Chicken Coop Plans 4U

Got a cabinet and want to hatch your poultry eggs into chicks? You can convert your cabinet into a homemade chicken incubator in a few easy steps. The first thing that you need to do is to take your cabinet, and cover the interiors with a foil, making sure to line every inch of the inside of the cabinet, and securing it with tape or staple. What do you need foil for? Foil is a conductor. As such, it can help keep the temperature constant inside the incubator.

Next, take a piece of wood two-by-four in dimension, cut to a length equal to the width of the cabinet. Position the wood at the back side of the cabinet. This will serve as the roost to keep the eggs from touching the foil base of the cabinet as the foil could get too hot to the touch. Line the wood with chicken wire to help keep the eggs from rolling off.

The next step is to install the lights. The lights will of course serve as the heat source for your chicken incubator. Choose 15-watt bulbs for this purpose. Install four of these to optimize the temperature to 98 to 102 degrees F. Place the bulbs on the top and the back wall of the cabinet.

To accurately monitor the temperature, you will also need to install a thermometer inside the incubator, at a spot where it will not be directly exposed to the light. The first 24 hours is crucial, so make sure to constantly check the temperature to see that it remains consistent.

Finally, you need to set up your ventilation system. To do this, you will need to drill half-inch holes—about four to six of them—around the cabinet. Then take a pie tin, fill this with water, and set it on the floor of the cabinet. This will keep the humidity levels inside your chicken incubator constant as well.

Tweet This Post

Getting your chicks from chicken hatcheries is a great and convenient way to start your poultry. Before you place your orders with your hatchery of choice, it is also important that you know your shipping options. For best results, it is always recommended that you deal with chicken hatcheries nearest you. Remember that the chicks you ordered will be shipped to you via mail, so the shorter the route from the hatchery to your house, the better for the health of the chickens. To ensure that they get to you in time, opt to ship them via priority or express mail.

Worried about how the chicks will be fed and watered in transit? They don’t need to. This is because right before they hatch, they absorb most of the nutritional content of their egg yolks. This is enough to sustain them for three days without food or water. As such, chicken hatcheries should ship them out on the day they hatch, so that they have enough food stored in their bodies for the two- or three-day shipping.

What chickens do need is warmth during transportation. This is the reason why it is usual for a chicken hatchery to require minimum orders of 10, 15 or 25 chicks per shipping. The chicks are placed inside small cardboard boxes, or big cardboard boxes with smaller divisions, so they can keep each other warm by exchanging body heat through contact. When your chicks arrive, expect a call from your local post office to tell you that they are ready for pick up.

Tweet This Post

Getting your chicks from the chicken hatchery to start your poultry with is an exciting activity. Aside from the fun that comes with choosing the breeds that you want for your farm, there is also the enjoyment of waiting for them to come via mail order to be picked up at the local post office.

Yes, it is possible—and quite customary—to order chickens and have them delivered by mail. This is because chicks absorb most of the yolk’s content right before they hatch. This gives them enough food to last for three days, so they don’t need to be fed for that duration. When you pick them up and take them home, they are only likely to be thirsty but they will be fine.

That settled, the bigger challenge lies in selecting the type of chicken that you want to raise. To decide on this, you need to consider at least two questions. First, do you want your poultry to produce eggs by themselves? If you do, you may want to check out some of the heritage breeds rather than the modern crosses as the former are likely to be more productive.

The next thing that you need to thing about is whether you want your chickens to lay eggs or be good enough to sell as meat or both. Some breeds will have tender meat while others will be great layers. You need to decide which ones you want, and if you want the best of both worlds, you need to think about the breed proportion.

Tweet This Post