How do I get started incubating my own chickens' fertile eggs?

[sarahandbray]

Oh, I'm a research-aholic on everything, so once I know more about the incubator I've been "gifted" for free from a friend, I'm sure I'll have more to research and search on here!
My husband is so cute--he was actually researching incubators for my BIRTHDAY next week--sounded kind of deflated when I told him a friend was giving me one! Too cute
Ask good 'ole 17-year-old-college-self if she knew she would be EXCITED about the prospect of an EGG INCUBATOR for her birthday 20 years later and she just would have died!!!!

Way better than purses, jewelry, or shoes. Doesn't trump vacations, but definitely trumps most other "stuff!!"


Sarah

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Oh, I'm a research-aholic on everything, so once I know more about the incubator I've been "gifted" for free from a friend, I'm sure I'll have more to research and search on here!
My husband is so cute--he was actually researching incubators for my BIRTHDAY next week--sounded kind of deflated when I told him a friend was giving me one! Too cute

Ask good 'ole 17-year-old-college-self if she knew she would be EXCITED about the prospect of an EGG INCUBATOR for her birthday 20 years later and she just would have died!!!!

Way better than purses, jewelry, or shoes. Doesn't trump vacations, but definitely trumps most other "stuff!!"

Sarah

That's me...I have to research and google and get this book and read this blog...lol (There's a lot of good chicken blogs too...lol) We got the eggs from (and bator) for our first hatch that was just to incubate for a school project from my sister. Had no intention of having chicks, raising chicks none of that. As a matter of fact it always drove me crazy she talked about chickens so much. I mean, they are CHICKENS. All that changed when Peep hatched...lol Now Peep is 9 weeks (the only hatcher out of first hatch) and we have 12 almost 2 week chicks in the brooder...lol And all I talk about is....chickens!!! lol

 

[sarahandbray]

Pre-chicken-owning, I found my handful of friends talking about chicken owning slightly annoying and certainly boring!! Now?!? That is my favorite topic of conversation!! Even my high school students know that's an easy way to steer me off track (doesn't every high school kid know which buttons to press to steer teacher off topic??)

I like learning about things that I was completely clueless about before...things that have a whole new set of vocabulary and opinions and gear and gadgets....in order of research--college, 1st apartment, 1st dog, 1st new car, 1st "real" job, 1st house, having a baby (talk about research, new vocabulary, and gear!!), home renovations to a 150-year-old house, and now CHICKENS!!! So much to know about care, breeds, feed, behavior, etc.

Totally fascinating to me--utterly boring to most of my friends/family!!!

 

[glensuperyahoo]

Thanks!! I actually don't really know anyone (other than classroom teachers!) that hatch their own eggs, to be honest!! I have 3-4 friends that own little backyard flocks, but they just buy their own day-olds. I did too, and will again in the future, but I'm hoping to hatch some in an incubator, or better yet, have one of my hens go broody this spring!!

Get you good incubator with a auto turner and temp gage with humidity steady temp and humidity are the main things and buy good egg tester light to see if there are babies in egged are if not I had them blow up it is a mess

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Pre-chicken-owning, I found my handful of friends talking about chicken owning slightly annoying and certainly boring!! Now?!? That is my favorite topic of conversation!! Even my high school students know that's an easy way to steer me off track (doesn't every high school kid know which buttons to press to steer teacher off topic??)

I like learning about things that I was completely clueless about before...things that have a whole new set of vocabulary and opinions and gear and gadgets....in order of research--college, 1st apartment, 1st dog, 1st new car, 1st "real" job, 1st house, having a baby (talk about research, new vocabulary, and gear!!), home renovations to a 150-year-old house, and now CHICKENS!!! So much to know about care, breeds, feed, behavior, etc.

Totally fascinating to me--utterly boring to most of my friends/family!!!

Yup lol!!!