New Hatch

We had more baby chicks hatch the other day. I started out with 7 fertilized eggs from our Black Australorp hens. I used our small automatic incubator again. It's all very easy now that I sort of know how to program it. I decided this time I wouldn't open the incubator during the process to "candle" them, since this was the stage where one died in the process last time. I only opened it up once to add a little more water. The incubator counts down the days and I was thinking Day 1 meant there would be one more day, but I was wrong. When I went to check on them, 5 chicks had already hatched and were making noise. Within an hour the other two had hatched.

Before I moved them out to the garage, I needed to tidy up the brooding pen from the last time. The sides had begun to slide out at the bottom from the pressure of the litter. I also wanted to reduce the size by one panel. I decided to try putting several bungee cords hooked together around the bottom. And then I put clips on top. This seems to have fixed the problem. I also added a new thin layer of litter and then newspaper for the first few days.

The incubator is getting easier to program.

I numbered the egg positions so I could monitor the rotations.

This chick had just hatched.

Another newly hatched chick

We moved the chicks to the pen within 12 hours.

The garage is so warm now that I don't need to use a heat lamp.

All 7 eggs hatched.

I moved the litter to the middle so I could adjust the panels. It was very dusty.

I added a thin layer of new litter.

I put bungee cords around the bottom to hold it upright.

I put clips on the top.