get you a few bantams, the can't sit but 4 or 5 large hen eggs, but they will sit and sit and sit, we had chickens for 50 years and never had to buy a chick, we would keep 100 to 150 hens all the time, if your hens want sit, get the bantams
@Butch Hanson before you badmouth her, you should get educated on her operation. You make it sound like she's just swindling people into spending money on her publications when she doesn't actually have any useful information to offer. Actually, her family owns beef cattle (and not just a couple... They own quite a bunch) which they sell, plus dairy cows whose milk they sell, they've sold eggs in the past, plus many other things that would make this list too long, and they grow the huge majority of their own food. The homestead pays for its self by feeding their family, plus income directly from selling what it produces. She tends to knows what she's talking about, and if she doesn't, she takes everyone along to see how it goes. She has tried soooo many things, and she shares it on TH-cam, free to anyone who wants to watch. It isn't like nobody can learn from her without buying something, but many people CHOOSE to because she has so much knowledge, and most anybody will benefit from her courses. It may be one of the ways she supports her family, but if you had that much knowledge, you would be silly not to make a business of it, because HOMESTEADING IS HER PROFESSION. Not a crappy hobby. She has learned the ropes, and she has experience. Plus, in these times, knowing how to grow your own food is a skill you should have now more than ever. If you are serious about learning to homestead, you would do well to follow her and avoid many mistakes that she herself made in the learning process. You are obviously very ignorant, either of her operation or of how modern homesteading actually works. But I can tell you, I've learned so much from Jill, and I will be forever grateful. Because it's a lot harder than you seem to think. And so you know, ignorance only makes you a fool. Next time, get the facts BEFORE you spout off an argument
Yay for sustainability! I’ve hatched my chicks for a few years now, it’s very very cool. I love candling them. I think the biggest mistake I’ve learned the hard way is : don’t open the incubator during hatch! You’re gonna want to to see the chicks but DONT! If you let the humidity drop during hatch it can basically dry up the inside of the pipped eggs and shrink wrap the chicks trying to get out. Very bad. So sad to have a fully developed chick not be able to get out and suffocate itself because I was opening the lid too much. They can live without food or water for up to 3 days! Leave em in there for at least a full day to dry off and if you feel you need to, a quick reach in and a spray of warm water to maintain humidity can work. Sorry if this sounds overbearing, I know I’m just a random YT comment. But rly! It’s a harsh lesson to learn. ❤️
Thank you for sharing! I just purchase a clear incubator and a turner to see the process and not touch the eggs! It had a temperature AND humidity gauge and humidity holes to fill when necessary. No need to open the lid! Can’t wait to try it.
You could always attempt to hatch eggs under some chickens and note the ones that are successful and her chicks and go onto to breed her and her chicks again. That way you could attempt to breed broodiness back into a line of chickens, and keep them epecially for breeding.
I'm really confused. You must have money to burn buying a incubator. Pretty simple if you ask me me. Let the hen and roster do what comes natural. They make baby chicks. I have never in 35 years of raising chickens once thought about a incubator. No heat lamp, no nothing. Let the hen do what comes natural. This is the problem today. Everyone has to buy these new whiz ban gadgets, certain feeders, certain water gadgets. etc.. What would you do if you had cows wanted a calf ? Maybe go buy one.
I just let my hens hatch them and take care of them, they seem to be healthier than if you keep them under lights. I have what is called dual purpose chicken, white brahmas. They are huge and they lay great eggs and the roosters that hatch go into my freezer.
@@joanjarrette8691 some do some don't. It depends on breed and if they're broody enough. Also there are "personality" characteristics that come into play on the individual level.
@@AJ-ox8xy Yes, absolutely. We have Phoenix hens which are a really flighty but broody breed and they will hatch our chicks and are great mothers. Another good breed for broodiness that is dual purpose is the Orpington. We've had great success with them. My brahma's are great egg layers and the boys make a good meat bird, but so far I haven't seen one get broody or hatch her own eggs. However, once the chicks have hatched they get involved like a big sister chicken and help with the clutch.
I was getting ready to incubate some of my chicken's eggs and then one of my hens went broody! I moved her to a chicken tractor and she is sitting on 7 eggs, can't wait to see how things go in another couple weeks.
If all else fails try Silkie chickens great mothers type chicken and Broody type lots of people are having great luck of silkie hatching ducks turkey and other chickens eggs just to let you no
I 100% agree and was going to say this :) I currently have silkies in my incubator (and some polish) for my 'fun bantam pretty pet' chickens this year for that purpose. I just feel like if we ever had a power cut like Texax did and we were still needing to continue with food sourcing a mother hen doesn't need to be plugged in to make more chicks LOL and they are SUCH good mothers. I've used silkies AND Bantam Cochins as mothers, they are such good mothers and so sweet and patient (they'll even hatch out other species of birds, the darlings.) I also just got a new incubator that reads moisture levels and beeps when it's low, I'm not to hatch date yet, so can't attest to it's quality, but my still air foam old timey incubator has been giving me lower and lower hatches of late (for my quail) and now seeing how often this new one beeps to add more water I think I was just not keeping it as moist as I THOUGHT I was. Oh and this new incubator has a fan , which is also supposed to be superior to still air, as the temp/humidity is more accurate and even. Good luck! I bet the 'dual breed' meat will be SO much better than the cornish cross. It will taste more like 'old fashioned' chicken :)
I keep speckled Sussex and Dorkings for foodies. They are large hens and can cover a lot of eggs. They are also great momma hens. My favorite is the Dorkings.
just from experience with many incubator hatches, you'll want to rotate those on the outside to the inside, that gives you a much better hatch rate. Cheers
We just bought the Nurtura 360. It's really easy it's like set it and forget it, well almost you have to put water in every day. Easy peasy. Good video thank you.
Here is a super hint that I have learnt..., don't over fuss with humidity. Just make sure it has some water in the incubator when you first put the eggs down and make sure it doesnt dry out..., on lockdown (day 18) put about an extra 100mls of water in the incubator..., my last batch 15/15 Silver Laced Wyandottes.
I have heard that the pointer ones are more likely to be roosters and the rounder one's ( on the tip) will be hens. Also Silkies and Buff Orpington's tend to go broody and stay till the job is finished.
You can also control genders when hatching. Look at the smaller end of the egg: the more rounded ends are >most likely< hens while the more pointed end are >most likely< roosters. Yes...we've done this and yes, it really works. And, while having pure bred chickens is great...we have found that cross breeding will usually get a better chicken. For instance, we purchased Buff Orpington's because it was said they were good layers, setters, mommas and meat birds. Meh...not so much. BUT...when our Buff Ladies began crossing with our Game Rooster...that's when the Buff's starting laying better. They also were way more likely to set and raise a fairly large brood of chicks. We had one Little Momma who would raise about 3 batches of 10-12 chicks every year. She'd hatch about 98% of the eggs she sat and about that same percentage of the chicks would live to adulthood. Now, we try to keep a Game Rooster to cross with all our hens because we find that breed tends to make every other breed better. Good luck with the incubator! Your only true foe will be power outages. This year, we've given our incubator to our youngest daughter and her husband as it seems their power company is a little more dependable than ours. They will soon be hatching out a large number of chicks for us and them. (fingers crossed)
@Chris Waters In our experience, our Game Roosters are mostly aggressive critters that invade their space and other roosters. But, we've never had a Game Rooster be aggressive to humans. Our first one was actually a Rooster who had been fought. He was undefeated. (no, I don't condone this practice. But it's sometimes "a thing" in our rural area...even if it's illegal.) Roho was allegedly 4 yrs old when we got him; he was 15 when he died. He'd protected his Ladies from numerous coon and possum. He'd bowed up at cows and horses. He'd whooped numerous puppies and dogs. But >never< attacked us. In fact, you might have more to fear from a Game Hen with chicks than a Game Rooster. You better have on boots...long sleeves and maybe even gloves if you're going to take >that< Momma's babies from her!
@@lechatbotte. I beg to differ as we've used this method of controlling our poultry genders when incubating for years! The lady who taught this method to my husband had several of the HUGE commercial incubators making a large portion of her living from selling chicks. This is how she separated her eggs. No, it's not perfect, but Ms. Sandy said she figured it to be somewhere between 80-90% accurate. Might wanna actually have some experience before you start dissing information.
I keep bantams for my incubators. They're super stars at it. Plus I have a few mama's (full size) that always come home with surprise chicks😅🤣 wether I like it or not 😅
Dont discount nature's instincts with old breeds. My chicks were from mail order hatchery originally. We're off grid, so electricity is not an option. We have 2 breeds, 2 roosters. Dominiques and Buckeyes. Males separated with a mix of females. I pick a hen or two from each batch that breed matches rooster and put girls in separate pen. I check daily for about a week, but they usually settle in. Once in a while I'll get a hen that won't sit, but keeps laying, and pull her because usually there are too many eggs to hatch out. Much easier, less fuss.
I loved incubating chicks. My granddaughter also hatched some of my eggs last year. Between the two of us we hatched 50ish chicks last year. Bard rock was the result. Lots of rooster for meat. Have fun.
Been self sufficient in the chicken department for yeeeears . Have such a special group of hens now (mixed origins) and don't ever go without eggs anytime of year Northern maine. Australorp, americana, aracauna, sliver laced and cochins for brooding
If you hatch out a batch of chicks each year, you'll also get eggs throughout the winter as those chicks will reach maturity around that time. No light required!
One thing we learnes along the way was to rest the eggs for 2 - 3 days if we bought them from a different place- apparently the bumping from the road trip needs to settle before they get placed into the incubator - actually made a huge difference to us
When you stop the turning, take two paper towels place them in the water trough in the bottom (yellow part) of the incubator up to the flat part . Fill the water up open you vent to 3/4. I have over 300 hatching of chickens, ducklings, geese and guinea hens Don't mess with the temp either
Finding a breed that goes broody was very important to me. I went to the breed of the Buff Orpington for this reason. Getting a older breed was more important than the high number of eggs. I wanted a breed that was good for eggs and could be eaten but would raise the next generation of chickens.
Your lucky. Your chickens use more than one box. I have ten birds that only use 1 of the 6 the identical egg boxes I have. They line up yelling at the one in the box, but luckily for me and them they don't kick the laying hen out while she's doing her thing. They just loudly voice their opinion of the current layer. Been this way for over 6 months. They look inside them, but rarely lay in it. When they do it's a three alarm emergency and they drop the egg in minute lol.
You could save a couple weeks on your plan by introduced the chosen rooster as soon as you separate the hens. The rooster can take up to 2 weeks to woo his new ladies. Then you could wait a week or so less time. That way all the previous mating's would be gone and the new rooster would be doing his job. Then in the beginning we will not have unfertile eggs to try to hatch in between the roosters. Yes would love to be able to fund this property, but only have 1/4 acre and not enough room for the things I want.
An option to consider for meat birds is to breed your own sex links. Cockerel & pullets can be separated at hatch, and hybrid vigor will decrease the grow out period and provide more meat on the birds you butcher.
Yes! This almost exactly what I plan to do with my duel breed also. I just chose a broody breed to eliminate the incubator. But I'm not looking to breed for a profit, just yet, either though. When I do I will probably do both. I'm excited to see how this new venture works for you!
@@mountainlivinghomestead429 no her click bate make her look like a Master egg hatcher yeat next viedo all die. I have 7 chicken from feed stores and need to down to 4. I trying to sell the rosters.
I am planning on breeding Cornish X and what I will do is buy the pure breed hens of one and the roster from a different breed. I forget what Cornish X are.
This is our first year having chickens!🐥 I am so scared of getting chicken mites 😱 I watched a video about it and it scarred me for life lol ...Going for it anyway👍🏻
Dust a little food grade DE (diatomaceous earth) under their wings and tail helps. I also used a Fogger (hand crank) to dust my chicken house when empty and nest boxes whenever needed. Safe and effective, just don’t breathe.
Just a thought, there are "slow grow" cornish and other dual purpose meat hybrids available on the market. They would be far better, and faster growing to butcher weight than what you're currently raising. If youre wanting to stay with the Wyandotte or plymouth rock, i would seek out a line of heritage birds or even a heavy line of exhibition birds. Youll be much happier with the results than using the hatchery lines you currently have.
Exactly! I want to raise meat chickens but don’t want to be stuck always having to buy hybrid birds. I’m considering trying the Delaware breed as a sustainable meat bird breed …. 🤞🏼
I tried this and did not think about 2 things; the first is the little roosters start crowing about 2 months ish; second the butcher date is 6 months; that is 4 months of fighting and crowing; before i got to the butcher date i bartered away my batch of crowing crazies away
Did you know you can actaully dry hatch. I've recently learnt it. Doing it first time with quail due tomrrow. You only add water at lockdown. Candelled the quail last night and they alive and grown well in shell. So will be interesting to find out if I get a low number of chicks with splay or none with them.
Great video! I'm just starting to incubate my girls eggs and I can't wait to get my second batch of chicks. , its so satisfying and I love that I can get my own chicks right from my own flock. So much fun!
I would suggest you get yourself a nice RCOM Max. I have the Max 20 and it is perfect. All electronic and automatic with a turner. Temperature regulated perfectly and adjustable for different species. Humidity is programmable so can run 45% for chickens until last 3 days when you turn off turning and raise the humidity to 65 to 70 percent for the hatch. I hatch a batch every spring and my new batch of chicks are now 4 days old. I too cull the roosters, average 50%, when they are 5 months old. Sad part of roosters, they are so scrawny compared to hens and way scrawny compared to white crosses. I raise nothing but Barred Rocks as I consider them the perfect chicken well except for the roosters which are plain mean.
You might want to look into the Bresse chickens. They mature more slowly like a lot of heritage breeds, but their meat has some intermuscular fat and they are good layers.
Explain slowly because I'm a city boy Since Cornish Cross are a cross between. Cornish and Plymouth White's Why not get some of each, then breed your own Cornish Crosses
Coming from a farmer that’s been farmering for A long time you’ll love hatching your own chicks. A suggestion don’t try to pure breed your chickens. There harder healthier and you can gear your flock for duel purpose a lot easier
Out of all the types of hens that I've had, the only ones that actually brooded on their eggs and hatch them themselves were bantams. So if I wanted eggs to hatch from a larger size breed, I would put the eggs under my bantam''s and that would actually work too. Or you can get a few Muscovy ducks and they like to brood on eggs as well.
Humans have a way of complicating things that nature had already perfected. I was thinking broody hens were the answer. Thanks for letting us know that bantams will sit on eggs. A few bantams may replace the incubator.
I don't know if you know about water glassing, but that is an excellent way of preserving eggs so that when you go through a drought you still won't be without eggs ... Costco doesn't need your money ... I'll be checking out your course, thank you for sharing!
Can’t wait to watch your incubator journey! I’ve always wanted to give it a shot but it makes me nervous. We processed a mean rooster last fall and he was a buff Orpington, so also a dual purpose breed and while we didn’t break any records on size of processed bird, the meat is definitely a higher quality!
Once you put a rooster in with the hens, how long until the eggs she lays will be fertilized? (so if you see them mounted on Monday morning, how long until the eggs are hatch-able?)
I keep a few game hens and game hens love to set. First, I find there nest. If the nest is in a predator prone area, I remove the eggs and destroy the nest. If it's good spot, like in my barn, I get a small nest box, place the eggs in the box, and place the box in the nest location. When the hen goes broody, I replace her eggs with the eggs I want to hatch. If and when I need to, I can pickup the whole nest box, hen and eggs or chicks and move them to a sheltered pen, especially if she hatches several chicks. This way the hen does most all the work. One hen hatched 15 chicks last year. This works well for me anyways.
We got a couple of Buff Orpingtons and Cochins to be our broody chicks. We just leave a few eggs in the nesting boxes and once one of them goes broody, we put her in a separate place with a dozen or so eggs under her. We had them hatch out 2 batches for us last year.
Jill. I need your help. I just got a male and a female new zealand rabbits and I dont know what I am doing. LOL I have spent the last year outside my comfort zone learning things, so why not rabbits?! I will take any advice on these rabbits. I am building a hutch & thats my start..can you help me figure out some basic stuff I should be doing?
I did this last year and it is wonderful to no longer need to buy chicks! I bought a incubator last March and it has provided us many many chicks throughout the year and ducks! This year our local farm stores are always out of chicks so I sure am glad I can hatch my own now ...life safer!
For dual purpose chickens you might want to try Delaware chickens, ( Hoover Hatchery)..I have 3 breeds right now Black Star ( sex link)., Sapphire Gems...and picking them up the Delaware’s..really have that weight the others do not..and the Delaware’s are beautiful and nice.
There's one thing I will say Jill. My mother butchered barred rocks once, and she said they were VERY HARD TO PLUCK. She was used to dual purpose breeds, not broilers, but even then she said the barred rocks were miserable. Perhaps you've tried it before with success, but it might be worth some research
Hi Jill, our city in Southern California allows us to have 3 egg laying hens at least 40’ from the neighbors house. Can you show how to do tiny backyard chickens. Thank you
I would choose Delaware over Barred Rock for your dual purpose meat/egg birds. They have predominantly light colored feathers and are easy to pluck and present a nice carcass. They also grow fairly quickly.
Are you high altitude? I learned that is hard to hatch eggs at higher altitude (we’re 4000) Part of the solution was to find eggs that were laid in our altitude and the second was to raise the humidity(we also live in a dry area). I’m hopping to get a good broody hen to hatch my next batch.
I love at chicken and eggs everyday since my twenties.I love birds and feed pigeons and others everyday.im not all "killy" tho..if I had to butcher my dang own..I think I would become a vegan...I remember first having to chop chickens from the supermarket as a kid and not living it.
The Brinsea incubator you chose is a great one to start with! I use it for my pure-bred, show Bantam Polish. I have a cabinet sized incubator and separate hatcher, but I find that particular model from Brinsea super handy to use for small hatching batch.
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Thanks for watching! Dreaming of a homestead that funds itself? This will help!---> selffundedhomestead.com
get you a few bantams, the can't sit but 4 or 5 large hen eggs, but they will sit and sit and sit, we had chickens for 50 years and never had to buy a chick, we would keep 100 to 150 hens all the time, if your hens want sit, get the bantams
@Butch Hanson before you badmouth her, you should get educated on her operation. You make it sound like she's just swindling people into spending money on her publications when she doesn't actually have any useful information to offer. Actually, her family owns beef cattle (and not just a couple... They own quite a bunch) which they sell, plus dairy cows whose milk they sell, they've sold eggs in the past, plus many other things that would make this list too long, and they grow the huge majority of their own food. The homestead pays for its self by feeding their family, plus income directly from selling what it produces. She tends to knows what she's talking about, and if she doesn't, she takes everyone along to see how it goes. She has tried soooo many things, and she shares it on TH-cam, free to anyone who wants to watch. It isn't like nobody can learn from her without buying something, but many people CHOOSE to because she has so much knowledge, and most anybody will benefit from her courses. It may be one of the ways she supports her family, but if you had that much knowledge, you would be silly not to make a business of it, because HOMESTEADING IS HER PROFESSION. Not a crappy hobby. She has learned the ropes, and she has experience. Plus, in these times, knowing how to grow your own food is a skill you should have now more than ever. If you are serious about learning to homestead, you would do well to follow her and avoid many mistakes that she herself made in the learning process. You are obviously very ignorant, either of her operation or of how modern homesteading actually works. But I can tell you, I've learned so much from Jill, and I will be forever grateful. Because it's a lot harder than you seem to think. And so you know, ignorance only makes you a fool. Next time, get the facts BEFORE you spout off an argument
Hey get some black star chickens at TSC for meat chickens and eggs
Yay for sustainability!
I’ve hatched my chicks for a few years now, it’s very very cool. I love candling them. I think the biggest mistake I’ve learned the hard way is : don’t open the incubator during hatch! You’re gonna want to to see the chicks but DONT! If you let the humidity drop during hatch it can basically dry up the inside of the pipped eggs and shrink wrap the chicks trying to get out. Very bad. So sad to have a fully developed chick not be able to get out and suffocate itself because I was opening the lid too much. They can live without food or water for up to 3 days! Leave em in there for at least a full day to dry off and if you feel you need to, a quick reach in and a spray of warm water to maintain humidity can work. Sorry if this sounds overbearing, I know I’m just a random YT comment. But rly! It’s a harsh lesson to learn. ❤️
Thank you for sharing! I just purchase a clear incubator and a turner to see the process and not touch the eggs! It had a temperature AND humidity gauge and humidity holes to fill when necessary. No need to open the lid! Can’t wait to try it.
This just happened to us and I am really beating myself up over it. 😩 A painful lesson.
You could always attempt to hatch eggs under some chickens and note the ones that are successful and her chicks and go onto to breed her and her chicks again. That way you could attempt to breed broodiness back into a line of chickens, and keep them epecially for breeding.
So true.
I'm really confused. You must have money to burn buying a incubator. Pretty simple if you ask me me. Let the hen and roster do what comes natural. They make baby chicks. I have never in 35 years of raising chickens once thought about a incubator. No heat lamp, no nothing. Let the hen do what comes natural. This is the problem today. Everyone has to buy these new whiz ban gadgets, certain feeders, certain water gadgets. etc..
What would you do if you had cows wanted a calf ? Maybe go buy one.
I just let my hens hatch them and take care of them, they seem to be healthier than if you keep them under lights. I have what is called dual purpose chicken, white brahmas. They are huge and they lay great eggs and the roosters that hatch go into my freezer.
I agree! I have a mixed flock of dual purpose chickens. The momma hens do a great job and i prefer to let them hatch them.
Dont the hens sit on the eggs and hatch them?
This is what I do. Don't need to do all this work, just let chickens be chickens.
@@joanjarrette8691 some do some don't. It depends on breed and if they're broody enough. Also there are "personality" characteristics that come into play on the individual level.
@@AJ-ox8xy Yes, absolutely. We have Phoenix hens which are a really flighty but broody breed and they will hatch our chicks and are great mothers. Another good breed for broodiness that is dual purpose is the Orpington. We've had great success with them. My brahma's are great egg layers and the boys make a good meat bird, but so far I haven't seen one get broody or hatch her own eggs. However, once the chicks have hatched they get involved like a big sister chicken and help with the clutch.
I was getting ready to incubate some of my chicken's eggs and then one of my hens went broody! I moved her to a chicken tractor and she is sitting on 7 eggs, can't wait to see how things go in another couple weeks.
This is the best way. If you hatch enough eggs under a broody hen is more profitable than if she just layed eating eggs.
By far the best way.
Almost as if God knows what hes doing better than we do.
If all else fails try Silkie chickens great mothers type chicken and Broody type lots of people are having great luck of silkie hatching ducks turkey and other chickens eggs just to let you no
we're never without silkies
I 100% agree and was going to say this :) I currently have silkies in my incubator (and some polish) for my 'fun bantam pretty pet' chickens this year for that purpose. I just feel like if we ever had a power cut like Texax did and we were still needing to continue with food sourcing a mother hen doesn't need to be plugged in to make more chicks LOL and they are SUCH good mothers. I've used silkies AND Bantam Cochins as mothers, they are such good mothers and so sweet and patient (they'll even hatch out other species of birds, the darlings.)
I also just got a new incubator that reads moisture levels and beeps when it's low, I'm not to hatch date yet, so can't attest to it's quality, but my still air foam old timey incubator has been giving me lower and lower hatches of late (for my quail) and now seeing how often this new one beeps to add more water I think I was just not keeping it as moist as I THOUGHT I was. Oh and this new incubator has a fan , which is also supposed to be superior to still air, as the temp/humidity is more accurate and even.
Good luck! I bet the 'dual breed' meat will be SO much better than the cornish cross. It will taste more like 'old fashioned' chicken :)
I keep speckled Sussex and Dorkings for foodies. They are large hens and can cover a lot of eggs. They are also great momma hens. My favorite is the Dorkings.
Broodies not foodies.....ugh!
Bantams are great too. Mine went broody pretty much instantly after starting to lay. I have some Peken bantams in my flock
Love my barn yard mixes! Of course I tried breeding true but was not aware of the 2-3 week period for hens lol
They can hold it much longer. Some people have separated hens from the flock 2 months and still end up with a random cross lol
just from experience with many incubator hatches, you'll want to rotate those on the outside to the inside, that gives you a much better hatch rate. Cheers
We just bought the Nurtura 360. It's really easy it's like set it and forget it, well almost you have to put water in every day.
Easy peasy. Good video thank you.
Here is a super hint that I have learnt..., don't over fuss with humidity. Just make sure it has some water in the incubator when you first put the eggs down and make sure it doesnt dry out..., on lockdown (day 18) put about an extra 100mls of water in the incubator..., my last batch 15/15 Silver Laced Wyandottes.
I have heard that the pointer ones are more likely to be roosters and the rounder one's ( on the tip) will be hens. Also Silkies and Buff Orpington's tend to go broody and stay till the job is finished.
My Buff Orpingtons are hatching their own. They are great moms and are a large breed dual purpose.
You can also control genders when hatching. Look at the smaller end of the egg: the more rounded ends are >most likely< hens while the more pointed end are >most likely< roosters. Yes...we've done this and yes, it really works. And, while having pure bred chickens is great...we have found that cross breeding will usually get a better chicken. For instance, we purchased Buff Orpington's because it was said they were good layers, setters, mommas and meat birds. Meh...not so much. BUT...when our Buff Ladies began crossing with our Game Rooster...that's when the Buff's starting laying better. They also were way more likely to set and raise a fairly large brood of chicks. We had one Little Momma who would raise about 3 batches of 10-12 chicks every year. She'd hatch about 98% of the eggs she sat and about that same percentage of the chicks would live to adulthood. Now, we try to keep a Game Rooster to cross with all our hens because we find that breed tends to make every other breed better. Good luck with the incubator! Your only true foe will be power outages. This year, we've given our incubator to our youngest daughter and her husband as it seems their power company is a little more dependable than ours. They will soon be hatching out a large number of chicks for us and them. (fingers crossed)
That’s bogus but keep that old wives tale going.
@Chris Waters In our experience, our Game Roosters are mostly aggressive critters that invade their space and other roosters. But, we've never had a Game Rooster be aggressive to humans. Our first one was actually a Rooster who had been fought. He was undefeated. (no, I don't condone this practice. But it's sometimes "a thing" in our rural area...even if it's illegal.) Roho was allegedly 4 yrs old when we got him; he was 15 when he died. He'd protected his Ladies from numerous coon and possum. He'd bowed up at cows and horses. He'd whooped numerous puppies and dogs. But >never< attacked us. In fact, you might have more to fear from a Game Hen with chicks than a Game Rooster. You better have on boots...long sleeves and maybe even gloves if you're going to take >that< Momma's babies from her!
@@lechatbotte. I beg to differ as we've used this method of controlling our poultry genders when incubating for years! The lady who taught this method to my husband had several of the HUGE commercial incubators making a large portion of her living from selling chicks. This is how she separated her eggs. No, it's not perfect, but Ms. Sandy said she figured it to be somewhere between 80-90% accurate. Might wanna actually have some experience before you start dissing information.
I keep bantams for my incubators. They're super stars at it. Plus I have a few mama's (full size) that always come home with surprise chicks😅🤣 wether I like it or not 😅
That’s what our plan is also. We got an incubator last year. Barnyard mixes are fun because it’s a mystery egg. Thanks for sharing!
Nice!
From cockadoodledoo to anycockldoo.
Dont discount nature's instincts with old breeds. My chicks were from mail order hatchery originally. We're off grid, so electricity is not an option. We have 2 breeds, 2 roosters. Dominiques and Buckeyes. Males separated with a mix of females. I pick a hen or two from each batch that breed matches rooster and put girls in separate pen. I check daily for about a week, but they usually settle in. Once in a while I'll get a hen that won't sit, but keeps laying, and pull her because usually there are too many eggs to hatch out. Much easier, less fuss.
I loved incubating chicks. My granddaughter also hatched some of my eggs last year. Between the two of us we hatched 50ish chicks last year. Bard rock was the result. Lots of rooster for meat. Have fun.
Awesome! Such great learning for your students. 😉
Been self sufficient in the chicken department for yeeeears .
Have such a special group of hens now (mixed origins) and don't ever go without eggs anytime of year Northern maine. Australorp, americana, aracauna, sliver laced and cochins for brooding
Now THAT is handy!
If you hatch out a batch of chicks each year, you'll also get eggs throughout the winter as those chicks will reach maturity around that time. No light required!
Yes! I bought my chicks in late April last year and they starting lying in October or so and laid all winter long! It was awesome!
One thing we learnes along the way was to rest the eggs for 2 - 3 days if we bought them from a different place- apparently the bumping from the road trip needs to settle before they get placed into the incubator - actually made a huge difference to us
How long
That's so funny, I literally just put my first eggs in my incubator an hour ago!
This is my plan for this year too!❤️🐣
When you stop the turning, take two paper towels place them in the water trough in the bottom (yellow part) of the incubator up to the flat part . Fill the water up open you vent to 3/4.
I have over 300 hatching of chickens, ducklings, geese and guinea hens
Don't mess with the temp either
Finding a breed that goes broody was very important to me. I went to the breed of the Buff Orpington for this reason. Getting a older breed was more important than the high number of eggs. I wanted a breed that was good for eggs and could be eaten but would raise the next generation of chickens.
Buff Orphingtons are very broody
Your lucky. Your chickens use more than one box. I have ten birds that only use 1 of the 6 the identical egg boxes I have. They line up yelling at the one in the box, but luckily for me and them they don't kick the laying hen out while she's doing her thing. They just loudly voice their opinion of the current layer. Been this way for over 6 months. They look inside them, but rarely lay in it. When they do it's a three alarm emergency and they drop the egg in minute lol.
You could save a couple weeks on your plan by introduced the chosen rooster as soon as you separate the hens. The rooster can take up to 2 weeks to woo his new ladies. Then you could wait a week or so less time. That way all the previous mating's would be gone and the new rooster would be doing his job. Then in the beginning we will not have unfertile eggs to try to hatch in between the roosters. Yes would love to be able to fund this property, but only have 1/4 acre and not enough room for the things I want.
venison for dinner has me rethinking meat birds also. Your video has great hints and tips to put this into action. Thanks
LOVE your shirt!!
An option to consider for meat birds is to breed your own sex links. Cockerel & pullets can be separated at hatch, and hybrid vigor will decrease the grow out period and provide more meat on the birds you butcher.
Yes! This almost exactly what I plan to do with my duel breed also. I just chose a broody breed to eliminate the incubator. But I'm not looking to breed for a profit, just yet, either though. When I do I will probably do both. I'm excited to see how this new venture works for you!
Looking forward to seeing how this works out for Jill.
Ya I will be trying to hatch our own eggs this year also. It will be my first time. Good luck with yours. Can’t wait to see how they do.
There all died.
@@sunnydays4966 I am so sorry. Out of 41 only 9 hatched and 6 lived so far. They are 4 days old now.
@@mountainlivinghomestead429 no her click bate make her look like a Master egg hatcher yeat next viedo all die. I have 7 chicken from feed stores and need to down to 4. I trying to sell the rosters.
@@sunnydays4966 well sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. She also said IF this works. Life and death happens.
Freeze them just use ice cube trays pop yoke and freeze then vacuum seal cubes
I am planning on breeding Cornish X and what I will do is buy the pure breed hens of one and the roster from a different breed. I forget what Cornish X are.
This is our first year having chickens!🐥 I am so scared of getting chicken mites 😱 I watched a video about it and it scarred me for life lol ...Going for it anyway👍🏻
Congrats on your first year! P.S. we've had chickens for 10+ years and never had mites. ;)
Dust a little food grade DE (diatomaceous earth) under their wings and tail helps.
I also used a Fogger (hand crank) to dust my chicken house when empty and nest boxes whenever needed. Safe and effective, just don’t breathe.
Don’t put straw in your henhouse. That’s where most mites come from.
@@chomama1628 what should you use instead?
Just a thought, there are "slow grow" cornish and other dual purpose meat hybrids available on the market. They would be far better, and faster growing to butcher weight than what you're currently raising.
If youre wanting to stay with the Wyandotte or plymouth rock, i would seek out a line of heritage birds or even a heavy line of exhibition birds. Youll be much happier with the results than using the hatchery lines you currently have.
Exactly! I want to raise meat chickens but don’t want to be stuck always having to buy hybrid birds. I’m considering trying the Delaware breed as a sustainable meat bird breed …. 🤞🏼
I tried this and did not think about 2 things; the first is the little roosters start crowing about 2 months ish; second the butcher date is 6 months; that is 4 months of fighting and crowing; before i got to the butcher date i bartered away my batch of crowing crazies away
I have a Silkie hen and she is the broodiest hen over ever met! If I ever need chicks she will be my go to 😆
Did you know you can actaully dry hatch. I've recently learnt it. Doing it first time with quail due tomrrow. You only add water at lockdown. Candelled the quail last night and they alive and grown well in shell. So will be interesting to find out if I get a low number of chicks with splay or none with them.
Great video! I'm just starting to incubate my girls eggs and I can't wait to get my second batch of chicks. , its so satisfying and I love that I can get my own chicks right from my own flock. So much fun!
i write the date laid on each egg with a pencil so i know. i also sell extra eggs to friends
Hopefully going to do the same with my wyandottes if they dont sit...cant wait to see how yours turn out
I would suggest you get yourself a nice RCOM Max. I have the Max 20 and it is perfect. All electronic and automatic with a turner. Temperature regulated perfectly and adjustable for different species. Humidity is programmable so can run 45% for chickens until last 3 days when you turn off turning and raise the humidity to 65 to 70 percent for the hatch. I hatch a batch every spring and my new batch of chicks are now 4 days old. I too cull the roosters, average 50%, when they are 5 months old. Sad part of roosters, they are so scrawny compared to hens and way scrawny compared to white crosses. I raise nothing but Barred Rocks as I consider them the perfect chicken well except for the roosters which are plain mean.
I love laced wyandottes. We tried to hatch eggs once but it didnt work. Guess we gotta try it this way.
You might want to look into the Bresse chickens. They mature more slowly like a lot of heritage breeds, but their meat has some intermuscular fat and they are good layers.
Oooh, I definitely will!
God bless your good business 😀
Those spots on your two eggs, actually looked alike, but then you have the better view.
There are other eggs, with a more defined blastocyst.
Hovabator. Been using for years.
Explain slowly because I'm a city boy
Since Cornish Cross are a cross between. Cornish and Plymouth White's
Why not get some of each, then breed your own Cornish Crosses
Coming from a farmer that’s been farmering for A long time you’ll love hatching your own chicks. A suggestion don’t try to pure breed your chickens. There harder healthier and you can gear your flock for duel purpose a lot easier
How exciting. Can't wait to see your part 2 on this!
Hopefully in the near future, my Jersey giants will start hatching some babies for me.
Woah, i didn’t know about the 2wk fertile thing. Thank you! 🤯
So after you hatch I am guessing they go in a brood box until they feather. What age do you add back into coop with the rest of the flock??
Doesn't washing or damping the egg block the shell's pores, thus making it unable to breath and killing the egg?
Woah, i didn’t know about the 2wk fertile thing. Thank you! 🤯
Woah, i didn’t know about the 2wk fertile thing. Thank you! 🤯
Out of all the types of hens that I've had, the only ones that actually brooded on their eggs and hatch them themselves were bantams. So if I wanted eggs to hatch from a larger size breed, I would put the eggs under my bantam''s and that would actually work too. Or you can get a few Muscovy ducks and they like to brood on eggs as well.
That works for me too. I keep 4 Bantams for just that reason.
Me too. Have one mumma now and one on eggs
We are planning to do this also. My daughter wants to breed Buff Orpington's and Australorps and sell the extras birds.
I love to use my Broodies to hatch chick. Try some bantams. They have a high success rate and are so easy to do!
Humans have a way of complicating things that nature had already perfected. I was thinking broody hens were the answer. Thanks for letting us know that bantams will sit on eggs. A few bantams may replace the incubator.
Pro tip. If your turner ever breaks, tip the entire octagon a few times daily rather than turning each egg.
I don't know if you know about water glassing, but that is an excellent way of preserving eggs so that when you go through a drought you still won't be without eggs ... Costco doesn't need your money ... I'll be checking out your course, thank you for sharing!
Quick tip. Generally the pointy eggs are Roosters, not chickens.
New to your channel Jill. Interested.
Can’t wait to watch your incubator journey! I’ve always wanted to give it a shot but it makes me nervous. We processed a mean rooster last fall and he was a buff Orpington, so also a dual purpose breed and while we didn’t break any records on size of processed bird, the meat is definitely a higher quality!
Once you put a rooster in with the hens, how long until the eggs she lays will be fertilized? (so if you see them mounted on Monday morning, how long until the eggs are hatch-able?)
2 weeks
The position of those eggs must be inclined and change the postion at least once a day.
and my crosses were big. but then i used Freedom Ranger Rooster. when you figure out the home feed let me know! near San Diego just expensive
my guess would be to start with a breed of chickens that are known to set and hatch their own eggs,, also known as being BROODY!
Orpingtons!
I keep a few game hens and game hens love to set. First, I find there nest. If the nest is in a predator prone area, I remove the eggs and destroy the nest. If it's good spot, like in my barn, I get a small nest box, place the eggs in the box, and place the box in the nest location. When the hen goes broody, I replace her eggs with the eggs I want to hatch. If and when I need to, I can pickup the whole nest box, hen and eggs or chicks and move them to a sheltered pen, especially if she hatches several chicks. This way the hen does most all the work. One hen hatched 15 chicks last year. This works well for me anyways.
We got a couple of Buff Orpingtons and Cochins to be our broody chicks. We just leave a few eggs in the nesting boxes and once one of them goes broody, we put her in a separate place with a dozen or so eggs under her. We had them hatch out 2 batches for us last year.
I do incubate, but my real secret weapon is silkies. Often broody and good mamas
Silkie hens work amazing also...lol
Jill. I need your help. I just got a male and a female new zealand rabbits and I dont know what I am doing. LOL I have spent the last year outside my comfort zone learning things, so why not rabbits?! I will take any advice on these rabbits. I am building a hutch & thats my start..can you help me figure out some basic stuff I should be doing?
I did this last year and it is wonderful to no longer need to buy chicks! I bought a incubator last March and it has provided us many many chicks throughout the year and ducks! This year our local farm stores are always out of chicks so I sure am glad I can hatch my own now ...life safer!
Great info i liked it
Can't wait for the next part loved this video
You did not mark your eggs by breed, collected from.
For dual purpose chickens you might want to try Delaware chickens, ( Hoover Hatchery)..I have 3 breeds right now Black Star ( sex link)., Sapphire Gems...and picking them up the Delaware’s..really have that weight the others do not..and the Delaware’s are beautiful and nice.
There's one thing I will say Jill. My mother butchered barred rocks once, and she said they were VERY HARD TO PLUCK. She was used to dual purpose breeds, not broilers, but even then she said the barred rocks were miserable. Perhaps you've tried it before with success, but it might be worth some research
I built one of those Whiz Bang chicken pluckers, works great, less filling 🤪
Hi Jill, our city in Southern California allows us to have 3 egg laying hens at least 40’ from the neighbors house. Can you show how to do tiny backyard chickens.
Thank you
I would choose Delaware over Barred Rock for your dual purpose meat/egg birds. They have predominantly light colored feathers and are easy to pluck and present a nice carcass. They also grow fairly quickly.
I would love for my chickens to hatch out their own chicks but I'm not allowed roosters in town. ☹
I'm older than dirt and have never used an incubator. I always keep a couple of good Broody hens in the flock and let them do all of the work!
Hi how are you do you sale fertilize eggs please let me know thanks
I've hatched 77 chic's this year, sold all but 5, added to my flock..it's a chore, but very rewarding
Are you high altitude? I learned that is hard to hatch eggs at higher altitude (we’re 4000) Part of the solution was to find eggs that were laid in our altitude and the second was to raise the humidity(we also live in a dry area). I’m hopping to get a good broody hen to hatch my next batch.
Can also candel the eggs and if you have a red spot, it is a fertil egg.
You can keep Cornish cross you just need a Cornish too and white rock hens.
Wrong it's more to breeding a cornish cross than crossing the two rohad island white is one of the breeds used and cornish is a small% of the breeding
I was today days old when I learnt about blastoderm and blastodiscs. Thank you.
So that is how you tell if they are fertile. Thanks for I have wondered about that. I keep Cochin bantams just for setting on big eggs.
Why not just stick the matching rooster in with them for 3-4 weeks and than you should be all good ...
Woah, i didn’t know about the 2wk fertile thing. Thank you! 🤯
Eeeek this is exciting 🐣🐣🐣
It was a huge thing when mom ordered the chicks. I so looked forward to seeing them they were so cute.
Easter egg hunt on the go 😎
I love at chicken and eggs everyday since my twenties.I love birds and feed pigeons and others everyday.im not all "killy" tho..if I had to butcher my dang own..I think I would become a vegan...I remember first having to chop chickens from the supermarket as a kid and not living it.
The Brinsea incubator you chose is a great one to start with! I use it for my pure-bred, show Bantam Polish. I have a cabinet sized incubator and separate hatcher, but I find that particular model from Brinsea super handy to use for small hatching batch.