mixture and let it sit for about ten minutes before rinsing it with hot water. It’s hard to clean that top structure with the fan in it because there are electric parts in there and you’re not supposed to get any of that wet - but I wiped it down with the bleach solution and used the vacuum hose to suck out as much fluff and dander from the last hatch that I could. I hope that will be enough!
The eggs and incubator are in our closet under the stairs where temp and humidity is fairly stable. Hope that this hatch goes as well as the last one!
I ran the bator for a couple hours to dry out the water and warm it up, now everything is all set and ready to grow some chickies!!
I’ll post pictures of my roo and hens soon. In case anyone is curious!
Eggs are set! I cleaned the bator initially on Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, just to get the major mess out as best I could using just hot water and soap. Today I sanitized the water chambers with a diluted bleach water mixture and let it sit for about ten minutes before rinsing it with hot water. It’s hard to clean that top structure with the fan in it because there are electric parts in there and you’re not supposed to get any of that wet - but I wiped it down with the bleach solution and used the vacuum hose to suck out as much fluff and dander from the last hatch that I could. I hope that will be enough!
The eggs and incubator are in our closet under the stairs where temp and humidity is fairly stable. Hope that this hatch goes as well as the last one!
I ran the bator for a couple hours to dry out the water and warm it up, now everything is all set and ready to grow some chickies!!
I’ll post pictures of my roo and hens soon. In case anyone is curious!
Here is Colonel Potter! SL Wyandotte/Buff Orpington Cross. Love him! He’s so sweet and such a good rooster to his ladies.
Here is his sister Mabel, she is from the same batch as him with same parents. I found it interesting she has grey legs! Neither parents did but she does.
Here is Cricket the Ancona- she was still young in the first photo, she now has a large comb that flops over just a little bit(see second photo!) She is another sweetie, always comes up to me when I go outside with them.
Juniper (Juni) the Red Partridge Rock, she turned out to be a beautiful hen! First is a younger photo of her and the second is from today. She really is lovely especially for “hatchery stock”, I think! But I’m biased
Olga, our naked neck! She is sweet but for some reason so difficult for me to get a nice picture of. She is always moving and a very busy girl. She also has more of a quiet “honk” than the normal chicken sounds which has really endeared me to her.
Beans, our speckled Sussex. She is the insect fiend. Anything we can find, the other hens might turn up their beaks to, she will gobble right up. I got her because I really missed my first two speckled Sussex’s, Pepper and Baby Blue, especially Pepper who would literally jump into my arms when I went outside. I lost them both when the neighbor dogs broke into our yard and killed all but one of my hens a year ago. I was devastated, not sure I’ll ever get another hen quite as personable as Pepper. However, I have accepted that Beans is her own hen with her own personality, and I don’t have expectations of her to be Pepper. She sure is cute! And a little bit snazzy lol. Also pretty nice patterning for hatchery stock!
Next we have Acorn, our Easter egger! She is surprisingly more aloof and skittish than I thought she would be, because I’ve heard from so many they are one of the friendliest types, but again personalities vary from bird to bird. We love her anyway and turns out she throws some pretty adorable chicks with our roo!! Excuse her feathers - they are a bit bedraggled. She was one of the only hens with a red comb and who was laying during the winter, so quickly she became our roosters favorite during that time. We are getting her a saddle so her feathers have a chance to regrow, although now that all hens are laying he is dispersing the love more equally, so to speak.
This is Forks, our Ameraucana (I think), we adopted her and her older flock mate from someone who wanted to rehome them. She is a bit older, but still lays a few eggs in the spring. She is very pretty but not much interested in interacting with
us. We got her and the other hen to keep our sole surviving hen company.
The Retired Ladies (they live happily but separately from the other flock, for different reasons):
Swayze, our olive egger that is 12 years old!!! She was still laying some eggs in the spring last year, amazingly. I fear she may never die!! Which is fine by me.
Dottie, our special little hen. She has always been a little different and has been bullied a lot, even by our other flock. Swayze, the oldest hen, seems to have a soft spot for her, so the two of them live happily in their own coop and run. She has spurs and is a golden sex-link. She occasionally comes into the house for a nibble of tortilla!
In case anyone is curious!
