Category Archives: Chickens

Chick hatching 2021

It’s been a couple of years since we last did this. Today I put three dozen eggs in incubators today (a dozen each of Copper Black Marans, Cream Legbar and White Leghorn), so hopefully around the weekend of 8th May … Continue reading

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The “Ooh-Aah” bird

Apparently so-named because it lays square eggs. But perhaps it just lays these. An average “large” size egg (the pale cream one, obviously) alongside for comparison.

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DIY egg incubator and hatcher

For some time now I’ve been idly contemplating the possibility of making my own incubator and hatcher for (primarily) chicken eggs as I’ve never been completely happy with the performance of my commercially-produced ones. What I’m thinking of for the … Continue reading

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Springtime and new life

Ok, so Spring has been some time coming this year with cold and wet weather for quite a while, but it’s significantly improving now and to celebrate our first chicks hatched out this weekend. I have a mixture of Marans, … Continue reading

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Incubating eggs, Day 29

No longer incubating of course, but about a week after they hatched the chicks are in a larger area to give them space to run around whilst they’re under the heat lamp. In all we had twenty-one hatch, but sadly … Continue reading

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Incubating eggs update, Day 21

Well, they’ve been arriving thick and fast (and somewhat noisily) today. Fifteen so far I think, with another three eggs that have pipped though it’s not easy to tell looking through the lids. Sadly we also had one Marans that … Continue reading

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Incubating eggs update #2, Day 20

Well, he (or she) wasn’t hanging about. We have a hatched chick! It’s not a great photo unfortunately. I’ll get a better one tomorrow when we move it out of the incubator after it has dried off. One of the … Continue reading

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Incubating eggs update, Day 20

The long peck to freedom! Alerted by cheeping from one of the incubators I’ve just gone to have a look and one of the chicks is already well on the way out. It’s not a great photo but it is … Continue reading

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Incubating eggs update, Day 19

Today I took the incubators off the cradles and removed the dividers so the eggs are just lying on the incubator floors. I also lowered the temperature half a degree and pushed the humidity up a little. At the same … Continue reading

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Incubating eggs update, Day 12

I weighed the egg trays again today. The weights of the eggs this time are 1055g for the Suro incubator and 1062g for the Brinsea, giving losses of 91g and 101g or 7.9% and 8.7%. At this point I’d be … Continue reading

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