December hatch along

[Compost King]

Joining, I suppose.

Staggered hatches weekly. First one due the 8th. Last one will be Christmas.

Mostly Australorp and Hamburg but we do have some Silkie and Serama from shipped eggs.

I have considered doing staggered hatches, what do you use for your regular incubator and what do you use for your hatcher? (anyone who staggers can answer this and let me know why they use what they use for each task)

 

[CacklingRanch]

I have several hovabators humming right now. One stays tray less for hatching.

 

[CacklingRanch]

These guys aren’t so bad and you get two sets of egg rails for that price.

Bator by itself is about $180 I think.

I like them better than the LG.

 

[Compost King]

I use a hovabator, 42 capacity. I was considering adding 14 eggs a week and then getting something to hatch with. Maybe next years project.

 

[Compost King]

https://www.amazon.com/G-Q-F-Manufa...UTF8&qid=1543635306&sr=8-2&keywords=Hovabator I bought this one, then added an egg turner, then added a fan. Going cheap sometimes ends up costing more when I have to add what I should have bought in the first place.

 

[CacklingRanch]

In the spring when all the hens are laying we have cabinets. Right now I’ve got four hova’s going.

It’s dangerous around my house when hatching season starts. (Says my husband).

 

[Matieus27]

Joining, I suppose.

Staggered hatches weekly. First one due the 8th. Last one will be Christmas.

Mostly Australorp and Hamburg but we do have some Silkie and Serama from shipped eggs.

Glad to have you must add pictures

 

[CacklingRanch]

Parent stock of what I’m hatching right now.

Serama are not mine and not my pictures. They belong to their respecting breeders.

 

[mandelyn]

I'm in on this! New Sportsman 1500 cabinet incubator, new curtain for the hatch room window, space heater with thermostat control, pan of water.... ambient room conditions should help the incubator do it's job easier in this drafty old house.

Eggs are from our own flocks, the best eggs collected over 7 days.

6 Narraganset turkeys (this year's hatch, a couple laying already!)
16 Bresse
3 Olive Egger
4 EE/OE
12 Marans (Blue Birchen, Black Copper and a couple BCM over Blue)

On standby for lockdown are 3 styrofoam box style incubators, one with a humidity pump added to fix it's wacky humidity issues. I can sort the eggs by type into those for hatching, to better keep track of who hatched from what. Chick sized legbands when they hit the brooder.

I set them the morning of the 29th, so on the 9th or so I'll do the first candling.

The way this incubator turns is neat, it counts how often it has done it so that you know it's going, there is an alarm that dings when it's in action, it'll dip to the opposite side and then dip back again. Since the 1500 model doesn't have a hatcher in the bottom the turn grade is steeper. So far it's been running true with spot on humidity!

Lockdown on the 18th for the chickens and the 25th for the Turkeys. I've never had Christmas Turkeys before... I wasn't anticipating eggs from them until the end of February! I gave the Turkey eggs 2 weeks before keeping any for hatching, to let them get bigger. They seem to reach consistent sizes much sooner than chicken pullets.

Happy Hatching!

 

[mandelyn]

I have considered doing staggered hatches, what do you use for your regular incubator and what do you use for your hatcher? (anyone who staggers can answer this and let me know why they use what they use for each task)

I love doing staggered hatches! Prior years I was running the Genesis 1588, added some TSC Farm Innovators (which were a mistake, no where near as consistent even though the style was the same)

Added a Sportsman 1500 cabinet (GQF) with 3 shelves for 6 trays, 2 on each shelf. Each tray is slotted for 48 but I noticed several of my eggs were too big on the fat end to fit side by side, so I had to stagger in the trays, reducing capacity. That was with standard egg trays, I'll need the next size up to fix that. The capacity I was thinking on was 2 trays a week, sorted into the 3 styrofoam box incubators by type.

Building a stacked brooder by outfitting a large storage rack with walls and front doors. From there we have 3 brooders in the barn with an optional 4th, and 2 grow out stalls and a grow out coop with pasture range for final finishing.

This is the first run with the new cabinet incubator, so far, so good!

Last year I was staggering with weekly hatches and could barely manage to fill the brooders since I was plagued by the faults of those cheap Farm Innovator incubators. Should see a BIG difference next Spring!