This year for the first time, we hatched our own baby chicks. We decided with the world the way it is, it would be a good investment to make in our own food security. I have never been interested in hatching eggs before. I am a big believer in nature. Every year our hens hatch out their own babies. THEY are much better chick mothers than any human I know…they are chickens! It is SO MUCH easier to let hens hatch out and rear their babies. It requires nothing from us humans other than to let them sit on a clutch of eggs. Let’s not forget about having a rooster. The eggs need to be fertilized eggs in order to produce a baby chick. After a momma hen sits of her clutch of fertilized eggs for 21 days, they will hatch. Momma usually sits for about two days once the hatching begins then abandons any remaining eggs in order to tend to the needs of her hatchlings. Watching a momma with her babies is beautiful…chickens, humans, any type! Momma hens protect their babies fiercely from other chickens. They teach them what to eat and drink and where to find it. They keep them warm and safe. They teach them how to be chickens!
So, this year with shipping issues, we decided it would be best to have our own incubator. We had lost 11 of our new hens to a predator. Instead of having to have more pullets shipped in the mail, we would hatch out our own. At least this way the birds would not have the stress of shipping. Everything would still need to be done to mimic having a mother hen, but that was okay with us in this situation. We already have everything for that.
We have a child who is sensitive to corn and soy. She started reacting to eggs since this is what chickens are fed. Corn and soy, whether organic, free ranged, or not. All of them are fed corn and soy. I did a lot of research on this and we decided to raise our own without corn and soy. We were successful. My daughter was able to eat eggs without reacting.
I went online and asked around in some groups I was in to see what incubator others recommended. The Nurture Right 360 was recommended over and over so this is what we bought. I really liked that we could watch the whole process. It is very much automated for ease of use. It maintains temperature, humidity, and rotates the eggs. It has external water fill and you can simply unplug the turner at lockdown time. It made things very easy.
We bought shipped eggs to replace the birds we had lost. See the pictured eggs with marker on them. They were beautiful BUT I DO NOT recommend buying shipped eggs for hatching. It significantly reduces their viability. I learned that a little too late. For the price of hatching eggs and the poor hatch rate associated with shipped eggs, I would rather either find someone local or buy chicks online. It was not worth it for our purposes. That was our first experience with hatching. Our second experience was with our own barnyard mix. We hatched these for our neighbor. That went better. We used a dry hatch method the first two times.
