The Incubator Experiment
- May 18, 2011
- Category: Farm Style
- (10) Comments
Thanks everyone for sharing your opinions on Lowes vs. Home Depot. It was really interesting to read your comments and see which you prefer and why.
At the moment, I have more fertile eggs than I can count. I have only one turkey and one chicken who want to sit on them and there’s not room under their bottoms for all my eggs. What do do? If I had known earlier that fertile eggs sell for a good price, I would have sold some of them but I had no idea.
My solution to my over population of eggs was to try to find an incubator. It was quite a learning experience. Incubators vary from thousands of dollars for professional models to not a lot of money for basic incubators. But I learned with basic incubators, you have to be available to turn the eggs three times a day preferably at the same time. I kept on searching and finally found a reasonably priced self turning one at Cackle Hatchery.
It arrived a couple of days ago.
I have to say it was so easy to set up, I didn’t even need Mountain Man. I got it up to temperature and in went the eggs.
Here’s a top view with some of the eggs in it.
And here are my assortment of eggs; turkey eggs, guinea eggs and see those really large eggs? Those are peacock eggs!
If all goes well, June 16th is the anticipated hatch date and if not, well, my tom is busy pestering the hens so I don’t think finding more fertile eggs will be a problem but I’m hoping all goes well.
Have you had any experience hatching eggs in an incubator?
Can’t go wrong with a name like Cackle Hatchery! I like that name! You have peacocks too?
Date: May 18, 2011
wow, that’s a lot of eggs. I’ve never had any kind of feathered friends, so I can’t help with the incubator question. You might go visit Linda over at Prairie Flower Farm and ask her. I think she’s used an incubator to help hatch chicks, although I’m not entirely sure on that one
It will be interesting to see what a peacock chick looks like 
Love and hugs from Oregon, Heather 
Date: May 18, 2011
Don’t know a thing about an incubator, but I’m going to learn from you. I’ve got my fingers crossed that all goes well.
Have a terrific day.
Date: May 18, 2011
Good luck with the eggs! It will be interesting when they hatch!
Date: May 18, 2011
Oh, I can’t wait to see all those babies!!!
Date: May 18, 2011
I’ve never tried an incubator…good luck with yours! If they all hatch you’ll have a bunch of babies running around soon. I have 8 eggs under one of my 5 broody hens and she’s in her own pen so hopefully we’ll at least get a few to hatch. Now I just have to get the other broody hens to snap out of it! I hope your weather has warmed up…here in our part of Kansas it’s gone back to cool windy weather but it looks as though the weekend has promise. Maybe then we can get back to painting the house! Have a wonderful Thursday…
Maura
Date: May 19, 2011
I was away from home and missed some of your previous posts. I went back to read a few. I liked your narrative of going to Lowes.
Last year, I was the home improvement stores’ dream girl. I gutted two rooms (including my kitchen) and rebuilt from scratch. My husband has little interest in such things, so I pretty much did everything except the plumbing on my own. I learned that Lowes *usually* has better prices and more promotions, but Home Depot excels in customer service. Lowes has steered us wrong on a few products, one of them was an expensive error. So I tend to prefer Home Depot, as they seem more knowledgeable and friendly. For what it’s all worth.
Date: May 19, 2011
Wow, good luck with the peacock eggs, didn’t realize they were native to Vermont, lol
Date: May 19, 2011
How interesting. Do the mommies miss their eggs? I am so enjoying this since I know nothing about it all. I did, however, live on my uncle’s farm in Smih Station, Alabama when I was a child many years ago. We had all kinds of animals and I would go out and collect the eggs for our breakfast.
Date: May 20, 2011
The incubator sounds like the perfect thing. Now what are you going to be doing with all your avian menagerie ?
Date: May 26, 2011