7 replies to this topic

[shepie]

Hi all i just bought a brinsea 20 ex and wondered with hatching eggs how long will it be ok from laying a ferilised egg to putting in the incubator , for bought in eggs via the market and ebay etc ?

Who do you get to vaccinate your chicks ?

Thanks Shepie

Kids chicken R.I.P

[boiow]

Hi all i just bought a brinsea 20 ex and wondered with hatching eggs how long will it be ok from laying a ferilised egg to putting in the incubator , for bought in eggs via the market and ebay etc ?

Who do you get to vaccinate your chicks ?

Thanks Shepie

Kids chicken R.I.P

when we get our eggs from ebay etc . we let them sit point down in a warm even temperature for anything up to 4 days. can be longer i've heard.
our last lot of eggs ( jersey giants, from germany of all places.) went in the incubator 1 day after arrival and we hatched 18 from 31 eggs.

we don't vaccinate our chicks.

[skye]

Hi all i just bought a brinsea 20 ex and wondered with hatching eggs how long will it be ok from laying a ferilised egg to putting in the incubator , for bought in eggs via the market and ebay etc ?

Who do you get to vaccinate your chicks ?

Thanks Shepie

Kids chicken R.I.P

I alwsys work to 7 days being the max. Source them locally if you can as you will get a better success rate. I have purchased locallly and had 100% success. Ebay is very unpredictable. Going through the post lowers the success rate with an avarage of around 50%. I have had some where no eggs have hatchd and others where I have had 5 hatch.

I don't vaccinate my chicks.

Sorry to hear you lost the kids chicken.

S

[Cornish Gems]

Shepie

Here is the definitive answer direct form Wiki, sorry to hear baout the Kids Hen....hope they are not taking it too hard.

Chicken eggs take exactly 21 days from the date they are started incubating. Hatched naturally, most broody hens will take about 6 days to gather enough eggs and then set the nest. For the next 21 days she will seldom leave the nest except for defecating and occasionally for food and water. She will not allow the eggs to drop more than a degree or two in temperature.
Artificial incubation of eggs starts from the day you gather enough eggs. Eggs can be gathered for up to 7 days if the first of the eggs are maintained in cool humid conditions. Once enough have been collected they are set into the incubator and again, 21 days later they should start to peep (hatch).


CG

[shepie]

Thanks for the replies ,why do you not vaccinate? and do you sell on your pullets ?
Just asking as most you buy from the fancy chicken dealers say they are all vaccinated.

Thanks Shepie

[Cornish Gems]

We don't vaccinate as we are keeping the birds for our own use. We are currently egg producers, not breeders.... yet. But if our circumstances change and we decide to go in for special breeds for selling on, then we probably would decide to vaccinate in order to make our birds seem more acceptable to buyers. Certainly when we bought our first Light Sessex hens, we made sure that they had been vaccinated because when we first embarked on this good life we did not want any possible problems that could have arisen had they not been vaccinated.

When are you going to start a diary? You have made many tantalising posts about how you keep on getting bigger and bigger plots of land, hens, sheep and pigs, etc and we would love to learn more about another smallholder's experiences.

[shepie]

Hi CG

I as you know have pedigree shetlands and berkshire pigs (or maybe 1000 sausages if they don`t sort it out ) and now one chuck , so with my new incubator that arived today i am going to breed chickens for ourselves as hens and fatten the cockrells for the freezer ( yum yum ) , i have a lot of experience with sheep and cattle but only a small amount with pigs and chickens hence the current experimental farm with only one sow and boar and the chickens , i have kept sheep for 10 years/ pigs as fatteners for 3 years of four different kinds to see what i like best , i will do the same with the chickens over the next few months so as when i start for good i will be experienced a little in all and come out all guns blazing , next is to decide wher to do this ? here ? , tomorrow we are off to dorset for a few days and a look arround so we will have another area to discuss but as with all our decisions on location it will include bridleways for the girls / farm shop staff.

As for the diary it wouldn`t include much more than this at the moment as i don`t think it`s worth doing here dispite having mains water / electric / telephone on site and the posibility of renting 40 acres 1/4 mile away as the ground is clay

Shepie

P.S nearly forgot the girls 3 root chewing hole punchers or horses as they like to refer to them

[shepie]

Just a quick update on the eggs , i purchaced 22 light sussex large fowel eggs yesterday and put them in the incubator after 4 hrs as they were marked up as having a 7 day range in the dates layed already and had not been thrashed about in posties little red speed wagon.
Only time will tell , is it ok to remove the tray of eggs to candle in 7 days time or should i take them out one at a time ?

Just off to shear my dorset ram now, i sheared the two balwens and 6 shetlands yesterday by hand which they seemed to like more so than with the electric shears and generator .

Shepie