Hello from Cardiff

[Rebeccakelly1000]

Hi everyone

I am a complete newbie to keeping chickens. I bought some eggs off ebay and made my own incubator. Out of 6 eggs, i know have only 1 left. I have named him Sammy! (I thought i was setting my sights high with it turning out to be a girl) He is a Lemon Millefleur Sabblepoot! He is due to hatch this Friday 16th August. I've been reading the forum so hoping he will hatch. Then i need to try and find some other baby chicks for him to have some friends!

If anyone knows of any hits and tips for hatching, i'm all ears!

Thanks

Rebecca

 

[Marigold]

Hi Rebecca, and welcome to the Forum. I d hope your chick hatches OK, please let is know what happens. If yo don't have any more chicks lined up, maybe I cold say whereabouts you live, and maybe one of our members might have some for you? It is getting a bit late in the season for the main flush of hatching chicks, but as you say, you'll need to find him(her?) some companions.
If you look in the Incubation and Hatching Eggs section of the Forum, and use the Search button, you should find quite a lot of advice. Maybe start your own new thread there, if you have more questions, as more people may be likely to see it than in the Welcome section. Have you got your brooder set up and the temperature of the lamp tested? I found this takes quite a bit of adjustment until you can be sure its at the same temperature as the incubator when the chicks are transferred, so they don't get a thermal shock.

 

[Rebeccakelly1000]

Hi Marigold

Thank you for your reply. I hope he hatches too, i have already so much about chicks that have got to this stage and still not hatched, so quite worried. The heating element of the incubator is also going to be the heating element of the brooder. The incubator is handmade from a polystyrene box with lid and ventilation holes, a reptile heating mat, a thermo/hydrometer, 2 cups of water and some polystyrene/vermersalite. When the chick is ready to go into the brooder, im going to take the lid off the incubator and transfer it onto the cardboard brooder. Need to find a box big enough for the lid to fit into so i can adjust the height to suit the chick. I'm based in Cardiff but travel to the Staffordshire area quite often, so i hopefully i will find some chicks, i have got a lady who has some bantam chicks which are a week old but not too sure if they will still be available when my little one pops out. Just want my egg to pip first or at least make noises!