Why do you incubate

[kardar2]

I have people local that I can get eggs from but if I guess if I wanted a exotic I might have to order them.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

The hobby for me is not only to keep chickens but to breed them. Continuing a breed and attempting to push it to the Standard of Perfection. That goal is unattainable so you know up front but the hobby of breeding towards it is not. Every bird has a fault, and it's usually breeding two complimenting faults that obtains a closer representation of the SOP. I only breed one breed. Obviously the amount of chicks required for breeder selection means you sell many chicks and pullets but for the chicken hobbiest that doesn't mean profit.

Do I have an incubator? Yes. Was it a lot of money? Not really, a Hovabator with fan and auto turner will only run about $130. There's no need for overpriced models in my opinion though an inexpensive hygrometer you calibrate is needed. With my own eggs I achieve 90+% hatch rate. Yes on average that means 50% of those will be male. For me that means good chicken dinners starting at 12 weeks of age until I've culled down to a few selections of breeder.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I raise mine for meat but don’t have enough broody hens to hatch enough chicks to put enough meat on the table. My flock size and freezer space is limited so I have to hatch throughout the year to keep meat on the table. I also play with genetics a bit so I need to hatch my own eggs. While I prefer a broody hen top do the job, an incubator gives me control of when and how many I hatch. I only hatch as many as we will eat.

There is no way to tell you how many out of 25 will hatch. There are so many factors involving heredity, health, nutrition, and fertility of the parent flock, how and how long you handle the eggs between when they are laid and when you start incubating, then a huge number of factors that can effect hatch during incubation that the number can be all over the place. The professionals that may hatch 1,000,000 chicks a week will probably get about a 90% hatch rate of the eggs that go in the incubator. Some individuals claim a better rate, a lot of us get worse. I’ve had anything from a 30% rate to a 100% rate. On average I probably hatch around 80% of the eggs that go in the incubator but that can vary a lot from one batch to another. Broody hens normally do better than we do but even with them I’ve had some really awful hatches and some excellent hatches.

 

[gpop1]

its started because I couldn't find chicks (quail, button) locally then it turned into a hobby. My wife likes the whole breeding incubating thing. I like building things so she keeps the incubators full and I built and test new designs.

she gets a little upset if I mess up and kill a batch. I get a little upset when she buys more eggs than the incubators can hold. great thing is its a cheap hobby and we can give away what we don't need.