One of the things we were most excited for when getting chickens was the thought of eventually having baby chicks. We did our research, looked for breeds that had a tendency to be broody, and could barely contain our excitement when finally, after months of waiting, we had a Brahma that refused to leave the coop.
I thought this was it. This was the real start to our self-sustainable journey. Well… at least when it came to chickens.
Two weeks later the Brahma abandoned her eggs in the nesting box, and we were back to square one.
Most standardized chicken breeds have had the broodiness bred out of them. Because hens stop laying when they become broody, many operations considered it an undesirable trait and actively looked for ways to lessen the probability of it happening.
We were left with two options – we could continue to wait to see if we could have chicks naturally which, in all honestly, may never happen. Or, we could bite the bullet and invest in a small incubator.
Why we use an incubator
We are not a large-scale operation. We will, however, be growing out our dual-purpose breed to butcher so that we can be more knowledgeable about where our meat comes from.
We have also had several instances where predators have wiped out most, if not all, of our flock (Dealing with Death on the Homestead). Each time that happened, we had to find a hatchery that had the breed we wanted, wait for them to be available, and have them shipped. On more than one occasion, we have had chicks die upon arrival.
Brahmas are our choice breed. Not only do they grow to be a larger bird, but they are docile and good layers. After we had decided they would be our main flock, we invested in a Brahma rooster.
We then made the decision to stop buying from a hatchery, invest in an incubator, and raise our own chickens.
What incubator did we pick?
I can’t even begin to go over how many makes or models are out there if you are interested in hatching your own eggs. I researched for weeks before deciding on the Kebonnixs 12 Egg Incubator.
I had two main areas that I wanted to focus on. First of all, I wanted something that I could find honest reviews on. The last thing I wanted to do was invest in something and wildly hope that it would work.
I also didn’t want a big incubator; space is a limited commodity in this house, and I wasn’t sure that I would even want to continue hatching eggs after the first round. What if it was too labor intensive? What if they all died? There is nothing quite so depressing as putting your time and work into something only to have it fail.
The Kebonnixs 12 Egg Incubator, which we purchased for $89.95 was not exactly cheap but wasn’t so expensive that I would feel guilty if I decided that hatching eggs wasn’t for me.
How do you use an incubator?
I have to say, I was anticipating confusing instructions and following directions to the last, minute detail in order to be successful. Hatching eggs seems like it should be an incredibly difficult thing to do.
It was surprisingly straight-forward. The Kebonnixs 12 Egg Incubator comes with an egg candler, humidity display, and an automatic egg turner which means the incubator does most of the work for you.
To begin, you will need to first put it together and turn it on so that the humidity dome can retain moisture and make it a toasty 99.5 degrees. Additionally, eggs that you are intending to use will need to be at room temperature. If you are refrigerating them, I would them on the counter for, at minimum, 24 hours prior.
You will also need to make sure that your incubator is set to the correct humidity. There is an external water top-off that you will fill periodically. I found myself typically doing this once in the morning and once at night. For the first 17 days the humidity needs to be at 50%. There is a fill line in the water top-off that takes all thought out of that task.
After your incubator has heated up and reached the correct humidity (we waited several hours to be cautious) you can place your eggs in.
This is the brunt of your work for the first two weeks. The automatic egg turner will rotate your eggs every 60 minutes. Before placing, we put an X on each egg so that we could observe our egg turner working.
You also have the option of candling your eggs. There is a built in LED light on the lid that can be turned on to observe the development of the eggs while they are being incubated. We made sure to do this several days apart and only had the egg out for, maximum, 2 minutes.
What mistakes did I make?
I made several human errors. My biggest mistake was not paying attention to what day we were on in the hatching process. I woke up one morning to the sound of chirping. Low and behold, we were on day 20 and a chick was pipping.
An egg usually takes 21 days to hatch. The needs of each egg is different the further it develops. After day 17, it doesn’t need to be rotated with the automatic egg turner. Also, in order for the chick to get out of the shell, the humidity level actually needs to increase the nearer you get to your hatching day.
On day 17, you need to take the egg turner out. I was able to intercede and quickly remove it as the turner can prevent a chick from being able to get out of the egg.
Additionally, your humidity level needs to be at 60 percent and the vent in the back needs to be open. After the chick hatches, the humidity level will instantly rise, and the humidity dome will need ventilation.
What were our results?
We were able to hatch 10 out of the 12 eggs that we put in the incubator. I fully believe that all of them could have hatched but the space was too crowded.
Generally, you should never open the humidity dome until your eggs have finished hatching as any fluctuation in humidity can essentially dry out the membrane of the chicks breaking out of their shell. That being said, we had a chick being trampled due to lack of space and had to remove 5 of our dry chicks to make room.
Unfortunately, the chick that was trampled did end up dying. Because we opened the dome, the last eggs that had pipped were unable to complete hatching.
Realistically, this incubator should have a capacity of 8-9 smaller eggs. Anymore and you risk the machine over-heating (our humidity got up to 90 which put the temp at 100 degrees). When the temperature got too high, it did sound an alarm. While unexpected and startling, it was nice to be alerted that there was an issue.
Would we use it again?
I can say with 100% certainty that we will use this incubator again in the future. Not only was it easy to use but the most labor-intensive aspect was remembering to put water in the external water-top up. That was easily remedied by placing it in the kitchen where I would be sure to see it throughout the day.
While, optimally, you can’t beat the natural process, using an incubator is an effective way to become more sustainable.
It is simple, effective, and gives you more control over your production.
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