Would anyone be interested in joining me for a hatch/raise-a-long and keeping good records of the hatches? I've done it for the two day-old batches of chicks and for my previous hatch. I'm currently recording it for the current hatch. The aim is to collect lots of hatches and compare how well they do based on differences.
For example, I record egg weight, breed, humidity, temperature, egg collection date and set date for incubation. Based on that, I can figure out how much water the eggs are losing at which humidity and temperature and I can see how well the hatches do as a result. Obviously there is variation for shipped eggs based on how many times they have been kicked in the post.
Once they hatch, I record chick weight and temperature as well as food use. At the moment, I don't have enough information to get anything useful out of this except that I need to budget 1.25 kg / 2.75 lb per chick in crumb before they go onto grower pellets.
I think it would be great if others want to join me in weighing the chicks and I would be happy to send my spreadsheet to anyone that wants to do this as well.
I think for the information to have any significance, the chicks need to be weighed at least once per week either individually or altogether. I've been weighing my chicken chicks individually and almost every day, but for my quail chicks, I'm going to weigh them together.
Anyway, I'd love to hear from anyone who is interested
Here's one of the graphs that I'm getting from my current records:
For example, I record egg weight, breed, humidity, temperature, egg collection date and set date for incubation. Based on that, I can figure out how much water the eggs are losing at which humidity and temperature and I can see how well the hatches do as a result. Obviously there is variation for shipped eggs based on how many times they have been kicked in the post.
Once they hatch, I record chick weight and temperature as well as food use. At the moment, I don't have enough information to get anything useful out of this except that I need to budget 1.25 kg / 2.75 lb per chick in crumb before they go onto grower pellets.
I think it would be great if others want to join me in weighing the chicks and I would be happy to send my spreadsheet to anyone that wants to do this as well.
I think for the information to have any significance, the chicks need to be weighed at least once per week either individually or altogether. I've been weighing my chicken chicks individually and almost every day, but for my quail chicks, I'm going to weigh them together.
Anyway, I'd love to hear from anyone who is interested
Here's one of the graphs that I'm getting from my current records:
