Suro Incubator..

I have the R-com King Suro 20 Incubator... so far I LOVE it.

Photo: My own. This is the Suro King 20.
The water bottle is for the humidity, don't use tap water!

I ordered my incubator from P&Tpoultry and it was on sale when I bought it but at the moment it's £179.99. It can hold 24 chicken eggs, 20 duck eggs and 60 quail eggs but you can also hatched geese, pheasants, peacocks and turkeys (check out ebay for eggs the possibilities are endless).

It has easy to follow instructions on how to set it up all you need is a screwdriver. The incubator sits on a cradle which rocks the eggs slowly (so the chick doesn't get stuck to the egg). The incubator is all automatic you set the temperature and the humidity when starting and then you just have to remember to change it on the last few days when not turning (which allows the chicks to find the right way up to hatch). The Suro also has an alarm if the temperature or humidity drop too low (it's handy if you don't place the lid on properly!)

Photo: My Own
This is the 'face' where you control the temp and humidity

The R-com King Suro 20 is perfect if you are working during the day and don't have the time to turn the eggs 3 times a day minimum, I realise £179.99 is expensive but a day old chick is about £5-£8 depending if its autosexed and I realised if I hatched 35 chicks it is about the same price but you get the joy of watching it while it happens.. it really is the best feeling! I have incubated twice now normally with a 80% success rate but I think that is because of the eggs. This time I had 2 quail with leg problems but that was my fault as I had chicken eggs in at the same time (Please don't do it!!) A little bandage therapy on curled toes and it seems to be okay.

Keeping Poultry

One of my favourite hobbies is learning older traditions... I can make butter, bake a cake, pull the neck of a chicken, pluck and gut it, keep quails, grow vegetables, make jam, grow fruit and vegetables etc one of the best by far is keeping poultry.

Photo: My Own. This is Felix the Rooster he is a big softy
 and is often found sneaking in the house

I started with 6 Sussex birds 3 years ago; 2 roosters and 4 hens. I now have 3 Legbars, 2 Marans, 3 Sussex hens and 2 Sussex roosters. They are hilarious to watch doing their thing during the day, scratching the soil for worms and dust bathing. I highly recommend them, if you have the space and time (please check out BHWT to see if you can adopt first) plus the eggs are YUMMY!! I love to be able to show the chickens to the children that stop to cock-a-doodle over the wall, some of their questions about them make me giggle.

Last year I bought an incubator and decided to hatch some quail. Quail can fly so they have to be kept in a coop and run all the time and reward you with beautiful tiny creamy eggs (they can actually be quick expensive). This week I hatched some more quail to join the older ones. They are tiny, adorable and grow so fast. In a week or two they will be in the garden where as chickens need 5-6 weeks before going out unless with a mother hen.

I am hoping I can write a few posts that might help people starting out keeping poultry. (I promise this blog won't be all about poultry!)

Photo: My own. This is a 2 day old quail.