New Incubator

Our flock of hens is aging and their egg production is down, so we need a replenishment of the flock. For the past couple of years, I've let our broody hen hatch as many chicks as she can.  Of the last batch, only one has survived to adulthood.  It's always a combination of unhatched eggs, chicks dying after hatching for some unknown reason.  Then snakes get the chicks in the coop at night.

And, we down to four guineas from the original ten.  In the first year or two, they successfully hatched and raised a few so that we had fourteen at one point until an owl picked them off one by one.  Since then, the guineas have been unsuccessful in keeping their nest hidden well enough.  Inevitably, some predator will find the nest.  If the raccoons or snakes don't raid the nest, then the dogs do.  I don't really care that much about having the guineas because they actually do not keep the squash bug population down as I had read.  Although, they and the chickens do keep us from being overrun with grasshoppers.

So, I decided to get a "better" incubator and hatch some fowl that way.  The one that I have is cheap and requires a lot of attention.  After reading lots of reviews, I decided to get this one:

And use some guinea eggs as guinea pigs.  I knew that the guineas had a nest close by, so I took ten of their eggs.  Incidentally, just a few days later, the eggs were all gone, so I got them in the nic of time.

It has this tray that sits inside.  The eggs fit between those slots, which are adjustable so that different sized eggs will fit in it.  And it has a little metal bar that fits in that slot on the right.  The bar has a motor that makes it go round and round and as it does, it pushes the tray back and forth very slowly, thus continually turning the eggs.

The red light on the left is a temperature display.  It measures the temperature in celsius, so I had to have husband do the math and figure out the right temperature for guinea eggs.  The little box on the right measures the humidity.  It has a probe that sits inside the incubator.

I wrote all the instructions for hatching guinea eggs and taped them to the side so that I would know exactly which dates to stop turning the eggs, lower the temperature and raise the humidity and when to expect the keats to pip.

I put 10 eggs in the incubator and waited.  Then, I totally forgot to take pics of the hatched keats.

As for the incubator..."better"?  Meh.  At least I didn't have to turn the eggs three times a day.  But, I found that it was impossible to keep the humidity at a constant level.  There is a little hole in the top for adding water (shown in first picture).  I kept a bowl of water and a dropper next to the incubator and several times a day (and night), I had to add a dropper or more full of water.  As far as I knew at the time, it was keeping the temperature at a fairly constant level.

So, the results were...out of ten eggs, I have five live, healthy keats.  Two of those had splayed/spraddle leg that I had to splint for 24 hours, then they were fine.  Two keats hatched completely but could not detach from their umbilical cord.  Since I read that if I cut the cord it might kill them, I left the first one alone.  That one was drug it's shell around for about 18 hours and died.  The second one - I waited until the cord was completely dry, then cut it as close to the egg shell as possible.  I figured, if it's going to die anyway, I had nothing to lose.  That was was also spraddle-legged, so I splinted it's legs, too.  It lived about 48 and died.  One keat started pipping and got a whole big enough for it's face, then it died in the shell.  Two eggs did not develop at all.

We happened to be at Tractor Supply on the week that the keats hatched and they had their chicks on sale for fifty cents a piece.  We decided to get a dozen.  So, the keats are in the barn with the chicks and all is well for now.  

I'm hoping that by the time they are ready to join the flock in the coop, the snakes will be hibernating and these birds will have a chance to grow up.  And, if they are not all roosters, we'll have more eggs in the spring.