I don’t golf, boat, or have a fascination with video games so I tend to spend stupid amounts of money of goofy shit like $375 incubators…
R-Com 20 incubator, holds 18 chicken eggs and I get 95% hatch rates. Turns them every hour, maintains temp within 1 degree, and humidity stays where you want it to be. Just fill it up with water once a week and hope the power doesn’t go out. On day 18 turn off the egg turner and two or three days later everybody starts popping out. Then I put the chicks in a big cat litter box under a light bulb in the kitchen for a couple of days before moving them into the basement in winter, or the chicken side of the barn in summer.
The little chick on the left popped out 3 minutes before I snapped the pic. The one on the right is a couple of hours old. The egg on the upper right is the one that didn’t hatch. The egg was full of runny goo and no sign of a developing embryo so I guess it wasn’t fertile.
Here’s the math – $2.25 in eggs, $2.00 electricity, $4.00 in gas to the sale barn where the chicks bring in 2 bucks apiece – $27 after commission. Profit= $18.75. That’s 3 sacks of corn for the mamas and the papas. And happiness is a bunch of little peepers in the kitchen…
comrade simba 
February 11, 2008 at 5:58 am |
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I gather you don’t have to sex the chicks. How does that work out?
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February 11, 2008 at 2:37 pm |
When they crow they go in the pot, hehehe. I watch the new hens and when I catch one laying an egg I spray paint her tail – green for white eggs, red for brown. If I see a hen laying an egg pretty much every day I mark her as a keeper. Odd or non productive hens go to the sale barn or in a pen by the road with a “Chickens for Sale” sign.
Right now I have 6 roosters, 20 mature hens, 22 hens that should start laying anytime now, and 13 young birds (and the 16 new chicks). I’m timing the next batch to hatch 3 days before Easter for the premium price they will bring. After that I’ll be running an 15 day cycle – 15 days in the R-com and then hatch them out in the styrofoam Hovabator. The pain in the ass will be having to turn the eggs by hand for three days in the Hovabator, but that makes for two full hatches per month. I’m going through 100# of corn a week at 13 bucks a hundred which means we gotta get two dozen eggs a day to feed us and pay for corn. Free range organic bug and corn fed chicken with dumplings is just a bonus.
February 12, 2008 at 5:32 am |
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I understand that in the industry, the sexing occurs rather soon and the males mostly go to campbell’s. I have fond memories of rooster noodle soup.
On our current trajectory, I don’t see myself getting past the slaughter part. Geez life is so much simpler when someone else does the dirty work. I feel like some kind of kingpin sometimes ordering up chicken or beef that someone else has slaughtered and butchered for my benefit. Economics may turn that around one day.
I hope your chickens go forth and are fruitful.
jB
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February 12, 2008 at 8:26 am |
I’ve heard that too many roosters per hen tend to fight a bit, has that been your experience? When you say they go to the Sale Barn, what exactly does that mean? You take them their and they buy it outright or is it some sort of consignment arrangement.
Are you selling eggs? I know a guy that is selling eggs from his homestead and getting about a 1.00/doz. He apparently isn’t really worried about making money from them and doesn’t have enough eggs for his customers…so he could raise his price.
When I was growing up in Montana, I butchered our chickens once my parents split up. I do think I’ve grown a little soft with time, but cutting off chicken’s heads I think I will be able to do.
We’re probably going to be in the market for a few chickens this summer…been considering rhode island reds, any thoughts?
February 13, 2008 at 1:48 pm |
Hey Jim – at Korea House chicken cat dog rabbit all same thing…
The sale barn is a consignment auction – they take a percentage. And the higher the rooster:hen ratio the fewer back feathers the hens have. Rooster hold on to them to “get it in there… you know what I mean.
We sell the eggs to friends and family for 1.50/dozen or a silver dime. Mom gets them for free. Cheaper than Vole-Mart. We eat the young roosters when they are big enough to crow. I keep a close eye on new hens to check out their egg production and sell the low performers. A good hen brings 10 bucks at the sale barn.
Both Hampshire and Rhode Island reds are good dual purpose birds. If you get some silver laced Wyandotte hens and breed them to a New Hampshire Red rooster the male chicks are white and the females are buff. They are called red sex links, and lay big jumbo eggs big time. I have a couple of Leghorns just so we have some white eggs at easter time for coloring purposes.
February 14, 2008 at 5:43 am |
Eating carnivores doesn’t sound like a good deal. It’s inefficient for raising food and I bet it’s unhealthy. I doubt it tastes all that great either. There’s a reason most folks don’t do that.
There was a guy on TV who advocated eating bugs as a better use of resources. Apparently there’s some real nutrition value to bugs. Since your chickens eat bugs, I guess you already do.
happy egg hunting