Our First Hatch went great this year. We are running the incubator in my kitchen to avoid fluctuating temperatures in the feed room. Last year our hatches were not as good as we wanted, and so this year we will baby the babies. 95% Hatch rate this time! I allow the chicks to brood in the kitchen for about a week, then we put them outside with a heat lamp. This special week in the kitchen makes our birds very tame and adapted to hearing the high play voices of my girls. The little chicks eagerly peck feed from our palms and will even follow us around.
We have two incubators running, and we are using a very advanced tot bucket for a brooder. I'm sensitive to smells and so the chicks time is limited in my home, but we do enjoy them in the beginning.
My girls are trained to recognize the desperate "PEEP PEEP PEEP" of a newly hatched chick and will come running to see what new wet chick is in the incubator. We don't open the incubators until the whole hatch is over, so we don't mess up the humidity or temperature for hatching chicks, so it is a good thing both incubators have good windows for us to observe our hatchlings.
My husband also ordered me a new breed from a hatchery! I've always loved Columbian Rock hens, so I got 15 chicks. They are adorable and arrived just days after our first hatch.
I can't wait to see how these little guys will grow out!
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