Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Chick, Chick, Chick

Who would have figured, just by mistake we increased our hatch rate, big time.
We had a bunch of eggs ready for hatching today and they were forgot about and left on the turner. The wife heard some peeping coming from one of the incubators and realized she did not put that one on lock down three days prior like she should have.
In a panic she transferred all the eggs from the turners to the hatching tray in hopes at least some would go ahead and hatch out. And hatch they did and they are still hatching. It looks like this bunch will top out at the 55% range which is a lot better than the 10% and 15% we were getting.

For as long as I have been hatching eggs, we always locked them down 2 1/2 to 3 days prior to hatching. When we had the big incubators we got around 85% to 90% hatch rates by doing that so I figured the same would go for the cheap ones as well. Needless to say, from now on we are going to let the eggs stay in the turners for a least another day to day and a half and see what that does.  

3 comments:

  1. Good for you, Redneck! Sometimes we hinder ourselves we hinder ourselves with too much micro-managing. Maybe you've stumbled onto the perfect timing for your new setup.

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  2. Good luck! I got my chicks yesterday. I got day old chicks, not ready to start hatching them myself. They're so darn cute.

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  3. Chicks are great! I will be getting 6 more to add to my flock in two weeks. In the mean time my Sebastapol geese and Khaki Campbell ducks arrived in the mail last Wednesday and the girls and I have been playing with them mostly because they are so darn cute but seriously because I want the geese to be socialized. Didn't take them long though. Didn't I read that your wife was going to get geese?

    Sista

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