Okay, so I fell in love with a few bantam breeds, and they aren't sexed at the feed store. So, straight run it was. And, thus, roosters. They're cute, though. Really cute.
But the resulting cacophony of crowing is a bit daunting - for my neighbors. I kinda like it. I can tell which breed is crowing, from inside the house. (But I have doors and windows open most of the time due to the weather around here.)
Still, I manage to curb myself at the feed store when buying feed because there's going to be no more straight run additions to my addiction. Oh, look, there's a couple of standard breed chicks I don't have yet AND they're ones I want!
Wait, there's such a thing as incubators, I know this because I've found myself perusing that section of BYC. My, my, my, looks like a whole lot of trouble.
Months later. Still looks like a whole bunch o' trouble. Better get a SMALL incubator, like the Brinsea Mini Advance, which only holds 7 eggs. Can't go hog-wild with that. Whoa! Won an auction of 6+ Olive Egger hatching eggs! Who'da thunk it??
Whoo hooo! First hatch: 5 surviving olive egger chicks. Probably 2, possibly 3 cockerels, 2 pullets. MAYBE 3. We'll see. Two cockerels for absolutely sure. (One little hatchling came out of the shell with a burgeoning comb!)
Brinsea Mini Advance is a great, fool-proof incubator. Must get another. So I did, and I sprung for the highest version, two Mini Advance EX models. Now I have 3 incubators which each hold 7 eggs.
Two more hatches later (3 hatchlings from each, all 6 in the brooder), I see there's a digital incubator called an R-COM and it holds THREE eggs. It arrived today.
The third Brinsea has 7 more eggs in it, due to hatch around the 24th of this month. (So I'll be in the September Hatch-A-Long for quite a while, yet...)
I have two more sets of eggs being shipped to me, to refill the now-empty first two incubators. Still no more than 7 at a time.
But what the heck is the difference between buying straight run chicks and hatching 'em myself???
I'd sure like to know what is driving me to do this.
Hang on, I must go sit in the Nursery/Bathroom for a while, admiring my babies.
But the resulting cacophony of crowing is a bit daunting - for my neighbors. I kinda like it. I can tell which breed is crowing, from inside the house. (But I have doors and windows open most of the time due to the weather around here.)
Still, I manage to curb myself at the feed store when buying feed because there's going to be no more straight run additions to my addiction. Oh, look, there's a couple of standard breed chicks I don't have yet AND they're ones I want!
Wait, there's such a thing as incubators, I know this because I've found myself perusing that section of BYC. My, my, my, looks like a whole lot of trouble.
Months later. Still looks like a whole bunch o' trouble. Better get a SMALL incubator, like the Brinsea Mini Advance, which only holds 7 eggs. Can't go hog-wild with that. Whoa! Won an auction of 6+ Olive Egger hatching eggs! Who'da thunk it??
Whoo hooo! First hatch: 5 surviving olive egger chicks. Probably 2, possibly 3 cockerels, 2 pullets. MAYBE 3. We'll see. Two cockerels for absolutely sure. (One little hatchling came out of the shell with a burgeoning comb!)
Brinsea Mini Advance is a great, fool-proof incubator. Must get another. So I did, and I sprung for the highest version, two Mini Advance EX models. Now I have 3 incubators which each hold 7 eggs.
Two more hatches later (3 hatchlings from each, all 6 in the brooder), I see there's a digital incubator called an R-COM and it holds THREE eggs. It arrived today.
The third Brinsea has 7 more eggs in it, due to hatch around the 24th of this month. (So I'll be in the September Hatch-A-Long for quite a while, yet...)
I have two more sets of eggs being shipped to me, to refill the now-empty first two incubators. Still no more than 7 at a time.
But what the heck is the difference between buying straight run chicks and hatching 'em myself???
I'd sure like to know what is driving me to do this.
Hang on, I must go sit in the Nursery/Bathroom for a while, admiring my babies.
