Hatching for display at the county fair

[fshinggrl]

Awesome experience for everyone except for tired you.. but you still learned something, so I am willing to bet it was an awesome experience for you as well. I hope you got some sleep after that!

 

[A.T. Hagan]

Quote:
That was a good idea and I used it. I took thirty six eggs to the fair, but I had thirty three more I kept at home for just-in-case. Sure thought I was going to have to use them for a while until the fair eggs finally started hatching!

I took the last of the fair egg chicks out of the box this morning. Of the thirty six eggs that went into the Hovabator in the livestock tent we hatched twenty four or 66%. Pretty dang good considering the conditions! I'm happy.

Of the thirty three that I kept at the house in my cabinet incubator I hatched 31 or 96% which is pretty typical for my Dickey using fresh large-fowl, dual-purpose chicken eggs. Nothing like a stable temperature and humidity for getting a good hatch!

Now I've got a brooder packed full of chicks. Fortunately some of them are going back to Eric and some have already been sold so they'll have plenty of space after this coming weekend.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

A few pictures of the county fair egg menagerie that has filled my brooder.

There were already six White Midget turkey poults and six Cuckoo Maran chicks in there that had hatched from the week before. The poults were not at all certain about this flood of new birds that were suddenly filling their previously calm and settled home!

Meanwhile under the hover things began to get busy.

This is also a pretty good view of the underside of the Ohio brooder hover. It's five years old now and has brooded hundreds of chicks so is about ready for a new coat of paint. The weather is pretty warm so only one bulb is in use. I leave the other one partially screwed in against the chance the first one blows out.

There are somewhere around seventy chicks and poults in my 4ft x 8ft brooder now. Come this weekend I hope to lower that by a couple of dozen before they begin to get too crowded.

No room left in the inn for the poults that will hatch out this weekend so I had to go buy a stock tank to make an expedient brooder from since I still have not finished the double decker brooder that I started weeks ago. I don't know what I'll do when the fifty five other turkey eggs I set over the weekend hatch. I may have to move the kids out of their room!