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[EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>]

Thanks for checking..very good news...

Rob wrote:
> 25w x 24h= 600w/day
> 3w x 24h= 72w/day
> 672w/day x 22d= 14784w
> 15kw x $0.1 = $1.50

For the lights, on average...

100 watt bulb for first two weeks 24/7, then I swap to two fixtures each 
with 60 watt bulbs for the next 3 or 4 weeks(in the winter).  On really 
cold nights, I will run both lights, but normally only one.  If there 
are a lot of chicks, less light, so there are variables here, but for 
the sake of this calculation, I will say
60 watts for the next three weeks 24/7 plus an additional 60 watts for 
12 hours a day for maybe 5 days for a total of 60 hours.
So, all of that is a total of
100 watts x 24 hours x 14 days = 33600 watts
60 x24x 21 = 30240
60 x 60 = 3600

33600 + 30240 + 3600 = 67440 watts = 67kw

67 x .10 = $6.70

Rounding off, it costs me under $10 to hatch a batch of chicks, whether 
I get 2 or 28.

From the first round of hatching, I have 19 living chicks.  If I use 
the $10 per hatch estimate, which is overestimated, I get a chick cost 
of .53 cents per chick in electricity used to produce chick and raise it 
for 5 weeks under lights, if necessary.


This is the end of Day 22 and hatching, Round II
Summary:
I started with 28 eggs, but ended up with 19 eggs after candling on day 
11.  Of those eggs, two were questionable, one was a maybe yes and the 
other was a probably not...both questionable eggs came from G, who I 
suspect allowed some eggs to freeze overnight.  All of the eggs I 
collected here, all 11 appeared good from candling.
Unlike the first round, no eggs hatched on Day 20.
On day 21, I had 6 chicks in the box.
Now, at the end of Day 22 and the end of hatching, I have 14 fuzzy, 
seemingly healthy chicks in the box.
Of the 5 remaining eggs, two showed no signs of hatching, and one of 
those eggs was from G, and one was mine, collected on 11/20, meaning 
that it was 9 days old.  Checking my records, it was the oldest egg, and 
of course, just didn't make it on that reason.
The other three chicks were lost in the hatching process.  I had been 
misting the chicks every few hours to keep the humidity up to make 
hatching easier.  This morning when I left to go to the birthday party, 
I had 4 eggs with beaks showing, some more than others.  We were gone 
most of the day, however, and when I got home this evening, there was 
only one chick that had hatched of the 4 I left.  A closer examination 
of the eggs showed me that the 3 chicks had died in the shell, never 
quite making it to the world.  The loss of their life is really my 
fault, as I did not take measures to maintain the extra humidity needed 
while I was gone.  You take the good with the bad, you learn.

So the end result for this hatching is 14 chicks of the 19 eggs...that 
is 74%.  Of course, if you want to be more realistic, then since I 
started with 28 eggs, I only have a 50% rate.  I'll take it either way.
Going back to my electricity costs to hatch and raise these chicks for 
the next/first 5 weeks, I invest 0.71 cents per chick.

Again, most day old chicks from hatcheries are around $2/ea, depending 
on breed, and that doesn't include having them shipped to you or the 
lights they, too, need for the first weeks.

It's all good.

And this time, I got a cute little chick I am calling Smokey...it is 
very smoky gray colored...unusual looking.  It was one of G's eggs, 
meaning that I know the rooster was a blue laced red wyandotte, and 
maybe the mother was a barred rock, or maybe the female BLRW...it would 
be too cool for that to happen.

I'm not sure when I will start the next hatch.  I will probably give 
this a break until January 1...get through Christmas and all..

Bev







--
The true significance of Sacajawea's involvement in the Lewis & Clark
expedition is that it was the first documented trip in history where men
asked a woman for directions and followed them, allowing them to arrive
at their destination.