The Great Chicken Adventure: Day 1

Today marks day one of my chicken keeping experience. Ill explain what was involved and explain it in detail. For the non-interested, check back in 3 weeks for cute pictures of hatched birdies. The details are for my benefit next year when I forget what I did this year, as well as for the benefit of anyone who wants to use this as a guide to incubating chicks themselves. My information for doing this was strictly taken from 2 well-seasoned-born-and-raised farmer ladies. They've hatched hundreds of chicks in their lifetime (chickens of many varieties, turkeys, pheasants, partridge, quail, duck etc.). I know this ought to be reliable, since its worked for them for so many years.

First of all I acquired my 42 eggs, laid this week and never refrigerated. I brought them home, and today the process began. The birds will be incubated and kept in the house until they've made it past the two week mark, then they'll be evicted from the house, and moved to the chicken coop. Fortunately I was able to borrow an incubator, a Genesis II, and an automatic egg turner (this save a lot of trouble I have heard). Today, I turned on the incubator at 8:30am, filled the first water compartment and let the incubator heat for 4 hours. Then at 12:30, I placed my eggs in the turner with the long pointy end of the eggs pointing down. Then I lifted the turner into the incubator, replaced the lid and plugged in the turner. I checked back in at 1:30pm to make sure the turner had shifted, which it had.


So that's basically it, for 21 days. I have to check the water level every day and replenish it as needed. I think these three weeks will pass entirely too quickly. We still have one more coat of paint for the inside of the chicken coop, roosts and nests to build (not like they'll need them quite yet). And soon as you know everything else to do with spring will start taking up precious time too - indoor planting, maple syrupping etc. etc.

But as for the chickens, the countdown is on!