We’re first generation farmers working with Mother Nature and our land to provide local food and food security to our community. We’re here to bridge the great divide that exists between the everyday person and their connection to self-sufficiency and sovereignty. Join us on this journey!
the results are in! 🥇
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Hey Reader, Incubating season is coming to an end as we're just finishing up two incubators of guinea fowl (shipped in) and our own Svarthöna eggs. Although I admit, we're probably gonna do another run of guinea fowl eggs to beef up our tick, snake, and bug defense here. But here's the info I've been waiting to share with you!I've compiled the hatch results from the eggs I shipped out a while back, from eggs shipped to me (guinea fowl), and from my own Svarthöna eggs hatched in-house. Remember throughout this that 50% hatch rate is actually fantastic for shipped eggs. So what is a hatch rate?It's basically how many eggs make it to the end of the incubation period (21 days for chickens, 26-28 for guineas) and hatch successfully. You can calculate the hatch rate based on the total number of eggs set or based on the total number of viable eggs after candling them for progress. I like looking at both but I don't have the data for viable eggs hatch rate for all the eggs I shipped. We'll be sticking with the eggs set hatch rate to keep things simple. our shipped eggsI shipped eggs to Alabama, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. I believe the big factor here is the distance these eggs traveled - more chances to get tossed around by USPS, more exposure to the elements, more time spent potentially degrading before making it into the incubator, etc. Hatch rates based on total eggs set:
That's quite a range, right? To be honest, I had the worst hatch rates in Wyoming and I believe a lot of that is due to how rural many people live. Granted, I was also shipping in eggs from Florida to Wyoming and that is a rough, long-distance trip for any hatching eggs. Alabama borders Tennessee so that very short trip did wonders for those eggs. This hatch rate also lets me know that, more than likely, the eggs shipped to the other three states were fertilized and viable but other factors prevented them from hatching. *cough* USPS *cough* Illinois is actually a fun story as those eggs were incubated as part of a school project for kids. Such a fun adventure for us to be a part of!
eggs shipped to usLike I mentioned, we had a terrible time trying to hatch eggs shipped to us in Wyoming, but our in-house hatch rates there were great. Shipping is just rough. Most recently we ordered 24 guinea fowl hatching eggs from Pennsylvania to help with ticks and other nuisances here in Tennessee. Out of those two dozen eggs, we had six hatch for a 25% eggs set hatch rate. Not great, but again a 50% hatch rate on shipping eggs is fantastic. Some of the issue may be due to this being my first time hatching guinea eggs and not knowing best practices for doing so. They are a bit different from chicks in that their shells are so much harder and they take a longer time to come out of their egg once pipped. It was a fun learning experience to incubate something besides chicken eggs. our in-house eggsIt's been interesting learning experience incubating eggs here in Tennessee during the rainy season. I hadn't anticipated so many power outages which definitely factored into our hatch rates. Back in December, I ran two incubators where I didn't expect high hatch rates due to a myriad of variables but, lo and behold, our egg set hatch rate was 92%. We didn't have severe thunderstorms or power outages in December. We actually ended up buying an outdoor brooder off FB last minute because I hadn't anticipated such a high hatch rate and there were too many chicks to keep in the house. Now a few months ago I put 22 eggs into the incubator and had my worst hatch rate yet at 64%. These eggs suffered at least two power outages with one for an extended period of time due to it being overnight. This last run we're just finishing up went through one power outage (listen, sometimes it take me a bit to learn my lesson). After that one, I starting switching the incubators over to a battery backup when severe thunderstorms were predicted. We still had power outages but the incubators weren't affected. Thankfully we got a MUCH better hatch rate of 85% which meant three out of 20 eggs didn't hatch. I consider anything above 80% hatch rate to be a good run. Going forward, I've learned my lesson with incubating during storm season - always use a backup battery! Next year I'm going to experiment with dry versus wet hatching with our chicken eggs to see which does best with our incubators and our climate. What is dry hatching? Glad you asked! Check out what I shared on Instagram.
Ciao for now! Jamie P.s. I have five Svarthöna straight-run chicks available for sale locally! They hatched 05/30 and are ready for new homes. Shoot me an email to snag them! |
Arda Acres
We’re first generation farmers working with Mother Nature and our land to provide local food and food security to our community. We’re here to bridge the great divide that exists between the everyday person and their connection to self-sufficiency and sovereignty. Join us on this journey!
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