[RICH_Chicken]

Hello all,

I've purchased an incubator to start my small holding off! My next question would be is it going to affect my electricity bill a lot?. If so I'm in trouble with the wife! My incubator is the Brinsea octagon advance? Only a small one?

Thanks in advance

Rich

[Helenaj]

Hi

The small incubators don't cost a lot to run - I had two for years until I got sick of culling the cockerels that they produced and decided to get rid of them and buy hens in. Watch the water level closely though because it is easy to let it run dry (or keep it too wet) if you are not used to them.
 Have you thought about what to do with the cockerels that you will get? My last hatch of 12 eggs produced 8 cockerels and that did it for me. I used to break my heart culling healthy birds because you can't get rid of them and keeping them wasn't an option because of the noise and in-fighting as they got older.

[tosca100]

It's not the incubator that uses lots of electricity, (though the 3 we had running last year did,) it's the heat lamp for the brooder. There are methods of brooding without heat but we have never been brave enough to try it. Last year we had several broods at different stages (chicks and goslings) and our bill was high, but they were in a large shed and a smaller area might have been better. Agree with Helenaj, we had a high percentage of males last year, though someone took 8 so we managed to get rid of them all.

We said we wouldn't do any more, and we won't do any of the Bulgarian breed we have, they have proved problematic healthwise and not popular, but somehow 20 araucana eggs arrived by courier yesterday................ We have a hen on duck eggs and another threatening to go broody so she can have some of the araucana eggs if that is the case, she does a much cheaper job.

Good luck with your first hatch.