So recently i have decided i wanted a couple chickens, so i could have eggs. I wanted to do the whole hog, so got a cheap incubator and bought some fertile eggs.
Incubator was not getting up to temp, so i pulled it apart, and fixed it, and put the eggs in. Turns out those eggs were not fertile 🙁
Second time i got a decent incubator, much larger! unfortunately the hygromtre reading was wrong, and temp was about 1C off. I did manage to hatch 4 chicks though from 24 eggs, despite it having all the wrong settings.
Third time incubating, three days before hatch it lost temp, and i ended up doing dodgy hackery things to keep the temp up to try hatching, but ended up with only 3 hatching from 10 eggs
Going for a 4th time lucky, i have new sensors and fixed the whole thing up (yet again) with more reliable ways of heating and measuring these things.
In the mean time, the first 4 chooks were black/blue, and the second batch of 3 are all white.
So from here i clearly needed a cage! I had a ton of pink wood sitting about, so i built a raised cage to deter cats/rats, and give the chickens more run space underneath.
I have since added a veranda, ramp and painted the whole thing. Chooks seem to love it, though are still only about 6 weeks old
The next thing to do is automate it! Heating, door opening, egg notification, etc etc!