Hide 'n seek in the hay loft

A few days ago I went up into the hay loft to grab a bale for the goats (it'd been raining and they refuse to go outside, they might melt!) and this little gold/black banty hen was sitting on one of the rafters in the middle of the barn just squawking and having a fit, all directed at me! I searched everywhere but couldn't find a nest. Until today! I was up in the loft again, for the goats, and I moved the bale that is in front of her and she made a soft purring/cacking sound. Its dark up there so I couldn't see her at first.

I got my cell phone out to use as a flashlight. I was surprised by how deep her little nesting area is, a little over a foot deep! I pushed the bale that I'd moved back tight where it'd been and went to another area to get one. I fed the goats, went down to the house for my camera and climbed back up to see if I could get a picture or two. I brought her some feed so she wouldn't have to leave her nest tonight. Keeping my fingers crossed that she hatches out a bunch of bantys!

Hatching percentages

Mr. Wild was talking with another farmer recently about using an incubator and hatching success. We'd been tracking our eggs-in/hatched-out for a couple of months so we looked back to see how we'd been doing. The other farmer said he was having 10% to 18% hatch rate.

In August:
Eggs in = 111
Hatched out = 55
Un-hatched eggs = 56
Bad eggs/weeping = 0
Hatch success = (55/111) 50%

In September:
Eggs in = 127
Hatched out = 22
Un-hatched eggs = 19
Bad eggs/weeping = 86
Hatch success = (22/127) 17%

We had a few issues in September.

The first one was when one of the guys down the road decided to cut his trees and one of the branches took out the power lines. We are really rural so it was the next day before the power company fixed it. The heat & humidity were really high.

The second one was the temperature knob got bumped by the dog in a fit of excitement over a mouse in the shop (the old tack room in the barn). In the midst of us trying to get the dog out of the shop before she knocked everything over, we completely forgot about fixing the knob. It was 2 days later before we fixed it.

The third one was Mini Wild putting the eggs in the incubator and not latching it shut. Again, the heat & humidity.

So basically in September, most of the eggs were cooked. It was awful. The smell was terrible!!! In the process of cleaning it out and removing the sticky eggs from the trays, I had one pop in my face and spew foul purple liquid all over me. Mr. Wild started gagging and I dropped the tray of eggs, which then caused more of them to pop. I had to run to the house to get my clothes off and SCRUB the stench off of me. September was a total fail.

The one thing we haven't kept track of is the eggs that we've given to family & friends. Those numbers are in the dozens!

In October:
Eggs in = 197
Hatched out =
Un-hatched eggs =
Bad eggs =

I'll post these numbers next month.

Hatching out chicks

A full incubator.  I mark the date on every egg so I can keep track of "due dates"

The sponges help with the humidity inside the incubator.  The egg trays came from Cutler Supply.  The previous owner of the incubator was using regular egg cartons, this was allowing the water from the sponges to pool under the eggs causing all sorts of nastiness.  These trays are awesome!!

Some of our hatched chicks (ignore the date on the photos)

Brand new chicks drying in the bottom drawer of the incubator.

More of our incubator babies.