I currently have four chickens, but the two pictured above are rather special to me, not because they lay some of the finest eggs I’ve ever eaten, and not because they’ve eliminated a large amount of bugs and I no longer have to use pesticides because of them.

Let me explain.

I wanted FRESH eggs, therefore, I wanted chickens…but they can be $20+ for a single laying hen If you can find them, and let’s face it, I’m cheep (yes, I went there). SO I looked into buying an incubator, and found they were pricey too. SO I did what I always do, I found out how to build my own!

I used an Omaha Steak styrofoam cooler and some odd parts to build an incubator VERY similar to this one. I fired it up, tested it, tweaked it, and retested it for about a week, until I had it humming along at a constant 99.5 degrees.

Liz worked with a woman, Sparkle, that had chickens, and more importantly, roosters. Some people don’t realize that you do NOT need a rooster in order for hens to lay egg. However, if you want to hatch eggs, roosters are needed to fertilize them. So then had fertilized eggs.

I would rotate the eggs two to three times a day, and checked the humidity and temperature as well. It was like watching water boil! Eventually, I noticed that some of the eggs were moving! A few days later, almost ALL of them were moving! Eventually, day 21 arrived, and

Twenty days after I placed them into the cooler-turned-incubator, just before I went to bed, I noticed little cracks in some of the eggs. When I woke up the next morning (day 21), I heard little peeps coming from the room I had placed the incubator! I WAS A MOTHER! By the end of the day, the hatching was done. A few struggled and never actually made it out of the egg, a heart-wrenching thing to watch. On other hatches, I’ve tried helping them get out of the shells, but almost every one I ever assisted died only a few days later. Mother Nature knows what she is doing, it seems, and does NOT want me to interfere in the delicate situations.

On the first attempt, out of 27 eggs I put into the incubator, I had 23 hatch, an AWESOME hatch rate, I later found. As they fluffed up, I would move them to a brooder, a box-like container with a light bulb for warmth. Once they started to grow feathers, I moved them out into a fenced area for them to peck, scratch, and do other chicken things. Those that started to crow went back to Sparkle, along with a few hens for payment. I kept the rest…for eggs!

Then the predators showed up. Bobcats, hawks, house cats, and I’m sure other things I never got to see, all started to help themselves to a free chicken dinner. Eventually, I lost every single bird from that first batch to predation. And the next batch as well. By the time I hatched the third batch, we had a dog, a story for another time, and I had THREE chickens left from the latch hatching session left.

The day the dog arrives, the predation stopped overnight! Since February of 2011, when Muse arrived as a rescue from the Humane Society, I’ve only lost one chicken, and that one jumped the fence, and landed in front of a dog that apparently liked the taste of chicken.

I acquired two additional hens, so currently have four left, two add-ins, and two that were hand-raised by me from eggs. The hand-raised birds are not afraid of me, will eat out of my hands, I can pick them up, and I honestly believe LIKE to be handled. The add-ins are flighty, won’t let me get near, and are just less personable all-around.

The two chickens in the first picture are more than just egg-producers, they are personal pets of mine. I’ve emotionally invested myself into them, and they represent a long hard road to quality eggs and all the trials and tribulations in getting here.

So, if you ever plan on having chickens,  I HIGHLY recommend you raise them from chicks, it makes every part of having them around easier and more enjoyable. If you can take the time to raise them from eggs, even better. Being linked to your food is empowering.