Hatching chicks from Huureenkip.nl –

Have you ever considered hatching chicks yourself? I had never thought of it myself until I came across the website Huureenkip.nl. There you can rent an incubation kit containing everything you need to hatch chicks yourself using an incubator. Today I will tell you more about it!

The incubator

The first package you receive contains 10 eggs and the incubator. The incubator must first warm up and get the humidity high enough and then the eggs can go in. You check the temperature and humidity every day and you don’t have to do anything else, because the eggs are turned automatically.

Fertilized eggs

From day 5 you can see if the eggs are fertilized by placing them on the candelabra. Do you see the black dot at the bottom of the egg? That’s the chick! If you cand the eggs in the dark you can already see the blood vessels, but I was not able to get that in the picture.

The chicks hatch from the egg

On day 19, the incubator stops turning the eggs and the chicks usually hatch on day 21. In the morning we heard the chicks squeaking in the eggs and some eggs had cracks. You probably understand that I spent just about all day looking at the eggs. The first egg hatched in the morning and the chick was quite dazed in the incubator.

During the day 4 more chicks hatched from the eggs and a few hours later they were already walking through the incubator. They are not allowed out yet, because you have to wait until the last chick has dried completely. Then the chicks can go to the chick house. The last chick hatched the following night.

In the chicken coop

Then we prepared the chick coop. We put in bedding, feed and water and we turned on the heating plate, where they can sit comfortably and warmly. Unfortunately, the chick that hatched last died. We were already afraid of that, because the chick seemed a lot weaker than the rest.

The other 5 chicks did very well and they grew like weeds. Nomi, Lenn and Elena really enjoyed having chicks in their house. Lenn and Elena wanted to take them on their laps, but that was a bit too exciting for Nomi. She preferred to watch them when they were comfortable in the cage.

Lenn really was a born chick father. He picked up the chicks regularly, but he also knew very well when a chick didn’t like it anymore and wanted to go back in the coop. Once he took a chick to Nomi’s bedroom to scare her, but otherwise he just sat in the living room playing with the chicks. Elena absolutely loved it, but I had to be really careful to make sure she wasn’t too rude with the chicks. Of course that makes sense at that age.

They grew really bizarre fast and when they were about 5 weeks old, they wanted to discover the rest of the house too. When I opened the loft they jumped out and I didn’t always think that was such a good plan. What was funny was that almost all five of them stayed together. They walked through the living room once when we were changing the hutch and they stayed together all the time, very cute!

When they were 6 weeks old, they were picked up again and returned to the farm. Lenn and Elena in particular were very sorry to leave, but fortunately they understood that the chickens now needed more space.

Renting a breeding package is what I absolutely recommend, especially if you have children. I think it is also very nice for school or daycare, because it is very educational for children.

More information can be found on Huureenkip.nl.

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