Updated Hatch Report

27 April. Bought 5 Rhode Island Red chicks, 3 hens, 2 roosters to put in with the gosling. Doing much better, up and around, eating on it’s own. The chicks love it, but it was scared at first. They get along well now. It is really cute when it cocks it’s head to look up at you.

29 April. One of the chicks died. Frances found it dead, partially under the waterer. Could have gotten stuck and then suffocated. Not sure.
Took all the eggs that didn’t hatch out on the porch and cracked them open to see how developed they were. 4 goose and 5 turkey eggs. One of the goose eggs didn’t develop much, the other three were more, but difficult to tell when they stopped growing and died. I was putting off doing this but they had started to smell. Cracked open a turkey egg and noticed it was bloody. Cracked open the second turkey egg and it wasn’t as bloody, but they were both developing well. Then I noticed one moved, then both moved. Took the other three eggs back to the incubator. Looked at my dates again and it would seem I made a mistake on the turkey dates. I didn’t write what day I put them in, but there is an entry dated 5 April says I have 4 turkey eggs. So if I put them in that day, the earliest hatch date would be 3 May. And if I remember right I put the 4 in that night and then when I got the 5th one the next day, I put it in also. So I’m looking at 3-5 May as possible hatch dates. Sad about the two I lost and could have had, but excited about the 3 that are still in there. Just goes to show how important records are.

Speaking of which. Need to figure dates, because I have 4 incubators now, that I own and have eggs in three of them. One has turkey and chicken eggs that should hatch 13 May. 12 chicken and about 4 turkey eggs. The second one has turkey eggs that should hatch 25 May, after I come back from Texas. So I need to collect chicken eggs to add to it about 1 May. I had problems with the goose eggs on the auto turners, so did some checking and found out they do better being turned by hand. So the third incubator is full of goose eggs. They are marked on the end with their hatch date, 13 or 24 May. Have to get some kind of shelving to hold the incubators on if I am going to be doing this very much.

Went to the Bolivar auction at 1pm last Saturday only to find out the poultry sells at noon. So planning to go back this weekend and see what is there, how things go and if I can make any money selling my stuff there. Also need to do some research to find out where I can take my turkeys and how much it will cost to have them professionally processed. Get me a big freezer and then I can sell more of them, maybe.