The Community Chickens project is at an eggciting stage: the incubators are filled with a variety of poultry hatching eggs. We’re hatching a bunch of eggs so that people in our office can try raising a few chickens, ducks or quail. You might be interested to know exactly what we’re hatching and in what kind of incubators, so here’s the list.
In the office, we have a GQF 1202A Sportsman incubator provided by Sure Hatch. It’s loaded with 222 chicken eggs!
20 Golden Comet eggs from Ridgway Hatchery
24 Brown egg layer eggs from Moyers Chicks
90 Dominique and 40 Rhode Island Red eggs from Bob Berry Hatchery
These are divided into three separate hatch dates. Plus, we have 13 Coturnix quail eggs from Purely Poultry. Most people would not recommend mixing different types of poultry hatching eggs in an incubator, but we had some leftover quail eggs, and I couldn’t make myself throw out viable hatching eggs.
In a Brinsea Octagon 20 Eco incubator, I have 20 Golden 300 duck eggs from Metzer Farms. I have another 20 Golden 300 eggs, plus 12 Pekin duck eggs from Hoffman Hatchery, in my old Styrofoam incubator. I’ve used that old incubator for about 12 years. It was originally a still-air model, but over the years, I’ve added a fan and replaced the thermostat.
Compared to my old incubator, the Octagon keeps the temperature remarkably stable. And although I’ve always enjoyed the hands-on experience of turning eggs, the automatic turning feature of the Octagon is a real time-saver. The duck eggs are about half way through the incubation process. So far, I’m really impressed with the Octagon.
Helen has 12 White Silkie eggs and 24 assorted bantam eggs from Meyer Hatchery in a still-air incubator from Murray McMurray Hatchery.
In a Brinsea Octagon 20 Advance incubator, Hank has the 20 duck eggs from Ridgway Hatchery. Jim has another 15 duck eggs in a turbo fan incubator from Stromberg’s Chicks and Gamebirds.
Kate has 20 Golden 300 Hybrid duck eggs from Metzer Farms and 22 Pekin duck eggs from Hoffman Hatchery in a Brower Top Hatch incubator.
Connie has 12 Pharoah/Coturnix quail eggs from Purely Poultry in a Brinsea R-Com incubator.
Look for hatch results in future blogs!
