What do we do on the farm in the long winter months? Oftentimes, the brightly colored seed catalogs litter the coffee table, taunting us with thoughts of sunshine and warmer weather. Many nights I can be found flipping through a catalog with a pen and notebook next to me, sipping a cup of hot tea. Dreaming of summer harvests helps, but it can be hard to fight the monotony of the cold winter months.
It can be especially bad in January and early February, when it’s too early here in Michigan to start sprouting seeds. Earlier in January, we had been on something like 3 straight weeks without sunshine, and it might have been the worst.
This year, we stumbled upon an alternative to brightening the winter months: baby chickens! With a small tabletop incubator in hand, we have started the process. Part biology class experiment, part life lesson, we are working with a few of my teacher coworkers to hatch chicken eggs from our farm.
Diving in head first, I have been researching the genetics of chickens, trying to find a potential combination of parents to get a sex linked chick. I’m learning quite a bit about the color patterns of different varieties of heritage birds and making lists of potential birds to buy down the road. At the present time, we are just working with our current three chicken varieties- Ameracuanas, Australorps, and Plymouth Barred Rocks. They are great for laying variety, as we currently get both brown and blue eggs. I would love to eventually have a breeding group of Marans, and we may likely end up with a batch of “Olive Eggers”.
Hatching our own birds offers us more opportunity to grow our chicken flock without worrying about potential supply issues. We are able to collect and hatch our own eggs without any delay. Really the only problem we are left with is when do we upgrade to a larger incubator.