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How To Start Your Own Hatchery
"We sell incubators to individuals who breed all kinds of chickens, ducks, quail and other poultry," says Ernest Dickey of Millen, Ga. "Quality and reliability are the two most important characteristics to look for when buying an incubator. When you own a Dickey incubator, if an egg doesn't hatch, it was never going to."
  Dickey's Incubators manufactures mid-sized individually hand-built units made from 1/2-in. plywood with cypress framing. The quality wood construction insures long life durability, with no sheet metal to bend or rust.
  The units feature mercury hygrometers and thermometers easily visible through a 6 by 12-in. acrylic window in the door. A digital version is optional. Standard features on the incubators are an automatic egg turner, circulated air fan, dual wafer thermostats, clean-out pan, and a 110 volt, 225 watt heating element.
  "There are three turning trays and one hatching tray. Each tray holds up to 96 chicken eggs or 400 quail eggs," Dickey says. Incubators sell for $404.
  Standard procedure is to incubate just enough eggs each week that they can be transferred to the hatching tray, making room for a new batch of eggs, and continue the cycle.
  He says it's also possible to produce birds using only an incubator with no hatching trays by using one of two methods. For an incubator full of eggs, wait until three days before the eggs are ready to hatch, and then level the trays, turn the automatic turner off, remove the eggs from the egg positioners, and place them in wire bottom trays.
  For people who want to produce larger numbers of birds more quickly, adding a hatcher to the system is the way to go. Each hatcher has five trays with covers, a fan to insure proper air circulation, and a clean out pan. They are priced at $370.
  Dickey says he also makes a complete line of ostrich and emu/rhea incubators and hatchers.
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dickey's Incubators Inc., Ernest Dickey, 536 Ada Dr. Millen, Georgia 30442 (ph/fax: 478 982-5515; email: ed256@Jefferson Energy.com; website: http://web. jeffersonenergy.com/~ed256/dickey.htm).


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2004 - Volume #28, Issue #6