Before you undertake the task of raising chickens in your backyard, consider the special requirements and dedication that is required.

You can purchase eggs and incubate them yourself, or purchase day old chicks. The day old chicks are more expensive, but don't require the use of and incubator. If you want to go the whole route, it is a great experience to see the chicks hatch, but you will need to purchase a commercial incubator or build one. A simple incubator can be built using two incandescent bulbs and the proper porcelain receptacles and a wafer thermostat switch. It is simple to construct and not very expensive. You can get something like a "Hovabator" made of Styrofoam and use it, but it is not very durable. If you are going to hatch 25/30 chicks, you can build a durable incubator that will last for years.

The incubator can be built of plywood. A good size would be a rectangle approximately 24" long, 16" wide and 16" deep. You will need to have a hinged, full width door at the lower front half of the box and a hinged full width door on the top front half of the box. The lower front door provides access to place a pan of water for humidity in the bottomof the box. It should be rectangular and almost as big as the box, but not very deep.

On each end of the box, nail a support strip inside from corner to corner. This will be used to support a shallow tray slightly smaller than the inside dimensions of the box. This tray should only be a couple of inches deep. The sides should be constructed of wood and it should have a bottom made of 1/4" mesh hardware cloth (wire). This tray with the wire bottom will hold the eggs.

The light receptacles should be placed on the inside of each end of the box near the top. They will be wired to the wafer thermostat switch in such a manner that if one bulb burns out, the other continues to burn (wired in parallel rather than in series).

A thermometer should be placed in the tray and the thermostat will need to be manually adjusted to reach the proper range. Chicken eggs should be incubated at 99 3/4 degrees F. and 85 to 87 percent humidity and require 21 days to hatch. The eggs should be turned twice by hand twice daily for the first 19 days. Mark a small x on one side as a reference so that you can be sure that all eggs are being turned. Turn the x's all up at one time and all down the next time.

The incubator should have some ventilation holes drilled or should be opened for 5 minutes twice

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