Hi; I've been raising chickens and ducks for the past year. My young kiddos show in 4H. We don't spend the money to buy the greatest chickens as of right now; they just choose their favorites from our coop. We decided to get into chickens after my son had many issues eating store bought foods. He has Hirschsprung's disease and currently is sporting an ileostomy. He is 3. We butchered around 50 or so last summer and plan to do another 50 Cornish x this summer. We have an assortment of egg layers; around 25 and the kids just recently decided to get into bantams. So we have a sweetheart mottled Cochin whom I'm looking for a mate as hers disappeared and we have a milles duccle. The kids would also like to get more of that breed. Currently we have around 25 chicks in the brooder and another 25 eggs in the incubator. But I have been having ALOT of problems with my incubator. A few hatched in the last few days with 2 being deformed. I think the incubator has hot spots.... and our power went out for around 8 hours. We also have a pair of Pekin ducks and just hatched 3 more. That is my kids project for a market duck category. We love our poultry and wish there were hatcheries close to ND to get some of the breeds we would like. Beings we live so far north; shipped eggs always have very poor hatch rates and the last shipped eggs I got I paid a fortune for and only one was fertile. The time before that, out of a dozen, only 3 were not cracked. Last summer we had an order of 20 chicks come in the mail and only 8 survived. So a lot of bad luck. But we keep trying. Nice to meet you all; I'd gladly accept any advice on incubators and good places to buy show quality eggs/chicks without breaking the bank.
Wow, I bet you stay busy! There are state specific threads on here so maybe you can find breeders in your area. I'll go find that link for you and add it to this post. Sorry, I don't incubate so no help there. Edit to add: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/645650/north-dakota It seems like we've recently had many new members from ND. Again welcome to BYC!
G’Day from down under jbhfmnn Welcome! Sorry that I also have no incubator experience, just hatches under a broody hen. When your Cochin goes broody which she most likely will, if you have not had hatches under a broody hen before I definitely recommend giving her some fertile eggs to hatch. I never tire of watching a mumma hen raise her babies and I am sure your kids would enjoy it also. If you are interested, BYC also has a Duck Forum: https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/42/ducks And this is a link to the Incubating & Hatching Eggs Forum: https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/5/incubating-hatching-eggs I hope you enjoy being a BYC member. There are lots of friendly and very helpful folks here so not only is it overflowing with useful information it is also a great place to make friends and have some fun. If you would like to share pictures and stories of your flock, you have come to the right place. BYC’ers never tire of these and do not back away slowly or commence eye rolling when the photo album or home videos come out
Hi and welcome to BYC - thanks for joining us. I'd doubt that a power outage of that duration would be the main issue in your lack of success with that particular hatch - that's happened to me with no problems, but I'm sure the hatching addicts will have more to say. Best wishes CT
You may want to lurk on one of the Hatch-a-thon threads or actually post your problems. You will read a lot about other BYCers successes and failures, enough to know that even the most experienced folks end up with bad hatches, or no hatches from time to time. Welcome to Backyard Chickens. Hope you will enjoy it as much as we do.
