I started a new batch of chicks in our Brinsea Octagon 20 Eco incubator on 3/10/12. Tonight marks seven complete days; 14 to go. Babies due on 3/31/12!
(We bought the incubator last year and successfully hatched 10 Bourbon Red turkey poults and 5 homegrown Buff Orpington chicks. To read more about our experiences, click here.)
I saved eggs for four days and ended up with 26 Buff Orpington eggs and 4 Buckeye eggs. The only reason I didn’t save more Buckeye eggs is that so far, they hadn’t been fertile. (You can tell if they’re fertile by looking for a faint bullseye in the yolk when you crack them to cook them. Then you can predict what ratio of your eggs are being fertilized before deciding to save them.) But they day before I started the incubator, I cracked open some Buckeye eggs for a batch of scrambled eggs, and they were all fertile! So I saved the four from that day and added them to the batch.
On saving eggs for hatching: I kept them on the counter in egg cartons and tilted them up on one side. Then I tilted them on the other the next day. You have to store them point-down (big side up). I’ve heard you can store them for up two weeks before hatching and still be successful, but obviously, the sooner, the better. Ideal temps for storing eggs for hatching are 50 – 60 degrees; our kitchen was consistently around 65 or less during this time. (It is now much warmer, due to the weird warm weather we’ve been having!) In order to try and keep the breeds separate for now, we only let the breeds out one at a time to range during the day. I’m not sure we did this early enough, though, as it was only a week before collecting eggs that I stopped letting them out together. So it’s possible we’ll get some barnyard mixes in there, which is fine. I think a Buckeye-Buff Orpington cross would make an excellent homestead bird, and hybrid vigor is also in our favor. I just want to make sure to keep a pure stock of Buckeye going, in case we decide to raise more of them.
I candled our eggs tonight using the Brinsea Ovascope that my elementary school teacher friend, Annie, let me borrow. (She hatched some of our chicks with her class last year!) I tossed two clears (eggs without developing embryos) and marked one with a question mark. But that only brings us down to 28 eggs – in an incubator made for 24 chicken eggs! I had initially fit the 30 in there by removing the divider bars, lining them up in a running bond, and stacking two on top. I used waxed paper to cushion any open spots to keep the eggs upright and not jostling around. So now we’re down to just one level of eggs, 7 columns of 4 eggs each, in a running bond. I’ll candle again in a week and see if there are any more to toss. I’m thrilled to have so many chicks developing! We need more layers, and the boys will be meat birds, so nothing gets wasted. I’m just worried about all those chicks in that little incubator come hatching day…
Why did I decide to incubate chicken eggs right now, you might ask? Amidst an unplanned kitchen remodel and at 32 weeks pregnant? Because we want/need more layers, and we also like to raise the excess males for meat. I want these chicks hatched and through the little baby phase before my own baby makes his arrival. Plus, the incubating is the easy part – I simply rock the Brinsea three times a day, check the humidity every few days, and wait. It really couldn’t be easier. (Well, it could be, if I had a broody hen. But even with the insanely warm weather, there are no broody hens around here in March! Last year, we had to wait until June for a broody.) I prefer for a hen to raise babies for me (so much easier!), but that would mean the new babies wouldn’t lay until late next winter. By hatching new babies this month, I have a chance at eggs by September/October this year, which is what I really want. The new chicks will be inside for a week or two, out in the garage for another week or two, and then into the big outdoors in our juvenile chicken tractor. We like to get them outdoors as soon as possible.
Stay tuned for a kitchen update, and perhaps a 2012 garden post (I started seeds this week)…
simply serina 
Have your chicks hatched? I haven’t heard of buckeyes before. I would love to try one of those Ovascopes. We just use a torch.