Son, I swear, you answered every question I had. I owe you a shot and a beer. Thank you. My rooster is always Bow Chica bow Bow. Truth be told. I'm a little envious of him. I eat eggs everyday. My wife, came out and asked what do you want for breakfast. I said eggs. She said, for 27 year's you have eaten eggs everyday. Everyday for 27 years. Don't you ever get bored and want to eat something else? I said. You don't know how bad I do. I'm glad I insulated the chicken coop.
Thanks so much for explaining this to a city boy like me. I was told since kindergarten that fertilized eggs were inedible! Just goes to show how little the population knows about the food they eat.
Obviously a lot of the city folk that watch these videos don't have clue. The biggest problem I've had with a cheap incubator is the egg turning. No matter what it costs unless you want to do it by hand every couple hours like you said, pay the money to get one that will reliably turn the eggs. This is very important. We just had 24 turkey eggs not hatch because the turner quit working. Good info, I liked the video.
Bow chicka wow wow oh Lordy you are fun to watch, and while you might not be an "ologist" in anything on paper ~ you are an awesome homestead-ologist in my book.... Thanks for the info, and laughs ~ Stay Blessed, The Prepper's Wife
not to get off the subject, love the curtain rod kitchen utensil holder.....got my incubator for Christmas...finally, doing all my research for hatching..thank you!
From a family that has raised their own food, my folks (are in their 80's) use to candle eggs instead of judging by sight their layers versus cooking eggs. Personally I just use them all for cookers.
Good starter video for hatching. If you have the proper bedding and nesting boxes you won't have dirty eggs. I hatched out 100's of eggs, chicken, duck, geese, guinea, turkey and quail over the past 30 years in W.WA where it rains 9 months of the year and never had a problem with washing dirty eggs and hatching rates. Wash the eggs if they are dirty and you will be fine. I did a spring-summer of hatching to see how far out I could go with eggs and abuse them and still get a good hatch rate. 2-3 weeks in storage was 80% hatch rate. I stored the eggs in a portable fridge at 42 degrees and didn't turn them at all. I pushed the storage rate to 5-6 weeks and still got 50% hatch rate. Farthest out I went was 7 weeks. The proper nutrition of the hen and rooster has much more to do with your hatch rates than how you handle the eggs. Get good stock to start and you will get good hatch rates.For under a $100 Little Giant incubators are probably the least costly way to hatch. You won't get 70-80% hatch rates every time, but who cares at that cost. Buy a couple cochin hens and not worry about hatching and let the experts do it......:)
NWHiker we have ducks that are a bad influence on our girls. whenever it rains and is muddy they convince our chickens to play with them in the mudholes that they make. yes i said make! the other day they had an 8" hole dug and diverted the rain gutter to it to fill it. i am convinced that ducks are the pigs of the poultry world.
My chickens get muddy when it rains. No avoiding it. They're not gonna quote their feet before they go in the nesting box. So unless you have an automatic chicken wash that activates before they get to the nesting box, mud (and poo) is unavoidable in wet areas.
thanks so much! its my first year to raise chickens. im raising austrolorps and im just loving it. I want to harch more because there are no local breeders for them.
Bow chickawowow action!!!! bwahahhahahaha! luv u so much jnull0. We live close to The Mrs. Volfie and when it's fall and i'm prepping the harvest and for craft fairs i put y'alls vids on to keep me going. THanks!
One Woman & Two Acres possibly the most exciting thing in chicken ownership is your first candeling. i sitll get excited when candling eggs. we just did our first duck run this year, another few days
We just got four new chicks to add to our four chickens but no rooster yet. I'll have to get a good incubator along with our rooster later this year. Thanks for the info.
Thank You for the Video. So I've been separating the pointy eggs from the rounder eggs. The Pointy eggs are 5 for 5 Rooster and Round Eggs 5 for 5 Pullets
jnull0 LOL Ohhh my gosh you had me on the floor with your bowchika wow wow.. HAAA.. Greattt .. Now I have a tatooed vision of chicken love in my head YUCK! hehehe
Thanks John, I needed the laugh. Nothing like good ole chicken love! From the poop on your eggs, it looks like you need to deworm your chickens. Also, you can tell a fertile egg when you crack one open, just look for the bulls eye on the yolk. Solid white circle - not fertile, bulls eye - fertile. After I see that the eggs are fertile, I start saving them. Luckily, I have a rooster that really enjoys doing his duty! LOL
Dirty eggs are not necessarily a worm problem...right now I am dealing with mud issues, rain on and off for the past month as well as snow here in N GA. Runs are very muddy and the hens like to lay in a box where there is already an egg, stepping on eggs in the process. The mud transfers to the eggs. Yes, the mud may contain poop, but dirty eggs aren't necessarily poopy eggs. Once things dry out my eggs will all be mostly clean.
We are definitely having mud issues here in NW GA. At least it isn't massive snow like farther north is dealing with. A $25 sheet of plastic from Home Depot kept me from having mud problems with my chickens this winter. I roll the sides up in good weather and down in cold or wet weather. I laughingly called it my "eggplant greenhouse". That being said, natural de-worming is not hard on the chickens and you can still eat the eggs. Seeds from birdhouse gourds are great for this. I've read that raw pumpkin seeds are good for this, but I've never tried them since I always have an abundance of gourd seeds. I give the seeds to my chickens as a treat once a month and I never have a poopy egg problem, rain or shine. Just a handful of seeds per 2 chicks is all it takes.
jan Penland Are you using the plastic on the side of runs to keep rain out or on the "floor" of runs? Just curious - even if I were to put plastic on the sides (and top) I would have mud since everything is on a slope, and water runs downhill. Runs are at the bottom of the slopes. I don't think even a trench would stop the water flow across the top layer of soil. Right now I using a small amount of hay so I don't slip and fall, moving it when the sun shines to help dry things out. Suns not shining much though :(
I'm using it on the sides and top with the sides able to be folded up. That way, I can give them ventilation from the side opposite the wind and rain. Fresh air is vital to their health. I also have a layer of about 6" of hay on the floor, but they scratch right through it for their dust baths. Living in the valley next to a creek, I don't get much run off. I do get a lot of puddles. I've had to use stepping stones in the worst of these areas, and with all this rain we've had this winter, sometimes that is not enough. Have you thought about stacking some of your rocks as a mini retaining wall and trench it away from the run, then add some water loving plants between the wall and the run? Just think, when we get our annual summer drought we will be wishing we had some of this rain, lol!
jan Penland OK, trying to form a picture of your setup - my birds have a coop with solid walls on 3 sides and the coop isn't an issue, water stays out as it's slightly elevated. My run is too big to put plastic on overhead in any way that would be easy to take off/put on. I do plan to add some plants to the "high side" outside the run, but as you say, we'll be having dry spells before long. Stepping stones for my use is a great idea, thanks!
Great video, very informative. I haven't incubated eggs in many years. A fox killed all my hens and my favourite rooster last week so I'm going to incubate their eggs and pray I can get at least one chick to keep their memory alive.🐤
Someone fractured my acr joints (separated shoulders) in my 20s. When in my 40s, the rotator cuffs started to shred from the original injury. One of the preliminary exams for pain was raising my arms just the way you did when you felt pain. Also pain during the movement mimicking "pouring a soda" at chest level, is an indicator. I eventually underwent surgery when my left rotator cuff ruptured completely and I could no longer move my arm. If your Dr. suggests surgery, it will help with the pain the the recuperation is hell. Think back to whether you've ever fallen forward and braced yourself on that arm, which is another indicator. When the doctor went in he said the fractures were too old and arthritic to repair. Waited too long and will suffer from shoulder pain for the rest of my life. Take care of it sooner than later. And there is a lot of information online regarding that pain. Having told you all of this, I hope I'm wrong. Cuz it puts your arm and shoulder out of commission for about a month.
I know wild turkeys lay an egg a day for 10-14 days before they actually sit on the nest to start incubating. Their eggs are exposed to whatever the outside conditions are day and night till she starts sitting.
After incubation of 5 to 8 days you can do what is known as candeling. You can use a very right light to shine through the egg from side to side. If you see a dark area floating in the egg it has been fertilized. Put it back in incubator and finish your hatching. There are plenty of videos on how to do it. Not hard at all. Good luck.
Hi Jnull0, new subscriber here, took a few times of hearing Bev mentioning you before I got the name and did a search. You have a good channel and good life going on there, at least I think so anyways, lol. Your subscriber count kept going up as I was watching a few of your vids and thought I should get on board. One question if you don't mind, you said the hens will lay eggs wether they are fertilized or not, Is there any difference in eating quality or anything else between fertilized and non fertilized eggs? Might be a stupid question but I just would have assumed the hen would have to be knocked up so to speak inorder to produce eggs so just wondering if there's any difference other than being fertilized or not. Thanks.
Great info, but we have 1 rooster and 24 hens. How do we tell which eggs have been fertilized because I don’t believe he’s, as you put it, bow chicka bow wowing them all?
As usuall john great video good info. I do have birds but dont hatch my own but knowledge is a wonderfull thing. Enjoy all the vids set to do some italian beef sandwiches this week cant wait. Ive been abusing your bread recip. The family loves it. Keep up the great work. God bless. Kenny
for the first 18 days what is your incubator temp and humidity at? Then what temp and humidity for days 19-21? pls help having problems finding a happy medium
Yep Mother earth news and several other sites confirm that more pointed eggs tend to be roosters, rounder more ovoid eggs tend to be hens about 75% of the time. This apparently isn't true for all breeds but it is in the larger breeds. Who NU? Do not refrigerate eggs you want to hatch. Jnull is correct store them at room temp not more than 3 days usually.
lechatboote i belive mother eather news is mistaken, as egg shape is determined by genes. we can identify what chicken lay what egg every day and that is out of a 20+ hen flock. several of the daugthers have the same eggs as the mother too. we have one that has bumps on the round end and a very big pointed egg, two of her daugthers have very similar eggs with the bumps being a little different pattern. the color of the eggs is also passed down through genes, with the dautghers having simlar hues of eggs.
Well I have been raising chickens for a while never bothered to look at shape. However mother earth news isn't the only source for the information. It doesn't say it's 100% it's about 60% accuracy. So you can even up the odds if you want to weed out roosters. My hens will lay the eggs both ways. As to color there are other variants at work. New layer as compared to older hens, breed of hen etc.
My grandad has exercises for his shoulders do u do the same he goes up to a door and tries to stretch to the top of the door he's ment to do that 4 times a day but he doesn't and now he's wanting a shoulder replacement and hip
I bought a deluxe incubator,(egg turner ,air circulation etc.. )And it says that the fan dries them out quicker, Can anyone give me an idea how often I should add water? and I was also told to use a soft dry scour pad to clean off my eggs, Will that hurt them? I didn't use any pressure,just slid it softly across the egg to remove debris. this is my first attempt and hatching,so just a little nervous! Thanks!!
Once the egg laid by hen after how many days can I use for incubating and after how many days I can't use for incubating purpose. I need your best response with regards.
