The Moonshiner's Leghorns

[The Moonshiner]

Replace the trash with chickens.

Is that that deep litter method I hear people talk about?

 

[Sapphire Sebright]

It's Mother Nature keeping me in check.
She can be a real b!t©h.

She's a real helicopter parent, she is, she is. Can't leave you alone for two seconds to build your Leghorn utopia.

 

[Sapphire Sebright]

Replace the trash with chickens.

Splendid!

I have a chick house and they've still overflowed into the barn and my garage.
I'm about to put plastic down in the spare bedroom.

Have you considered... *peeks around and stage whispers* shipping chicks?

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

*koffView attachment 2841664

I do this.

 

[DarJones]

Are all those for your blue egg wyandottes or do you have other projects?

These are all the blue egg laying Silver Laced Wyandottes. My cull rate is still about 90%. From 1000 chicks hatched, I expect to keep maybe 100. I'm going to cull some roosters tomorrow. I have roughly 200 chickens currently and want to go into winter with about 125. Note, when I say cull, a lot of my birds are sold locally as egg layers or meat birds. There is a decent market for 20 week old LF roosters in this area.

 

[The Moonshiner]

So the last 4 hatched
That's 47 for that hatch
927 for the season

 

[DarJones]

I'd like to convince you to get a better incubator setup. In that theme, here is how I run mine.

Each week I gather a variable number of eggs, between 50 and 150 depending on how heavily the chickens are laying. I have egg trays that hold about 50 eggs each with 2 trays fitting on one incubator shelf. I fill the trays as I gather the eggs with as little handling as possible. I put them in the incubator once a week marking down the date. I try to put the eggs in on the same day each week as it makes handling chicks easier. Within 3 weeks, I usually have 4 or 5 trays full of eggs which means 2 of the rotating trays are full of eggs. I candle the eggs on the 10th day and not earlier because it is difficult to see developing chicks in blue eggs. I usually lose 25 to 30 percent of the eggs as clears or blood rings. On the 19th day I move the tray due to hatch to the bottom of the incubator completely off of the rotating shelves. The eggs hatch there on the bottom and I usually leave them 2 days until 95% or more of the eggs have hatched. I rake out the chicks and put them in a tub with feed and water and leave any remaining eggs a couple more days until all have hatched. Then I remove the remaining chicks from the incubator and sweep out the eggshells and repeat the cycle. By doing this, I have up to 100 eggs per week hatching with very little maintenance other than keeping the water tray full. The reliability and ease of care make a dramatic difference as compared to the cheap styrofoam incubators I used previously.

I tried using the styrofoam incubators as hatchers a couple of time and found it is all around easier and simpler to let them hatch in the bottom of the GQF 1202. This is not the way a 1202 was intended to be used, but it is highly effective and very low maintenance. I especially like the heat regulation of the 1202. It has enough thermal mass to hold temperature up to 4 hours if the electricity goes out. My cost for the incubator was $300 including replacing the fan motor with a new one from Grainger. I found it on Craigslist from a guy who was getting out of the business.

 

[Miami Leghorn]

So the last 4 hatched
That's 47 for that hatch
927 for the season

Hmmmm
927@$5.00 a pop....
Buyer pays shipping and assumes all the risk....

 

[Painted Calls]

Hmmmm
927@$5.00 a pop....
Buyer pays shipping and assumes all the risk....

Keep telling him. Maybe eventually it'll sink in.

 

[The Moonshiner]

I'd like to convince you to get a better incubator setup. In that theme, here is how I run mine.

Each week I gather a variable number of eggs, between 50 and 150 depending on how heavily the chickens are laying. I have egg trays that hold about 50 eggs each with 2 trays fitting on one incubator shelf. I fill the trays as I gather the eggs with as little handling as possible. I put them in the incubator once a week marking down the date. I try to put the eggs in on the same day each week as it makes handling chicks easier. Within 3 weeks, I usually have 4 or 5 trays full of eggs which means 2 of the rotating trays are full of eggs. I candle the eggs on the 10th day and not earlier because it is difficult to see developing chicks in blue eggs. I usually lose 25 to 30 percent of the eggs as clears or blood rings. On the 19th day I move the tray due to hatch to the bottom of the incubator completely off of the rotating shelves. The eggs hatch there on the bottom and I usually leave them 2 days until 95% or more of the eggs have hatched. I rake out the chicks and put them in a tub with feed and water and leave any remaining eggs a couple more days until all have hatched. Then I remove the remaining chicks from the incubator and sweep out the eggshells and repeat the cycle. By doing this, I have up to 100 eggs per week hatching with very little maintenance other than keeping the water tray full. The reliability and ease of care make a dramatic difference as compared to the cheap styrofoam incubators I used previously.

I tried using the styrofoam incubators as hatchers a couple of time and found it is all around easier and simpler to let them hatch in the bottom of the GQF 1202. This is not the way a 1202 was intended to be used, but it is highly effective and very low maintenance. I especially like the heat regulation of the 1202. It has enough thermal mass to hold temperature up to 4 hours if the electricity goes out. My cost for the incubator was $300 including replacing the fan motor with a new one from Grainger. I found it on Craigslist from a guy who was getting out of the business.

I've had a sportsman. I ran one for years. If I found one for $300 or less I'd.probably have one again.
Mine did have the hatcher set up in the bottom and I ran it like you're doing.
I've also used Hovabators for years. There's been many years I've ran several and nothing else.
I've always had better hatch rates in the hovabators then anything else. Don't get me wrong I love sportsmanship.
They're a good incubator but I've found that they don't hold the same temp throughout. That's kinda the nature of the best with anything bigger.
My incubator holds better temps and more evenly then a sportsman does or I wouldn't have quit working on it and started using it.
I run my hatches similar. I collect and hold my eggs in 30 egg plastic flats and set every 6 days ideally. I turn them when I can. I try to three times a day every 8 hours but sometimes I end up only doing it once or twice a day. I also don't worry about the temp when they're waiting to go in. Some times its lower then ideal but more often and more then they should be they're setting in temps higher then ideal. That's what I mean by me not handling them correctly.
I set every 6 days and move to hatchers on day 18. I use Hovabators because they work for me. Nothing hatches in the incubator so I don't have to clean it. It is literally just add water and add or remove eggs.
I hatch several different projects at the same time so I need different projects to hatch separate so chicks don't get mixed. The way I use separate hatchers and more then one it makes that easier for me to keep things separate and to keep track.
Each cycle is 6 days so that gives me 6 days for lockdown, hatch and cleaning. With the separate hatchers I empty it after hatch and then leave the plastic water tray and the plastic wire floor with dividers soaking for hours or a day in the same tub I use to move chicks to brooders. The yellow tub @KingB .
I like my set up and how it flows.