Montana

[SwanRidge]

Congrats Karla, for getting your wireless webcam up! Those are nice clear images! What fun to spy on the chicks! So what do you think the color of our future eggs will be, with an EE roo and a mixed flock of mostly brown egg layers? Is there enough Araucana in most EE roos to pass along the blue egg gene? We will start to stash eggs for incubation starting tomorrow!

My two cents on your egg colors: I always had EE roos with my other flocks and had several clutches of "homegrown" mixed breed chicks (both incubator and hen raised.) My EE roo crossed with a dark brown egg layer such as my Welsummer produced an olive egger. With lighter colored browns there were all different variations of greens, and crossed with cream egg layers usually produced a very light pale blue. You should have some gorgeous variety!

 

[DuginMT]

Thanks Swanridge, that is very encouraging news! The egg collection is going great, we will easily have 41 eggs ready for the incubator by Saturday. Selecting the largest and cleanest ones, including 4 eggs so far from our lone EE hen! I have noticed the Roo being pretty "active" over the past month, so hoping most will be fertile. This is our first time incubating. We are following all of the tips on this great site. Hoping for at least 20 chicks out of the 41. A neighbor wants to start a flock, and we will keep about 10 in order to add about 5 pullets to our flock. That is the plan anyway!

Welcome to the site Swanridge and enjoy your new flock!

 

[DuginMT]

Just posted this on another thread reviewing the Little Giant Model 11300 Deluxe Incubator, manufactured by Miller Manufacturing:


"This is our first time incubating and I decided to go with this model because it had the most features of all the ones I looked at locally. Just put 41 eggs in it yesterday, after running it for two days. I am very concerned with the variability of temperature across the egg bed! I quickly checked egg shell temperatures with an accurate infrared gun, after running it for 24 hours, and they vary about 8 Degrees F, between 94 and 102! The eggs furthest from the heater, near the edge are the coldest. I make sure the top lid fits correctly, and currently have only the vent plug near the heater removed, per the instructions. Also, for some reason, the right half averages almost 2 degrees warmer than the left half! The room is at 71 Degrees, with no significant drafts, and I have no other heat sources near the bator. I don't want to crank it up any higher for fear of cooking the eggs near the heater. I know the fan is working because I can hear it, and I made sure the blades were turning. Does not seem to be much airflow, though. We will be lucky to get half of the fertilized eggs to hatch, at this rate.

The incubator's thermostat and temperature sensor seems fairly accurate, reading about 1 Degree high on mine. The thermostat maintains temp within 0.5 Degrees, where the sensor is located (on top of the eggs under the controller, per the instructions).

I am in Montana, with low humidity (now about 15%). I have found during preparational testing that if I put water in the outer two troughs only, the humidity in the incubator rises to 45-50%, and that if I fill both the outer and inner troughs, humidity rises to 60-75%. Note the four troughs in the middle are connected, so you can fill them all by pouring into only one of them. I use an Acurite temp/humidity gage in the bator and the humidity on the Acurite reads about 10% higher than the unit on my bator.

Anybody else experience this temperature variability problem with this unit or has solved this problem with other units? If this hatch turns out poorly I am thinking about adding a computer fan inside this unit to move the air around in a circular fashion, to supplement the Little Giant's factory method of blowing hot air straight down onto the eggs."

My advice on incubators, based on what I am experiencing so far, is perhaps to spend the extra $100 or so to get a higher quality incubator, or build one yourself that has some way to maintain a uniform temperature across the egg bed. And if you are really serious about chick production, go with a commercial unit. The Brinsea models seem to consistently get good reviews, they do not have high capacity, but might be perfect for us back yard chicken folks. I hope Miller Manufacturing reads this!

 

[RoyalT]

Hello beautiful Chicken Peeps! I've been gone for a while, but I did want to check in We've had calves born, brought in new goats, culled the chickens down to 2 laying hens right now :O And now we're gearing up for a chicken reboot I also imported a pair of new LGDs from Europe! How are you all doing this fine March? Did you get snow last night, too?

 

[Adalida]

Random question for all you Montanans. What time of day do your chickens lay? I always thought chickens laid in the mornings. I never get an egg before noon (except from the ducks, they lay early in the day). Usually they lay around 3 to 5 pm. Do I have odd chickens??

 

[RoyalT]

By 10 AM usually here. I think it is related to when they get their Sun light infusion in the AM? It's a little later here in the shadow of a mountain Do you feed in the afternoon? I used to have some gals who would hold their eggs hostage until I fed

 

[Adalida]

They have access to food 24/7, but I do let them out in the afternoon to free range. Maybe they're holding their eggs hostage until they get their free range time??

 

[DuginMT]

Mine seem to lay between about 9 to 3 at this time of year. I read where a chicken on a daily laying routine will lay about an hour later each day, until she skips a day. Well, our first incubation and hatching experience is about over! We are on day 22.5 now, and no more pips. Only 7 hatched out of the original 41 eggs, and one chick died, so we are left with 6 chicks that look pretty good. Five chicks hatched a day early (one of those died), one on day 21, and one today. We went to Big R today to supplement with 5 more chicks. I blame our poor success on both our inexperience and a poorly designed incubator. I would do things different the next time - mainly by installing a computer fan or two to better circulate the air, and taping the heat sensor card firmly to the top of the incubator, so it doesn't shift around and cause the terrible temperature swings. I found that with the heat sensor card fastened at the top of the unit, and the temp set to about 106, it was about 100 at the egg bed. Hopefully these changes would allow us to maintain all eggs between 97 and 102 and improve the hatch rate. We have the Little Giant Deluxe incubator with automatic egg turner and heater with a tiny fan. I find the heater to be plenty powerful enough, but the fan is inadequate, IMO to prevent a wide temp fluctuation across the egg bed. And next time, we will avoid placing eggs in the outer holes and only put a couple dozen or less near the center of the unit. Oh, well, my neighbor backed out on starting a flock anyway, so at least I won't wonder what to do with 30 extra chicks! The 11 that we have now, my coop can handle. I am leaving the incubator running for a couple of more days, just to be sure. Might have two or three roosters to give away!

 

[DuginMT]

Well, we ended up hatching out 10, but three died from birth defects, leaving us with 7 chicks we hatched and 5 we bought. I have been advertising fertilized eggs on Craigslist, and sold two dozen and am collecting for another 18 eggs for a Laurel school hatching project. Hopefully these folks will have better luck incubating than I did! Anyway, we have plenty of new chicks and plan to give 5 away in about 6 weeks to start a new back yard flock in the City of Billings. Its all good, we will never stop learning about chickens!

 

[Shaffer Family]

Hello from Missoula!