Chen Chunhua is studying the cultivation methods of various mushrooms in the mushroom house, and Liu Ni is studying chick rearing in the chicken coop.
After one summer, Liu Ni's artificial semen collection and insemination technique had reached perfection, and she could conceive a chicken within a few seconds.
To ensure the fertilization rate, insemination is repeated once a week, which has indeed successfully kept the hatching egg rate above 90%.
The eggs should not be stored for too long. Basically, chicks will not hatch if they are stored for more than half a month. 3-5 days is the best. In the past, the hatching of native chickens was basically done by hens, which was more labor-saving.
Of course, the efficiency will be much lower. Otherwise, it wouldn't have taken so many years to develop to only two or three hundred chickens.
The original plan was to sell out this batch of free-range chickens by the end of September or early October, because by then the 1,000 Ross chickens would be almost egg-laying age. They needed to make room and manpower.
25-30 degrees is not suitable for the growth of mushrooms, but is just right for hens to sit on brood. Liu Ni caught a few native chickens and let them make their final contribution to their old employer.
While Shen Chunhua was researching the fungus, the new chicken coop was built under the supervision of Liu Ni and Lin Yulan. It was divided into several large rooms, with special artificial incubation rooms and natural incubation rooms.
After she disinfected the natural incubation room from top to bottom, she put ten hens in a row, with 10-12 eggs in each chicken coop. Liu Ni directly built a wooden bed in the room next to the natural incubation room so that she could get water and food at night.
It takes about twenty days for a hen to hatch chicks from the time it starts brooding. Liu Ni couldn't just sit there idle, so she moved the bed over because she also planned to carry out artificial incubation at the same time.
She first used the water temperature incubation method.
Two years ago, a scientist from the research laboratory of Sichuan-Chongqing Agricultural College gave a detailed description in a magazine on how to make this incubator by yourself, and even drew an accurate diagram of the dimensions.
This is also the most popular incubation method among rural breeders. After all, although electric incubators are already available, they are expensive, and who knows when the power will go out?
So Liu Ni also learned to make one by herself. First of all, the water tank is very important for heating equipment. Liu Ni was bold and made a big one. She made a large water tank with a height of 15 cm, a length of 100 cm and a width of 50 cm using aluminum sheet.
The size of the water tank determines the size of the incubator. The incubator is placed on the water tank, and the bottom of the incubator is the top of the water tank.
A single layer of egg tray in a box of her size can hold 250 eggs, and up to five layers of egg trays can be placed. The distance between each layer is greater than five centimeters, and the bottom layer of egg tray is at least 10 centimeters away from the water tank.
A 5-layer egg tray can hold 1,250 eggs at a time, which shows that her ambition for the future of the chicken coop may have surpassed Shen Chunhua.
There's a water inlet pipe on the upper left side of the water tank, and a drain tap on the lower right. The water tank is regularly drained of one-third or one-half its full volume of warm water daily, while an equal amount of hot water is added to maintain a constant temperature.
For this purpose, Liu Ni also built a stove nearby so that she could boil water and change water at any time.
The incubator's walls are hollowed out from fiberboard, filled with sawdust and cotton wool for insulation. Three air intakes are located on the lower left side of the box, along with two equally sized air outlets at the top, to ensure fresh air enters and carbon dioxide is expelled.
The incubator door was adjusted to its maximum width to facilitate the entry and exit of the egg trays. According to the instructions, a rectangular glass window should also be added to the door to allow for observation of the incubator. This request was a bit too much for her, so she had to ask the adults for it.
She didn't ask Chen Chunhua for help, as everyone knew her aunt was extremely busy, so she asked Lin Yulan for help. Lin Yulan was very happy that her daughter asked her for help, even though it wasn't a big deal, just asking her husband, Comrade Ma, to buy a piece of glass from outside.
As for making the egg tray, Liang Shengdi was asked to help. Liang Shengdi couldn't read, so Liu Ni frantically gestured to her and asked her to help her make the egg tray using a bamboo egg sieve.
Before, whenever Lin Guoqing and Shen Chunhua went out to deliver eggs, they would put the bamboo egg sieves made by Liang Shengdi in the baskets. They were very stable and would not break at all. But this time, Liu Ni asked for the egg sieve to be not so tight, and there should be small sieve holes at the bottom to facilitate the flow of air between the layers of egg sieves.
Long, long ago, Liang Shengdi must have wondered why they had so much to do in the mushroom barn and chicken coop, asking for this and that. But now it was different. That was the egg sieve the chicken coop needed!
Whether you can eat chicken whenever you want depends entirely on your daughter-in-law and niece. Just tell me how much you want, and I’ll make it for you after I finish my work in the fields!
When Chen Chunhua bought a thermometer for the mushroom house, Liu Ni also asked for a small glass thermometer and a dry-bulb thermometer. The glass ball of the thermometer was placed parallel to the egg surface but not in contact with the eggshell.
Finally, place a water tray about 5 cm high at the bottom of the incubator to maintain a certain humidity inside the box, and the water temperature incubator is completely completed.
The shock of the hand-drawn manuscripts of the big guys in the 1980s
It took Liu Ni three full days to figure out the temperament of the baby she had created before she dared to put the eggs in to hatch.
200 Ross chickens have accumulated about 800 breeding eggs in 5 days. Each egg is placed flat on an egg sieve and placed in an incubator, and then hot water is added to the water tank.
The temperature inside the box rises slowly. When the center temperature of the top layer reaches 38°C, the first screening is carried out, that is, the five layers of egg sieves are replaced up and down. When the temperature rises to between 38.5 and 39 degrees, the second screening is carried out and the eggs are turned.
The temperature rises to 39.5 degrees for the third sieve adjustment and the eggs are turned again.
This homemade simple incubator does not have automatic temperature control and blowing devices. The temperature inside the box is controlled by adjusting the water temperature in the water tank and adjusting the screen. The process of adjusting the temperature takes about 15-18 hours. If the temperature is too low and the heating time is long, it will need to be adjusted twice more.
The temperature should be checked every 23 hours. Generally, the top and bottom layers are hotter, while the middle layers are cooler. Therefore, the five layers of egg screens should be regularly rotated to ensure even heating of the eggs on each layer. Depending on the temperature fluctuations within the box, the screens should be adjusted 4-6 times daily.
The temperature should be maintained at 39.5 degrees for 1 to 5 days after incubation, but not exceed 40 degrees. It should be reduced to between 38.5 degrees and 38 degrees for 6-17 days, and to 37-36 degrees for 18-21 days.
Chen Chunhua can still run between the mushroom house and the fields according to her schedule, but Liu Ni can only drive her mother to work in the fields, and she herself guards the chicken coop 24 hours a day in fear, acting as an artificial hen.
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