We set our first clutch of eggs yesterday. We set 13 turkey eggs and 36 chicken eggs. If we are lucky in about a month we will have babies. This is this years chicken and turkey breast and strips in the freezer and jars of broth and meat. Anyone else setting eggs?
Blessings from The Holler
The Canned Quilter
This is the first time we have tried incubating and we had some humidity issues that was entirely our fault, well my fault since I had to take care of the incubator that my husband had started but was under the weather. I didn't realize there was a well that needed to be refilled. We had four total hatch- incubation interrupted too by a power outage that lasted a couple of days. One chick was stuck in the shell but I managed to get it out. You can see it here, the poor thing looks horrible but is now doing much better. http://movingontothepast.blogspot.com/2013/05/chick-stuck-in-shell.html
ReplyDeleteWhen incubating chicks humidity is a huge isse. If there is a lack of humidity the shells are too dry and the chicks cannot get out. Too much humidity can sometimes be an issue also. Power outage is terrible. It is a wonder you had any hatch. Hang in there.
DeleteNo, though I wish I was. Studying up though so that when we move we will.
ReplyDeleteWe have some hens hiding...that's the best we can manage this year.
ReplyDeleteLoL! I remember when I was a kid and Mom had hens hiding she would send us kids to the hayloft hunting : )
DeleteMy sister-in-law took 2 dozen a few weeks ago to incubate in her preschool class. She called yesterday and said that 11 are out and fine, with 6 more on their way out. I bought turkey poults for the first time this year so they're in the brooder, doing well. I feel bad for my broody hens out there that have no work to do this year LOL I feel like giving them a few just to be nice! But really 17 new ones will be plenty!
ReplyDeleteI have never hatched any type of eggs before and am doing it this year. My hatch rate hasn't been the best but I keep trying. Right now I have 12 chickens and 4 turkeys that are 4 weeks old and 3 chickens that are 3 days old. I have turkey eggs in one of my incubators right now and hope to have a better hatching rate. Tomorrow I am filling the incubator with 42 eggs and this will be the last of the chicken eggs I will do this year.
ReplyDeleteI am for the first time going to be butchering chickens and turkeys. The lady who runs our small town (250 population) Post Office is going to be my mentor.
Now to my question, about how many turkeys and chickens do you butcher each year. We have the same size family as you and I was interested in about how many I should do. In the last 2 years we've stopped eating ground beef but eat ground chicken and ground turkey. In the past couple of years I've purchased turkey breasts and chicken breasts when on sale and ground that. We also eat baked chicken, fried chicken and also canned some chicken and turkey last year to use throughout the year. Thanks for your help.
Last year I butchered 40 turkeys and 35 chickens. We breast out our turkeys and chickens both retaining the boneless breast meat to freeze or make strips for stir fry etc. The remaining meat is either cooked and canned or ground. Like you our diet consists of a great deal of venison, home raised pigs, ground turkey, and chicken breasts or canned meat and both turkey and chicken meat broths. That is for a family of 3.
DeleteThanks for the info. Hopefully I will have about that many chickens but so far we only have hatched 4 turkeys. I have a dozen more turkey eggs in the incubator right now and hope to get a good hatch from those. I will continue to incubate the turkey eggs as long as our hen keeps laying.
DeleteThe pair of turkeys (Bourbon Red) we have I got free off of Craigslist last fall. He is 5 and she is 3. The 4 turkeys babies we have right now are from some eggs we bought and hopefully we will be able to get another breeding set from them so that next year I have more than 1 hen laying.
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ReplyDeleteSo far I have set under 4 hens. Three are banty so only have 7 under the smallest one and 9 each under the others. My largest hen has 15 under her. The 1st eggs are due to hatch on Mother's Day! I'm not sure how many more I'll set and there may be hidden nests. I usually have a couple of those a year. Last year a banty cross hen hatched out 22 chicks from eggs her and another hen had hidden!
ReplyDeleteLOL! My mother swore that those banty hens were the absolute best for hatching a clutch of eggs. Her hen house was NEVER without a couple banties : )
DeleteI actually crossed banty hens with larger roosters and hatched the eggs. Now I have mid-sized hens who can cover more eggs than my little hens and who usually go broody once or twice a year. I don't have an incubator. .
DeleteI set my little banty with a clutch of nine eggs on Saturday. Time will tell...
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