I've bought poults from local sellers and from hatcheries and have noticed a huge difference. When buying locally, I've never had a single turkey poult to die. However, I've bought from hatcheries on two occasions and had large losses each time. I got 19 poults (royal palm and bourbon reds) from...
I was home-schooled from the 8th grade until graduation and absolutely loved it. If I ever have kids, I'd want to offer them the same experience that I was blessed with. :)
I have 1-month-old cockeral that I bought as a chick from Tractor Supply. When I approach, he climbs up my pants and shirt to perch on my shoulder or arm. I have to avoid the booger if I'm wearing clean clothes.
Gotta love those big, puffy cheeks of theirs. I once had an Easter egger roo named Mafia. His cheeks made his face look fat, so I imagined him as being an old mob boss. People thought I was crazy when I held grasshoppers to him and said "here's an offer you can't refuse."
I up until now, I've used a Little Giant Still Air Incubator. I've hatched several clutches of birds with it, but the temperature seemed to be fluctuating worse than usual when I last used it. After wasting a round of hatching eggs, I decided to put it aside and ordered the Genesis 1588. I may...
I recently ordered the Genesis 1588 incubator (heard nothing but good things about it) and a 1611 egg turner from Cutler Supply. My buff orpington ducks are laying like crazy and I am hoping to hatch some ducklings this summer. While browsing the web, I came across someone saying that duck eggs...
I don't want a virus on my farm, so I went ahead and culled them -- just tried not to think about it while I was doing it. From now on, I'm only buying from hatcheries. No more individual sellers ever again.
I bought 10 guinea keets from a farmer last Friday and later noticed one of them was constantly trembling. Now it is starting to stumble around when it walks. After reading several disease lists, I'm fairly confident that it has avian encephalomyelitis. Now I'm uncertain what to do with the...
Now one is slouching over, closing his eyes and acting as if he has no energy (just like the one that died soon after arrival). I tried mixing a tsp of mollasses with a tsp of apple cider vinager with a gallon of water and putting some in his mouth with a syringe like some other threads...
On the 29th of April, I received my order of 10 bourbon red turkeys from Ideal Poultry. Two of them arrived dead and another died soon after. I just chalked it up to shipping stress and called for my refund. Today, however, I picked up one of my poults and a large bubble of clear fluid came out...
Two of my muscovy ducks starting laying late last month. I had a nest for each of them -- 2 old tires placed on opposite walls of the coop. The first duck went broody and started sitting with 12 eggs, which is good. However, I'm not so sure the second one will sit this year.
When the 1st...
I think I solved it. I just blocked the nest with no eggs and kept physically kicking them out of the one that did have an egg. They just gave up (for now) and went to bed with the drake.