Those of you who have been
reading regularly will have noticed that I’ve been experimenting and
researching for the last year to figure out how to hatch more healthy,
homegrown chicks with less drama. I summed up all of my newfound
knowledge in a 99 cent ebook — Permaculture
Chicken: Incubation Handbook.
The book walks
beginners through
perfecting the incubating and hatching process so they can enjoy the
exhilaration of the hatch without the angst of dead chicks. 92
full
color photos bring incubation to life, while charts, diagrams, and
tables provide the hard data you need to accomplish a hatch rate of 85%
or more.
Topics include:
- How chickens fit into a permaculture system
- Reasons to incubate your own eggs
- The mother hen option
Choosing the best eggs, with information on
seasons, parentage, egg shape, and shell quality- Storing and marking eggs
- What to expect when buying mail order eggs
- Choosing the best incubator
- The basics of incubation: time, temperature, humidity, turning,
etc. - Pros and cons of dry incubation, including ways to calculate egg
weight loss - Candling eggs
- What to do during temperature spikes and power outages
Preparing for the hatch,
hatching, and dry off period- When and how to help chicks out of the shell
- How to tell whether unhatched eggs are alive
- Calculating percent viable eggs, hatch rate, and survivability
- Troubleshooting incubation problems, including tips on autopsying
eggs and a dichotomous key to pinpoint causes - Diagnosing, preventing, and dealing with hatch-related ailments
like wry neck, spraddle leg, and more Caring for sick chicks and
knowing when and how to euthanize- Basic needs of chicks after hatching: temperature, food, and water
- Housing chicks, with information on outdoor brooders
- Pasturing very young birds
I hope you’ll splurge a
buck to check my
newest ebook
out. And if you really want to make my day, please leave a
review. Thanks so much!
