The Call Again Farm Journal

Grrrrrrr!  The incubator that I'm using for the chicken eggs makes me mad!  I cannot get the temperature to stabilize, and now I'm seeing the consequences.  Dianna and I did twelfth day candling today, and we had to get rid of twenty-one of the thirty-four chicken eggs.  Almost all of them had started to develop, but could not given extreme high and low temperatures in the incubator.  A whole range of ages, from very old to very new, were taken out, which backs up my idea that it was the unreliable incubator that's at fault.  I borrowed it from a friend, who'd had little success with it as well.  I think part of the problem is that it's a still air incubator, so the heating is uneven.  I'm so glad that it did it right when I bought incubators - the ones I own (which I'm using for turkey eggs) are circulated air models.

I took the turkey eggs in the incubator on the right out of the turner for hatching.  I can't believe that I should have baby turkeys hatching in only three days!  It's mind-boggling, unbelievable, and very exciting.  Also in three or four days my Colored Range Broiler chicks should come in the mail.  By Saturday, I may have as many as sixty birds on my farm, between the laying flock of chickens, the breeding flock of turkeys, the baby turkeys, and the baby chickens.