Egg Incubation

We have a very productive egg farm at the children's home with 20 hens and a cockerel (rooster). We average about 17 eggs a day. This gives the orphanage 12 flats of eggs a month plus we sell about 6 flats. So it provides extra protein for the kids, makes a little money, and helps train some of the children how to care for animals. This little project has been going on for almost a year now.

A couple of months ago some missionaries that were heading back to North America donated a lot of amazing things to the children's home. They had lived out in a village and were well set up. HHCH received a welder, table saw, tons of tools, a milk pasteurizer, and a butter churn just to name a few. There was also a egg incubator (with an egg turner included) which is really an answer to prayer. Laying hens aren't exactly cheap here and we had a few die straight away from the first batch (the stress of moving to a new place?), which cut into our profit quite a bit. Hatching our own would be a lot cheaper, safer, and would give us as many chicks as we want. We had been searching online how to build an incubator but it didn't look too promising as the heat has to be at a very stable temperature (100 degrees to be exact). So I was totally thrilled when I saw one in all the stuff given.

  Well, our hens will be about done with egg production in October (then they'll be Sunday dinners for the kids) so it is time to start incubating eggs. I have a great book called, The Family Poultry Flock, that has all the important information. I have been learning lots. For instance, did you know that eggs can be refrigerated and then put in the incubator? Or that if the incubator is too hot, the chicks will hatch out a few days earlier than recommended or if it is too cool they will come late? We decided to have the incubator at our house the first time to see how it goes (we have a generator if the electric goes off). This morning, Josh and I loaded up the incubator with 38 eggs, wrote down all the details, and now we will wait and see (it is a great science project!). In five days we will begin candling the eggs (that's holding them up to a strong light for all your laypeople),  check they are developing and get rid of any that are not. Then in 21 days, we should have a bunch of fluffy, peeping little chicks. We will have to wait 23 weeks till they are mature enough to start laying eggs though. I'm praying our first batch won't all be males!

If you've had any experience incubating eggs, I'd love to hear any tips or advice. 

It is sitting right on our shelf next to our board games

The automatic egg turning is awesome, it saves us from having to do it three times a day