The Great Chicken Experiment Results

I'm a bit late with this report by a week or so. I simply just plum forgot to blog it.

Three days before we stopped turning the eggs, Mel candled them with a small mag-lite flashlight. Mel was impatient (grinning). One of these days, I'll spring for a regulation egg candler, but that ain't today. We can't justify the expense in our mind.

What she found were two empty eggs, unfertilized! I still can't figure out how this happened with two roos and only five hens. But then, maybe they (the roos) were having an off day, or the hens managed to run faster or hid well.

We lost two eggs, to temperature variations, they died in the eggs. Darn Kassity kept pulling the blanket off the eggs during the night for a comfortable spot to sleep.The last five were kicking up a storm inside the eggs. I'm guessing these were highly viable eggs. 😝 We candled them again before we put them in lock down on day 17 with the container, same results.

When we put the eggs in lock down, we filled the bowl with the sponge with water to increase the humidity within the tub, We also removed the heat lamp leaving only the heating pad under the eggs. The temperature held at 100 degrees just fine.

On day 20, we heard cheeping in the tote, but resisted the urge to open the container. It was hard not to cuddle the new babies. But if we wanted all the chickie babies to hatch, we had to keep the humidity high in the tote.

Sorry for the blurriness.

On day 21, the noise in the tote had increased so we chanced it. The new babies would need hydration. Their internal yolk sack would handle the nutrition. Plus, we couldn't wait any longer. We opened the lids and were greeted by five little puff balls. I haven't sexed them yet, but we're hoping for hens. They look to be all RIRs because of the darker coloring on their heads. But as they get to feathering out, we'll definitely know.

So we would have had 100% hatch rate again except for the unfertilized eggs and if Kassity had left the blanket alone. I still can't believe two eggs weren't fertilized! Instead, Mel's method gave us a 55% hatch rate this time. Next time I'll break out the gifted incubator too to see if we can get more. I'm experimenting here preparing to hatch quail eggs closer to spring.

WTG! for Mel's Cockeyed Homestead Chicken Farm, but none for Hoo-De-Hoo's (AKA Houdini) harem, poor guy. Maybe he'll have better luck with the next hatch out. We plan on doing this three more times before spring. I'm still hoping for at least five more RIR/Buff crosses for him. All crosses will free range plus get fermented feed.

We should have a full complement of Rhode Island Reds (RIRs) and more than enough to start her egg selling business and a few spares to sell at auction. So some reason, brown egg layers command a premium at auction. I guess it's an esthetic thing, they don't taste any different. We'll start all of them on organic starter feed with no antibiotics. Yes, I'll be supplementing their water with ACV (apple cider vinegar) and their crumble with dried herbs and garlic powder.

Cockeyed Dog Food

They'll eventually "free range" in our garden and orchard in tractors until the hens start laying or they are sold. Our breeder flocks of RIRs will not be free ranged, but will have their organic, fermented feed supplemented with fresh greens and veges daily. We only produce organically raised birds not that it'll matter to most frequenting the auction house, but for us it matters. All but a select few RIR roosters, will be culled or sold at about 20 weeks old. Mel still hasn't found a processor for her chicken yet. I guess she's going to have to learn how, because I ain't gonna do more than two a day for our household consumption. That will cut into her dog food making ideas.

I'll cull the Hoo-De-Hoo/cross rooster babies because we only need the hens for egg layers. I consider these homestead only stock. I'll use the meat for our use. I don't expect to get many of those. I'll keep an eighteen-month rotation of hatching these eggs schedule unless one or two go broody. Hens older than four years-old tend to lay more sporadically. We can't have our eggs business lag once we get a strong customer base. After all, we all do even more baking during the holiday months, don't we?

Americanas

Once Mel gets established, I can see needing a greater number to sell to maintain and increase her profit margin. I don't foresee a glut in the chick, egg, layer, rooster market anytime soon. So she'll probably have a pretty good income/profit margin within two years. We still want the Americanas too. We'll probably purchase those in the spring from our Tractor Supply. As far as a third or fourth breed, I dunno. It remains to be seen as she grows and whatever strikes her fancy to add.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo