The hatching eggs were supposed to arrive between September 11 and 13. Hatching eggs, like live chicks, are held at the local post office for pickup. This shipment was greatly delayed. It sat in the Ohio post office for 6 days before being sent along. The rest of the trip was made at a normal […]
Unfortunately, the experiment was only a partial success. The addition of the humidifier seems to have been a positive. There is every indication that the humidity stayed within the appropriate range the whole time the eggs were in the incubator. On the negative side, none of the eggs hatched. I always do an autopsy
The Incubator Experiment Results Read More »
We use wood shavings from a local sawmill to cover the floor in the chicken coop. Our trailer has a 4’x8’ bed with 3.5’ walls and rear gate. The sawmill sells the shavings by volume. So, to make things easy, I marked the walls with stripes at 1’ and 2’ heights. Now, when I fill
At 9 A.M., I met the contractor at the farm site. We spread the Typar and discussed the plan for the day. The dump truck driver arrived with the first load of gravel at about 9:30 A.M. After that, the contractor spread the gravel while waiting for each successive load to arrive. The loads came
The Driveway is Done! Read More »
On harvest day, we focus on getting the live birds cleaned and into the ice water bath as efficiently as possible. We usually spend the next day on final cleaning, cutting the birds into pieces, and packaging the meat for storage. The plucker does a great job removing the feathers from the birds. In seconds,
Cutting and Packaging Chickens Read More »
The rainy weather has been a continuing frustration to our progress, since we have limited indoor work space. We planned on someday buying a carport from Costco, because they have been offering one that has all the features we would want. We didn’t get it in the spring, when they had it in stock, because
Preparing to Harvest Chickens Read More »
This morning, the humidity readings and temperature readings all checked out. So, I loaded 10 quail eggs into the incubator. The quail eggs will be kept at 99.5 F and 45% relative humidity for 15 days. During that time, the motor drive in the incubator will roll the eggs back and forth. On day 15
We currently have only a small incubator because we mostly hatch quail. It holds more 20-24 quail eggs and that has been sufficient. When we use it for chicken eggs, it holds 9 or 10. When we expand our business I will build a cabinet-style incubator and a separate hatching cabinet, but we aren’t at
Incubator Experiment Read More »
When I arrived to take care of the birds in the new pen, I discovered the black cockerel patrolling the perimeter. He was in no distress so I let him continue on while I was inside dealing with the food and water. When I saw him approaching the door, I opened it and stepped away.
We moved the first group of birds to the new pen in the afternoon. In this group there were nine of the smallest Big Red Broilers and three accidental roosters from the pullet pen. The broilers are so large, now, that they desperately needed more space. The pen has almost four times the area of
Filling the New Pen Read More »