Home made peeps

A while ago I figured out that in order to sell eggs at the new farmers market I would need to offer them as fertilized hatching eggs rather than table eggs.

This is, for the most part, a dodge to avoid AG department busybodies who seem to believe that eggs come from factories and therefore prohibit anyone who doesn’t have a factory from selling eggs. They don’t know about chickens apparently.

Well, I may be forced to play wink and nod, but I wanted to know if such a claim would be true. So I borrowed a small incubator from a friend and installed four-dozen eggs in it.

I keep two roosters with my laying hens, so the eggs should indeed be fertile. Up to now I have never hatched any.

Well, I more or less forgot about them. Every few days I’d roll them around in the incubator. I lost track of when I put them in there.

Yesterday they started to hatch. I knew they were supposed to hatch of course, but I was still surprised.

I was at the feed store yesterday buying feed for the laying hens. It never entered my mind to get chick starter.

I went out just now and got starter feed, then put the ones that have hatched into the brooder.

Ten have hatched so far.