Category: Farm Talk

Incubating eggs is one of the most fascinating experiences ever! I truly feel that everyone should take the time to watch the process take place. We have the Little Giant 41 egg incubator and have had pretty good success rates. 

Here is some of what we learned after going through the incubation process on our farm:

1. Always add an extra thermostat and humidity gauge inside the incubator as many do not read effectively. Our Little Giant screen shows an accurate temperature but the humidity is typically off by about 15-20%. 
2. Buy the separate egg turner if your incubator does not automatically do that. If not, you will need to manually turn the eggs to ensure the yolk does not stick to one side.
3. Always ensure the pointy end of the egg is facing down. With the eggs that are hard to tell, I just had to guess.
4. I learned quickly to number each egg on the side of the egg. This allows you to see the number when you enter lockdown and the eggs are placed on their side. 
5. Once any chicks start to hatch they knock the rest of the eggs around all over the place. I didn't expect them to be so active and placed the eggs in a perfect order at lockdown. That was quickly messed up and was totally unnecessary.
6. At lockdown, we add water to increase the humidity but find it doesn't increase too much (maybe to 50%) and then as soon as one hatches it increases more quickly. Be careful not to get water on the eggs as they are porous. 
7. We had this image of all eggs hatching on day 21 and that has never happened. We have had some hatch on day 20 and many come on day 22 and even a few on day 23. After day 23, I personally candle any remaining eggs to see if there is any activity. 
8. We found the pipping and hatching stage to be quite stressful and so exciting! Do not open the incubator after lockdown. For some reason, you need to do it very quickly and even consider adding a moist warm paper towel in to keep humidity from dropping too much.
9. When hatching is done, check the left over eggs and egg shells carefully. I say this because I was in the process of cleaning out the incubator when I heard a sudden squick. Turns out that there was a small egg inside the broken half of another egg so we thought it had hatched. This little one was pipping inside the broken shell and couldn't get out. Now we check the left over eggs very carefully. 
10. One other tip we recommend is to take out the red ventilation caps at lockdown. We took one out at lockdown and then the second at hatching so there is ventilation available for the chicks. 

For many years, poultry farmers have believed that the earlobe colour in hens is directly related to the egg colour they will lay. As time passed, this has been a topic of debate. Earlobe colours can range from white to brown to red and even blue or blue-green. For examples, many Silkies have blue ear lobes but do not lay blue eggs. Current chicken breeders seem to have little faith in this old myth but continue to hope when they see a coloured earlobe that the future egg will have a spectacular hue.  Unfortunately for us, our blue earlobes fowl, Blue, lays cream-light brown coloured eggs.

Let’s take a few minutes to introduce you to our furry and feathery babies! 

PIPER:
Piper is our 13 year old shih-zhu/maltese cross. She was the first pet we got together. Anyone who knows Piper will tell you she is 100% motivated by food and can be just a little crazy. Our little lady has been taken all over with us including all over British Columbia from Powell River to McBride, through Alberta from Jasper to Edmonton, and across Washington, Oregon, Northern California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas! She's always up for a good rv trip and her favourite place to go is Nana’s house.

GINGER:
Our Ginger is the goofiest of goofs. She is 3.5 years old and apparently a yorkie/pug cross but doesn't really resemble either. Anyone who knows Ginger will tell you she is motivated by emotion and will give you more kisses than you could ever handle. Like Piper, Ginger is one well traveled dog. We took her on our road trip to Texas at 5 months old and she did great! Her favourite thing is to have her ears cleaned by her big sister, Piper. 

NEVADA:
Nevada is our baby and I think no matter how old she is she will always be the baby. She is a 2 year old pure breed Lhasa Apso that we brought home as an unexpected souvenir on a road trip from Nevada. This little one is super cuddly to the point she will do her best to get as close to your face as possible. Like Piper, Nevada is motivated by food and her favourite activity is going to bed…seriously…she gets so excited to go to bed that she spins around. 

SYLVESTER (AKA: SLY)
Sylvester or Sly as we call him is our rooster. He is approximately 8 months old and is a big boy reaching over 20 inches tall. We got him from a local farmer who hatched too many roosters and he was the youngster and getting picked on. He joined our coop and now has lots of hens of his own. He crows in the morning and every time he hears us and makes all sorts of noises when he needs to warn his ladies of possible danger. He is friendly and a little spoiled; someone (not naming names) taught him to eat of his hands and now he thinks that should happen everyday. 

THE LADIES:
The Hagon Farms pet coop is made up of a variety of awesome hens! Our four buff orpington came to us from another farm where they had too many roosters. They are feisty and love to scavenge and dig around all day long. We have a group of 9 barn yard mixes that are all less than a year old. Reba is obsessed with food and although she isn't the biggest hen she certainly eats the most. Then there is Vanna White who is the loudest hen we have. She is a big lady and makes sure everyone knows about her but likes us to pet her too. Penny and Dolly are wyandottes and they are our kindest hens; they are quiet and like to have dust baths. Wynonna and Meredith are lavender wyandottes and can be a little knotty. Betty is our smaller white bym but has surprised us with her super mouse hunting skills. Oprah and Apple are black wyandottes and originally were very spicy but have settled nicely into great nighttime cuddles for the smaller hens.