I’m a couple weeks behind in my year of the chicken updates. For those of you who are just starting with the series, The Year of the Chicken is where I follow one of our chickens from egg to laying hen. To see the last post visit The Year of the Chicken: Collecting Hatching Eggs.
The reason I’m behind lies with Mother Nature. We have our Buffs separated in a breeding pen. The run attached to the coop is walled off with dog kennel fencing to keep the other breeds of roosters out of the Buff pen. We wired garden fencing across the top of the run to keep the roosters from jumping the fence.
Last month we had a doozy of a windstorm and the fencing blew off. I didn’t realize this had happened in time to see that our Leghorn (cross) rooster had taken advantage of the damage to join our flock of Buff ladies.
I got him out of there, and we repaired the fencing. But this meant that I had to wait an additional two weeks to achieve clean lines again with our Buff girls.
So finally, I have enough eggs to fill our Brinsea Mini Advanced.
I’ve set up our incubation station in the back sunroom on my drafting table. This set up has become tradition over the years. In the spring, our sunroom functions as our farm room. It homes our new seedlings on the shelves under the grow lamps, any chicks or ducklings that I may be brooding, and the incubators.
This room functions really well for this purpose. It’s off the back of the house away from the kitchen, and it has a glass pane door that closes it off from the rest of the house. It has lots of windows for natural light and all the warmth from the heat lamps, grow lights and incubators helps warm the soil and our seedlings flourish! It’s sort of like a greenhouse.
Emmet our Holland Lop rabbit is back here too.
As are my fiber supplies from our Angora goats for spinning and dyeing yarn. When the brooders come down, I also teach spinning classes in this room.
And my succulent collection. These plants are kept on the grow shelves in summer, fall and winter. I move them to make room for starting the garden in the spring.
In the video, I demonstrate how to set up a Brinsea Mini Advanced incubator specifically for chickens. I also share a few incubating techniques that can be applied to any incubator set up.
So follow along as these soon-to-be chicks move to their next stage of development in the Year of the Chicken.
2 Comments
I have had my incubator for three years now and have yet to get to use it. That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been used, just not my me. I have let the pre-vet class use it fall and spring, my son & daughter-in-law borrowed it for an emergency (kept it over a year), and I just had it returned by some dear friends who had a very successful hatch.
Next spring I am going to call dibs and use it to increase our flock. Ha!
I sold the only 2 Buff girls I had because they were way too broody–sitting on all the eggs eggs to the point where I didn’t know which ones were fresh enough to eat, and which were the ones they were trying to hatch. I didn’t need an incubator when I had those 2 girls!