Getting into the Swing of Spring

So, I'm always reluctant to come out of hibernation and leave hygge behind for the extra chores of spring. It's a slow fade - slowly unplugging heated water tanks. Leaving the barn open at night. Cleaning out coops. Fixing and repairing coops. Prepping some birds for their move outside. Putting up the pasture fencing for rotational grazing... It's a process.

One of the tricks to spring is hatching baby birds. My signal that spring is here and it is time to fire up the incubator is finding the first turkey egg! That's when I go clean it out and prep it. I turn it on, to get it to temp, fill the water tank to make sure I can stabilize humidity. I get the tubs ready for my little indoor brooders. And we are ready to rock and roll.

It's a great time to start hatching. I don't always have a lot of folks heading to the farm to buy eggs, so it's best to hatch them instead of seem them go wasted.

But due to the cost of turkey poults and their value to us here on the farm, EVERY turkey egg goes in the incubator. BUT, they start out laying pretty slowly. So we started hatching March 16, this year. I try to fill one row per week, so that I am pulling some eggs each week and adding new ones. So it's a constant swirl of eggs going in, chicks coming out, and then after a week or so, the baby birds head to the brooder in the barn. To give them the best start, we keep them in the house for at least a few days before they head to the big brooder.

So our big incubator has three rows that fit 2 trays each. My chicken egg trays fit 48 eggs, and my duck and turkey trays fit 36 eggs each. There is a bit of a dimensional mismatch, and the big egg trays are a hair too long for the incubator. If I pair one with a chicken egg tray, then all is well. But I like to fill by incubators with turkey eggs when I can, so if it's all full, the trays get in the way of the support bars when they turn. So I have to leave two eggs out so they don't get crushed when they turn. I hate having empty real estate in the incubator!

This isn't my actual units, mine don't have the cool full window doors, mine have a skinny window built into the door. And the hatching trays are a different design (mine are all metal! YAY for less plastic!) But mine are this size and this brand.

A few years back, I bought a separate hatching unit. It helps keep the incubator clean. And since I hatch so many eggs, there isn't enough room in the tray at the bottom of the incubator to support all the eggs I am hatching. It also allows me to keep the incubating eggs at a slighty lower humidity, than the hatcher. But the hatcher then gives me 4 or 5 whole trays for hatching eggs. I am only using three right now - saving the bottom tray for potential quail hatchings.

Quail go into a standard small countertop hovabator incubator. I can move the eggs to the big hatcher when they are ready, but the quail egg trays are not meant for the big incubator, and the quail eggs can fall out of the tray. So just yesterday, I started 38 quail eggs. And I got 69 more turkey eggs into the incubator.

Again, not my actual incubator. My rails are yellow. But my quail eggs look the same.

Of course I have a spreadsheet. I am so glad you asked. So it's a daily check up for me. I have a spare room in the basement I use for incubating. It's also my sewing room. But I need to make sure the brooder babies have food and water. I have to make sure the water reservoirs are full for the hatcher and the incubator. I have to check for hatching chicks and move them to their brooders. And I need to move eggs, when ready, from the incubator to the hatcher, and then backfill with more eggs.

So when I have a handful of turkey eggs, I get the incubator flowing. I'll fill the top tray then with duck and chicken eggs as well. No sense in having just a few eggs in there. So then each week, I try to fill a row. So since I started on March 16, I finally have started getting a TON of turkey eggs, and last night I put in 69 turkey eggs, and just a few chicken eggs to take up any final spare spots in the incubator.

The ducks will be raised up as replacements, and the males get used for meat. Same with the chickens - and my chicken flock is too small, so I am trying to grow it, but I always end up with too many roosters! So those get turned into food as well. And we know the turkeys become food. I hold back some hens and a few toms each year to keep the pipeline filled. This is the first year in several that the hens are a) laying well b) laying eggs where I can find them and c) not laying in the neighbors field where the fox can get them. I think I have one hen in a dog house sitting on eggs, but seeing as my incubator is filling faster than I can find more space in it, I may let one mama hatch some of her own eggs.

Ducky babies!!

Each year, I usually do have hens that hide somewhere and hatch eggs. Sometimes ducks hide in the tall grass over in the chicken run. And I've had two hens - Blue and White - that have been sharing a nest and hatching 2-3 clutches per year. BUT those two lovely ladies finally got to go home to their original mama, and hopefully can hatch some eggs over there. Turkeys are hit and miss. They can hatch some pretty big clutches, but I am not finding them sitting in their usual nesting spots - behind the shed, behind the compost bins, in the garden, etc. Just the one inside a dog house. Which is what we have the dog houses for! But they tend to be bad mamas, and wander off with their babies into fields where hawks can easily pick them off, one by one, until none are left. This year, I think I may steal babies and put them in a brooder to be safe. Chickens and ducks do a great job of raising babies, but turkeys - not so much!

So the ebb and flow of the tide of babies has started. The first ducklings are already out and about on the farm. The second batch has moved to the barn brooder. My first batch of chickens are getting ready to move outside to a grow out coop. And I just set up the turkey shed as it's own brooder for the turkey babies, and when this rain stops in the morning - they will go out of the house and to their big kid brooder.