Old McSilvas Had a Farm

As the spring air starts to change our family starts to also spring to life with some of our favorite hobbies. One of them has become our backyard flock of chickens. Spring time is the time of year to introduce new chicks to your flock. You have some choices in how to do this. You can order chicks that get delivered through the mail, purchase them through a feed store, or you can try hatching your own. We started our flock last year with purchasing fertilized eggs from a farm and hatching them ourselves. This year, since we had our own rooster, we were able to incubate and hatch our very own fertilized eggs. The first step is to set up your incubator and get it to the right temperature, the eggs need to stay at about 110 degrees Fahrenheit at all times. While your incubator is warming up start collecting your eggs, you should hatch more than what you want to end up with for a few reasons. First, not all your eggs will hatch. They either could not be fertilized or sometimes they just don’t fully develop. Second, you will end up with roosters. We decided we would like another 4-6 hens in our flock so we are incubating 16 eggs. Once your incubator is up to temperature it’s time to add the eggs. Mark them in some way because they need to be turned every day and this helps you keep track of it. Now it’s time to wait, 19-21 days, until the excitement of hatching begins!

How can your kids be a part? In so many ways! For the start of the process it’s great to teach them about checking the incubators temperature, which should be monitored daily. They can also be the ones to mark and count the eggs. And of course Mark you calendar as to when you started them and when they should hatch! Stay tuned for more updates on our egg progress...