[chick with chicks]

Hi all,

I have 20 hens and am going to get a rooster to start breeding?
I need to know everything!!
From how does the rooster go about his business and what should I look for?
To incubation of the eggs and recommended equipment and everything else in between, so if you can help and have any bit's of advice, it's all welcome?

[Vember]

You can't go far wrong with a good book

Katie Thear's Incubation a guide to hatching and rearing is great, tells you all the basics

Only thing it doesn't mention is how to get rid of the boys that hatch and there will be a lot   


Sarah

[sunshineband]

If the behaviour of the chooks over th back from us is anyhting to go by you won't be able to miss the cockerel 'going about his business' 

[chuckie.egg]

Hi chick with chicks,

We have had 7 hens for about 18 months, and then we got a cockerel to start breeding.

We have just finished out 1st attempt at incubation and now have 5 chicks running about!

We can tell that our eggs are 'fertile', as when you crack them the yolks have a whiteish 'bullseye' dot on them. There is a good picture here to help -

http://community.livejournal.com/naturalliving/5512637.html

We bought a Brinsea advance 7 egg incubator from ebay (£94), which is automatic, so we don't have to turn the eggs manually.

We put in 7 eggs (some were 1, and some 2 days from being laid), and waited!

we candled the eggs throuout the incubation, and could see that one egg was not fertile fo disposed of that one.
After 21 days we ended up with 5 healthy chicks (one died in shell).

I made a short video of our progress from start to finish.  It can be seen here -

ttq5H5p8biI
Hope this help you!

[chickenlady]

Wow chuckie egg! what a fantastic video! even though i have probably hatched about 60 chicks/ducklings this year it still never fails to amaze me! 

Debbie

[Nails]

Oh wow, just watched the video how cool.
i brought my incubator from ebay (£100) its an automatic, which is best if your out to work and cant turn the eggs as often as they need, i have only just started myself and i find this web site and other really useful.