Confessions of a Hatch-a-Holic
Hello, my name is Heather and I am a hatch-a-holic. Each spring for a couple of months the guest bathroom in our house turns into a makeshift chick hatchery and the bathtub turns into a brooder during the months is it too cold for the babies to go directly outside to the barn brooder (think of it as a nursery for babies where the temperature can be regulated) I will have one, two, sometimes even THREE incubators going filled with an assortment of eggs from the tiniest D'uccle chicken eggs to the giant Sebastopol goose eggs.
Why have I decided I prefer to hatch my own poultry? Well, when I started this journey I either purchased from a large commercial hatchery that had to ship me chicks across the country or from a local farm that offered chicks for sale. As you can imagine having day-old chicks shipped in the mail is hard on them and nothing is more disappointing than going to the post office to collect your chirping box of chicks that you ordered months before and find some of them unalive and others struggling from their journey. Chicks do not need food or water for the first 48 to 72 hours. The babies absorb the yolk as they are hatching providing what they need nutritionally to start them out in life. This is what allows hatcheries to ship chicks the day they are born with a decent success rate.
Fun fact that most people don't know: The white of the egg develops into the chicken, not the yolk.
The local farms that offer chicks and even laying hens for sale don't always offer the quality or variety I am looking for. Buying what was available locally was how I started out, but now that I know what I desire in breeds, colors, and standards of perfection, I have been able to purchase fertilized eggs from top breeders all over the country to create the flock that I want to propagate.
Hatching my own chicks allows me to create a better flock for myself as well as offer top birds to other people looking for show quality or standard of perfection in the breeds.
Don't get me wrong, hatching and raising chicks/goslings is not for the faint of heart. Successful hatch rate on average is maybe 50% (even less with eggs that have been shipped) and then these babies are extremely sensitive and their environment has to be kept at the perfect temperature and humidity for them to survive. Even the chicks that hatch well and seem healthy can spontaneously be trampled by their brood mates during the night or fail to thrive and die for no apparent reason.
I put a lot of time and effort into every chick and gosling I hatch and nothing is more rewarding than raising healthy and happy birds. If you think hatching might be for you, reach out via the website with any questions you may have. OR, if you want to start your own flock with some of my special birds, we can get you taken care of.
Happy Hatching