Deana,
Maybe it is too cold for chickens. I raise geese only. I also have a couple of super-mammas. American Buff geese are very good parents and seem almost to be hard-wired to fostering children. I don't necessarily have to coincide an incubator hatch with a naturally brooded one. I keep the incubators in the kitchen, I also have one set aside as a hatching basket. We get that going close to when we expect the new arrivals.
This time of year, the house is an extension of the barn. We go from eggs, kitchen incubators, to the tub in the spare bathroom, then out to a brooder room in the goose barn. This time of year, they get a fostermom. When it's warm, we raise them ourselves.
We started incubating because we had no idea what we were looking at when we had to candle eggs. We threw out a lot of good ones the first year because of this. (We knew there was a klinker in the nests, but couldn't find it.) I recommend you get a copy of The New Incubation Book by Anderson and Robbins before starting. Read as much as you can, but no picture in any book looks like the Real Thing. We use a couple of GQF Hovabators with circulating fans for incubation. They're inexpensive and you can get replacement parts (and the incubators) directly from the company. I also recommend that you purchase spare parts like a thermometer and a wafer -just in case! You can also buy just the styrofoam housings and liners, and they are not expensive. We replace these every couple of years to prevent sanitation issues.
Shesaredroan is right, though. It is addicting. Be warned! Guess it's easier to place excess chickens than geese, though. I really wouldn't be worried about starting now if it were my Toulouse, but these eggs have potential, so I don't want to lose them.
Have spent the whole morning trying to clean up the goose yard! What a mess! And just in time for more wet weather!
It's discouraging at times how much manure they produce in one night!
