Incubating chicken eggs Part 2: Getting them in the incubator

Once we had the incubator fairly stable, we were ready to put the eggs in.  We let the eggs become room temperature.  Then we candeled each egg to be sure it had no cracks or double yolks.  Here is a link for an easy homemade candleing device out of things you probably have at home, and also shows what the eggs should look like.  They aren't chicken eggs, but it was extremely helpful.  Candeling Device Video

You can breed out blood spots in your layers by candeling and using only eggs that don’t have them, since they are genetic.  If you can see them, I could not, especially in the brown eggs. Luckily none of our Amerucana's lay eggs with spots. We ended up with 13 Amerucauna eggs,  21 Barred Rock and 2 mystery eggs, for 36 total.  We collected for 7 days.  None of the eggs had cracks and they were all normal shaped, so they were ready to go. 

We put an x on one side and an O on the other side, since we will be turning by hand. I’ll be turning in the morning, my son in the afternoon and my husband in the evening, for 3 turns per day.  So in they went on their sides with the X’s up.    

We monitored  the temperature aiming for 99.5 to 100 degrees and 55-60% humidity.  It took a few hours to get up to temperature.  I initially left it on the temperature that I had it set on for my testing, and waited to see where it went, it was too low so, then made adjustments to the incubator to get the settings where I needed them to be.  We ended up getting a little hot one day and having to turn back down.  After 1-2 days it stabilized and we never had to touch it again.  103 is lethal, we don’t think we hit that high, so hopefully it didn’t do any damage.

It’s best if the incubator is in a room  that doesn’t have large temperature fluctuations.   We have it on the floor of our spare room/TV room.  However the dog is extremely interested in it, I didn’t think she would even notice, it’s been sitting on the floor in there for weeks, but yep she noticed.  So now we have to remember to keep the door closed to keep her out of the eggs.  I’m not sure she would get into them, but I don’t want to take any chances.

We candeled the eggs again on day 7, there seemed to be several that weren’t developing like the others and found one that had gotten cracked.  It looked to us like all of the eggs had been fertilized. We removed the cracked one, but put all the eggs back in because we weren’t sure.  And kept turning…..

We candeled again last night, at about day 13.  This time it was fairly obvious which ones had quit developing and removed those.  We also accidentally broke 2 other eggs my son dropped a thermometer on one, and I dropped an egg on another egg.   We are left with 20 eggs still in the incubator, which is fairly disappointing to us.  We will probably candle one more time just to see the changes on day 18, which is the day we stop turning.  We will also increase the ventilation by removing all of the red plugs, and will increase the humidity to 75% .  There are trays in the bottom that we fill with water as we need, more water increases the humidity.  Then we just sit and wait.  They should be hatching Easter Sunday, so I’ll keep you posted. 

Seed starting and advice for new gardeners

Yesterday a friend came over and we started seeds together.  I repotted my calendula, and Echinacea, into larger containers, and decided I needed more of the chamomile, calendula and Echinacea, so I started 9 more of each.  I also started all the plants the need to get started 4-6 weeks before the date of last frost, which is much of my garden, including broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, summer squash, cucumber, kohlrabi, chard, kale, lettuce and mustard.  Most of the greens can be direct seeded outdoors, but I like to get earlier greens so I start a few every couple weeks starting 4-6 weeks out.  As you can see, all of my racks are now full, just waiting for this darn snow to melt.

I’ve had a couple people ask me lately for advice on gardening in AK, and I think this really works for anywhere.

1.  Start small - There is nothing more frustrating than spending a lot of time and money to get nothing out of it.  There is a learning curve, if you start small, you will learn a few things, and can get slowly bigger as you improve your skills.
2. Start with live plants - starting seeds is a skill in it’s own, it’s easier to get going with healthy live plants.  Try to purchase from a local grower who grows varieties appropriate for your climate.  A large box store sends the same things to Alaska as they send to Arkansas, it generally doesn’t work well, at least not here.  (Ok I don't know this for sure, but I see plants not appropriate to my area all the time).
3. Ask other gardeners what they grow and what grows well.  Your Cooperative Extension is a great place to start.  Start with what grows well in your area, as you learn skills, branch out and try new things.  Many plants that like warm weather don’t do well in AK, at least without a greenhouse.  It will just waste your garden space, and frustrate yourself if you start with these. 
4. Follow the planting directions for each plant/seed, they are all different and won’t do well if they don’t get off to a good start.   Read up on how to best plant it where you live, that may differ also.  As you gain experience, you can experiment and branch out a bit. 

My other garden project is to figure out what I can do to warm up my greenhouse to extend my season a bit further.  I put a thermometer out there that records high and low, and it got as warm as 59, and as cold as 19, warmer that outside since we didn’t get over30 yesterday, but hardly what I’d call warm.  warm.   My idea (which I learned from someone, and I don’t remember who anymore) is to put milk jugs of water to absorb heat and release it at night, keeping it warmer.  

Another idea I have is surrounding a plant by bottles and covering it with plastic and see how warm that gets.  So I have 32 water jugs out there as of today.  I’ll leave them out 24 hours, then put the thermometer out again and see if that changed anything.  The next day I’ll see what happens with the group under the plastic.  I’m gathering more from friends, and have a few big tubs with lids I think I’ll fill and put on the floor.  I’m interested to see if it makes a difference.

Anyone have any experience with using water bottles to warm their greenhouse?  I'd love to hear from you.