Last year, we were just
figuring out incubation, so we raised 13 chicks starting in late April,
6 chicks starting in mid May, 9 chicks starting in mid June, and 14
chicks starting in late August. Since we kept out eleven chickens
(four of
whom we gave to my brother), that left us with 33 heirloom-size
broilers in the freezer by the end of the year. The frozen
meat was just barely enough to get us through.
This year, we kept back
one cockerel to replace our
rooster, but devoted
the rest of our two spring flocks to the freezer. As a result,
we’ve already put away 30 birds, and our last incubator run — due to
hatch in early September — will be icing on the cake.
But
we’re still not taking any chances. I thought I’d worked all of
the kinks out of my incubation technique by the time I wrote Permaculture
Chicken: Incubation Handbook…then I accidentally
unplugged the turner and had to start over during our last hatch.
So this time around, I’ve taped both the incubator and turner plugs
into their sockets and am quite confident I won’t think they’re
anything else when I mess around with the power strip.
Here’s hoping we’ll have
another great hatch and plenty of delicious meat to eat this winter.
Incubator security
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About The Author
Anna & Mark
Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton are a pair of back-to-the-landers who have been homesteading for over a decade.
Please remind me, what incubator are you two using? Have you done a review on it any where? Thank you.
Heath — I should have linked to that in my post. 🙂 We use a Brinsea Octagon 20 Advance, which is expensive but worth every penny if you’re going to be raising several batches a year. I can’t remember my exact math, but I think I figured it would pay for itself within 3 years on our busy farm.