A couple weeks ago, I hatched out my largest batch of chicks to date.  52.  It was a perfect hatch, in that every one one of the eggs I candled at day 10, hatched out a healthy chick.  Even the one I dropped.  
  I know what you are thinking.  HOW CAN YOU BE SO CLUMSY??  I can't believe it happened either.  Here is how the process normally works.
  Each day I head out to the coops to pick up the eggs.  I carefully place them in my basket and bring them inside.  They are marked by date and set in order and rotated each day until it's time to place them in the incubator.
  After 3 days in the incubator, I candle the eggs to determine which are developing, and again at day 10 for confirmation.  After that they sit tight until day 18 when they are "locked down" and await hatch day on day 21.
  And, normally, it all goes very smoothly.  Except this time, there was a glitch.  After candling on day 10, I was returning the very full tray to the incubator housing which was in mid-rotation and tipped about 45 degrees.  I usually try to do this quickly as the eggs have already been out for a few minutes and opening the incubator allows the heat to escape.   So, as I manuevered the tray to fit back into place, I watched in horror as an egg slipped out of position, rolled off the tray and landed with a sickening thud onto the table.  Noooo!! %@#*&!!!
  I stared at the egg knowing what that meant.  Eggs cannot hatch with cracks in the shell.  I've tried it before.  Several times when I've received hatching eggs in the mail, eggs have been cracked in shipment.  I tried gluing them to seal the cracks, but to no avail.  If the moisture loss doesn't terminate development, bacteria can get inside and cause rot.  It is a death sentence.
  Unable to accept it's fate, I picked the egg up and recandled it.  Yep, the little embryo was still swimming around, oblivious to its dire situation, which was a crushed spot on the shell, about the size of a quarter.  My brain kicked into overdrive.  What to do, what to do?
  So, I did what came to mind since there was nothing to lose.  I cut the corner off of a plastic sandwich bag and taped it over the crack.  My logic was that even though I was sealing off critical air flow through a portion of the egg shell, I needed to prevent the massive moisture loss that would have occurred through the crack.  I hoped that there was enough egg surface left to handle the natural moisture depletion and oxygenation that occurs during incubation.  I put the egg back into the incubator with the cracked side face up.  Then, I waited. 
  On day 18, my cracked egg still showed a developing embryo, so I put it in lock down with the others. 

On day 21, something amazing happened!  The egg pipped!

Then, hatched.

  A miracle! 
  I'm not sure why there wasn't an issue with bacteria, as the incubator conditions are perfect for egg rot, should the shell be compromised.  And my shell "repair" was completely amateurish.  But, somehow, it worked.  

  I banded this chick to monitor long term progress and I am happy to report, no health issues have developed in the two weeks since hatching.  It simply survived, and, like the others, is thriving.
  WHEW!!  :/

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  Every now and then I feel the need to interrupt our sustainability conversation, lest we become so boxed into our passion that we forget what we are fighting for, and to remember The Big Picture.  This week the topic can best be summarized as, "What does natural mean to you?"
  I often get comments when I discuss incubating eggs, that fall along the lines of "I prefer to let my hens hatch our chicks naturally", etc.  Of course, I applaud every one of you that are raising chickens and making it work for your situation.  And I can see where incubating eggs with a machine can be construed as unnatural.  It certainly requires electricity and a hen is nowhere in sight when these eggs hatch.  I get that.
  I'd also like to point out that incubating eggs, dates back to Egyptian times.  Yep.  It goes way back.  Before electricity.  And in modern days, farmers have been using incubators to hatch their chicks for more than a century.
  Incubators are kind of like a greenhouse for chicks.  You wouldn't hesitate to give your garden plants the best start in life, right? Maybe you put a grow light on those tiny tomato starts and a heating pad underneath to warm the seeds.  You probably don't think of that as artificial incubation, but it is.   In fact, you won't have to look very hard to find examples where the term "natural" could be challenged where it relates to our food supply.
  Is it natural to keep a dairy cow or goat in milk long after her baby is weened, in order to provide drinking milk?  Is it natural to refrigerate our food electrically?  Is canning natural?  Is it natural to use tractors and implements to plant our crops?  Is it natural to supplement water on our gardens when the rain doesn't fall?  Where do we draw the line at Natural?  
  Back to incubation.  Here are some fun facts:
  * The egg incubator was invented by Lyman Byce and Isaac Dias, in Petaluma, California. The patent was granted on June 2, 1885.
  * The Egyptians used large oven-like structures powered by burning camel dung to incubate.
  * By candling (holding a concentrated light source against the egg in a dark room) you can see the developing embryo in a light shelled egg, after just 3 days of incubation.
 
  In our situation, the reasons to incubate, far outnumber the reasons not to.  For example, a broody hen will stop laying eggs while she is sitting on a nest and for a period after that.  That means NO EGGS for a month or so each time she goes broody.  To raise enough chicks for our purposes, we would need to have several broody hens each year raising chicks full time.  That is neither practical nor healthy for our hens.
   We are raising a breed that isn't heavily broody, which means, that if we didn't incubate, our flock would eventually die off.
  Our Barred Holland chickens are pretty rare, so if we needed to purchase additional birds it is likely we would have to ship live birds from another farm through the mail (which I avoid due to the stress on the birds) or order hatching eggs, which, of course need an incubator.  Or a broody hen (see above).
  Incubating eggs, depending on the incubator, can be an extremely efficient way of producing quality, healthy chicks.  More efficient than even a broody hen.  Since the conditions are controlled and optimal, the chicks are able to develop in a best case scenario and thrive.  In the two years we have been incubating and hatching well over 100 chicks, we have only lost one.
  On our farm, we raise chickens for eggs and meat.  This requires us to produce new birds each year.  We do this because we are working to be sustainable and to produce the best possible food for our table.  Using an incubator allows us to make this possible in our situation.  We have not purchased eggs or chicken from the grocery in two years.  So, while we aren't entirely "natural" in our approach to our sustainability, this is the balance we have sought. 
  Incidentally, that chicken that you purchase from the grocery store?  It's highly likely it was raised from chicks hatched out in incubators.

Stop by and visit us at fb.com/thepocketfarmer to let us know where you stand on the sustainability scale.  Or follow us on Twitter @thepocketfarmer.  Hope to see you there!  :)

  Big day today!  It's the first Bird Swap of the year, which, in case you didn't know, is about WAY more than birds.  It's pretty much a farm sale held at the fairgrounds.  You'll be able to find just about any animal you are looking for and even some you weren't expecting.   I saw baby alligators there once. 
  It's wild and crazy fun!  Last year we got there at 5:30 am in the middle of a thunderstorm, lightning flashing and in the dark we were holding flashlights and umbrellas peering into the cages and pens to see what people were selling.  The place was PACKED!  The first swap of the year is particularly exciting because everyone has had more time to prepare and there will be lots to see.
  It's a way for folks to sell their surplus and gather what they need.  It's a great place to make contacts and to assess the competition.  It's less intimidating than an auction, more personal and laid back.  The busiest time is before 8:00 am, sleep in and you'll miss it.  Farmer Tom did that once, that was the day I brought home Bella, our livestock guard dog.  He forgave me.  :)

  Anyway, even though there are some major players, it's really a small town affair and a way to bring in some much needed cash for the homesteaders in the area.  If you have a small farm, like us, it can be incredibly expensive to build infrastructure, purchase livestock, feed and provide housing.   
  Here's an example.  Two years ago we started with our first chicks.  About 60 bucks or so.  We built a brooder from scrap wood, so no cost there.  Not bad, right?  Then we started to retrofit a shed into a chicken coop.   Spent a few hundred dollars on that.  We ended up building a chicken tractor instead.  Spent about five hundred there.   We fed the chickens for about 7
months before we got our first egg.  Total cost for that egg?  About $1,000.  This is called chicken math.  It makes no sense, unless you are the participant, in which case you wear a protective shield so that you won't be harmed by the powerful and destructive TRUTH of your situation.  

  Once the shock of that wears off, if you are like me, you are determined to work your way back into the black.  Or, at least, the appearance of such.  So, we have chickens.  They make more chickens.  They lay eggs.  How do you work with that?   

1.  We have all the free range wholesome eggs we can eat.  At $3.50 a dozen at the grocery, we save about $10 a month.
2.  This year we have surplus eggs that we will sell.  8-10 dozen a month, so $30 dollars or so.
3.  We raise our roosters for meat.  Each bird yields about 3 lbs of meat.  We butcher a couple dozen for ourselves per year.  About $300 worth.
4.  We sell hatching eggs.  The best of the best eggs are sold and shipped to buyers around the country who are interested in this very limited breed.  Going rate is $25 a dozen.  I've sold 4 dozen this year, so far.
5.  We sell the chicks.  For $4 per chick, this weekend's hatch is worth $200.

I know you are wondering how this will make us rich.  I'll save you the trouble.  It won't.  In fact, that was never the point.  Our goal was to live more sustainably, eat healthier, be happier.  In that, we have been incredibly successful.  Break even on the chicken thing?  Maybe, some day.

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