I know this may seem like a silly question given where this is posted but... We have just started with chickens this summer. We built a small coop and bought our first four hens, EE and SexLink, in June, thought this would be a good number for our family. None of us have any experience with chicks, we just thought it would be with the kids. Four months later we picked up five more chickens, Bantom Wyandottes. There are three hens, two red and one white, and two roosters, one red and one white. Can you ever have enought chickens?!? Now that we have two roosters we are thinking about trying to hatch some of our bantom eggs. This is something we have NO experence or knowledge in. Money is not exactly just laying around our house right now and are not sure how much time, effort, and money we really need to hatch eggs. Is it worth trying to scrap things together?
Let your hens do the hatching! Bantam hens usually are good brooders and you have time to read a lot and research the finer points of making sure you have everything they need. Tons of info on this forum and it won't cost you any extra. This is a marvelous chance for the kids to see how the life circle works and will give them so much extra knowledge for life they will be leading themselves. Go for it and be patient.
If you can pick up an incubator cheap its worth it. I bought my incubator from a lady I bought 2 duciks from. She sold it to me for 25 dollars it is an LG with egg turner and fan. I hatched 22 chicks in October and sold them for what my incubator cost so it was like I got the incubator for free. Now I also have others that want me to hatch out for them in the spring. It is also worth it to see them little chickies coming into the world.
Quote:Oh maan, is that so true! When I "got into" chickens, I never in the world would have imagined I'd be addicted to hatching them! I thought, after reading the worried posts, the sad "hatched but died" messages, the anxious postings in this forum, I would NEVER want to do anything so frustrating as try to incubate some eggs. After one of my pullets went broody and hatched a single chick, I was still reading "incubating & hatching eggs" posts. Then I bought a Brinsea MiniAdvance incubator ... it sat in the box for a while. Then I won an auction of hatching eggs - why, you ask, did I bid on them? I dunno, but I won it, and then had to dive into incubating 'em. After the first chick hatched in that incubator, I was hooked. What an AWESOME event, in the truest sense of the word "Awe." ....and now I have 7 incubators, with 5 of them full right now, one of those hatching out chicks these past couple of days. It is SO worth it.
