Don't Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch (Part II)

Our first batch of chicks are five weeks old and are growing and very active.  They are out in the chicken tractor.  We decided to get a second batch going on the incubator to replace those in our existing flock that were lost to predators or just old age.  So on March 10th we put 42 eggs in the incubator from eggs collected on the 9th and 10th.  That meant on March 31st, we'd have our next hatch as long as we kept the incubator at 100.5 F and the humidity right by keeping water in the reservoir.

Two days before the hatch, we were to remove the egg rotation tray and set the eggs flat on the floor of the incubator.  BUT, one chick decided to hatch out early.  Tricia quickly removed the rotator.  If you don't remove it, you run the risk of the tray crushing the baby chicks.  On the 30th and 31st, the chicks started breaking out of their shells.

As they dried off, we'd put them in a box and bring them outside to the brooder and set them under a heat lamp.  We originally had Barred Rock chickens.  Then we got some Rhode Island Reds and then Aracaunas.  Then we purchased some Golden Comet hens from one of Benjamin's friends.  Golden Comets are a cross between Rhode Island Reds and White Leghorns.  They are prolific layers of brown eggs.  Now, our flock is Heinz 57!  There is a lot of diversity out there.  

Here is one little hen, we hope.  It looks like a Golden Comet.

Here is one of the Golden Comets from the first batch.  We're only going to keep the hens.  We will butcher and eat the roosters.

Statistics from the first hatch:  (42 eggs)

Put in incubator            Hatch Date        Hatch        Lived

2/6/2023                    2/27/2023                25                19

3/10/2023                    3/30/2023              27                26

With the second hatch, we took the 15 eggs that did not hatch and went out to the compost pile.  We busted them open to see what happened.  Of the 15 that didn't hatch, only 4 were not fertile.  10 were fully developed, but did not make it out of the egg, for some reason.  1 was not fully developed.

Our neighbor came over and talked to us.  He raised quail at one time and would hatch out thousands of quail.  He told us that he swore by setting them in the incubator based on the stages of the moon.  He also mentioned that the time of day you set them in the incubator determines to a large extent the sex of the chicks.  I'm not sure about that.  I couldn't find anything to back that up.

However, I did find in the Farmer's Almanac that chicks that hatch just before a full moon would be stronger and have a better chance at survival.  It even had the best dates for setting eggs.  March 7, 8, and 9 were the best days.  Well, we set them ALMOST exactly on that date.  I checked back to the best February dates and we set them ALMOST on the best date, too.  For some reason, we're only achieving roughly a 60-64% hatch rate.

Hopefully we'll be able to get most of these to maturity - either for egg layers for for gumbo!