After experiencing record sales the Poultry division on Lewis Family Farm has been slated for expansion. We are adding more birds, more breeds and more chicken tractors. We will be establishing new breeding populations of Guineas, Midget White Turkeys, Barred Rock chickens, Rhode Island Red chickens, Silky chickens, Araucana chickens, Coturnix Quail, and Embden Geese. These are in addition to our established flocks of Buff Opringtons, mixed breed chickens and Muscovy Ducks.

We purchased a bred pair of Embden Geese with eight eggs for $35 at the last Rutledge. While we found some geese cheaper at Rutledge we didn’t find any healthier or better looking so we went with quality. Being a currently laying mated pair we figured we couldn’t go wrong. Our goose has laid an egg every two days without fail. We plan on incubating the eggs she lays until the end of May, at which time we will let her have a clutch of her own.

With the addition of geese comes the need for a new style of tractor. We are considering building a goose house on wheels with a 50′ plastic net fence that can be setup if we want to keep them in a certain area.

We have also bought a pair of Midget White turkey hens with more on the way. We have raised turkeys in the past and really enjoyed them, and the midget whites come in a more compact size that is more adaptable to chicken tractors. We hope to build a flock of 20 Midget White Turkeys.

Yet another addition is three pearl guineas and one white guinea. We have also had guineas in the past. Guineas are hot commodities in Missouri and sell well. They are also a unique bird and can be pretty entertaining. We plan on building a larger flock of guineas as well, and will be buying guinea eggs in a couple weeks.

As part of this expansion we recently took a trip to Des Moines to pickup a new incubator. We have been making it by with an odd assortment of Styrofoam and nicer plastic incubators, but it was time for an upgrade. The new incubator used to be a medical culture incubator and is the size of a small fridge. At 350 lbs it is a heavy weight crafted from steel, stainless steel and copper. I wouldn’t have been able to afford this incubator new, but for $43 off Ebay it was a steal and worth the long trip.

The new incubator can hold six automatic egg turners for a 246 chicken egg capacity. With six turners there is still room for a hatching tray on the bottom. I may eventually build a custom rack, as there is plenty of room around the automatic egg turners. With a custom rack the capacity would easily top 500 eggs.

The new incubator is completelly digital. It has temperature control within 1/10 a degree Celsius and digital humidity control within 1%. Just dial in the rate you want. It has an on board 3 liter water tank and alarms for Co2, low temp, high temp, humidity, and low water that can be set to your desired ranges. It also has CO2 control which is worthless for our uses. It even has a heated door. Did I mention it is stack able?

Since we don’t have the current breeding flocks to fill the incubator we are buying and trading eggs. We have ten different chicken breeds, 13 goose eggs with more added every other day and we are buying Midget White, Blue Slate, Spanish Black, Sweet Grass, Nargasset and some mixed turkey eggs. We buy the mixed turkey eggs for $10 a dozen and the others are $1 an egg. A turkey poult costs $7 or more in our area, so hatching is a more affordable option, even if we only have limited success.

Update PS

We have hatched our first goose:

We have also hatched our first Coturnix quail although we are not sure which one was the first.