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Post by Alan on Mar 21, 2010 21:25:26 GMT -5
Ok, so on my long and painful journey in figuring out all I need to know about poultry I have learned many things.
A. Chicken and Guineas are easty to hatch and I could probably do it in a shoebox if I had to. B. Turkey eggs are much more delicate
I have a hovabator genesis which does ok, but I need something much more reliable to produce the number of poults I need to sale, produce breeding stock, and get my fall meat bird number up there.
I have a cabinite style Labratory (IE not for eggs) incubator I equipped with a fan and egg turner, great for chickens and guineas, terrible for turkeys.
I have hens that do go broody in 55 gallon barrels in the coop, but still need more capacity....
Being broke I have to do everything on this small farm on a shoestring, but I've got a good tax return coming in and it's time to invest a bit more into poultry which I hope to make a central tennet of the new Face Of The Earth Seed/Produce/Genetics company.
One such investment will be setting up a seperate broody bantam house of self blue and lemon blue old english bantams.
The second needs to be a new incubator with a price around 400 dollars.
There are three options on my mind, perhaps someone here with experience can sway me one way or another.
Brisnea Octagon 20 R-Com 20 Sauraun 20
Any advice?
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Post by mnjrutherford on Mar 25, 2010 20:21:41 GMT -5
I think you might want to look into Silkies. Silkies, from what I've heard, are the "super moms" of the chicken world. I just read an article today about guineas saying that a Silkie would not only hatch, but raise keets. It might be a bit different for poults, but then again it might not. Silkies might also have a very good niche meat market. Black skinned chickens (silkies have black skin) are highly prized as a health food item in the Asian market. Primarily Chinese, but I think that other Asian cultures also find them desirable. How far are you from an Asian population? It is also possible that they would want to purchase the birds alive. This would also be good for you as you wouldn't need to expend the labor and time on that activity. It might even make a little more transport time viable. I'm glad you said it's easy to hatch guineas and possible to do so in a shoebox. We are attempting to do just that. We added 4 guineas to our "family" yesterday. The man we bought them from allowed the boys to keep 5 eggs they found (Early Easter Eggs!) and they laid another 2 eggs today. Since 1 is a cock and the other 3 are hens, the odds are fair that the eggs were fertilized. Anyway, we now have 7 eggs in a shoebox with a lamp over them and I am turning them by hand several times a day. If they actually hatch, I have to wonder who will be most excited!
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Post by Alan on Mar 31, 2010 22:18:33 GMT -5
Well, their not quite as easy as a shoebox hatching, but much easier than turkeys for some odd reason.
I settled on two Brinsea Octagon advance 20's and a Brinsea Mini Advance. A lot of money, but well worth it if I get a good hatch.
Got four turkey hens setting nests as well, about half guinea eggs and half turkey eggs.
We have a bantam that will hatch guineas and take care of them but she's getting old and I'd need a battery of bantams to hatch enough turkey eggs to make it worthwhile and after a couple months of buying feed I might as well just buy the incubators.
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