Search results for query: *

I have a Deathlayer chick that I brought home last Wednesday that seems to be blind??? It is weak, and not coming out to eat with the other 4. When I put it in the brooder, it bumped into walls and seemed very disoriented. When it got back among its fellows, it rubbed on them, but did not peck...

Hi I’ve been incredibly blessed for years keeping chickens, but now I’m suspecting mites, and I also think maybe I need some B vitamins. Since I’m going to go to “town” (we live very remote; it’s an hour’s drive) I thought I’d ask what a well-stocked chicken med kit contains. On my list...

I am having the oddest experiences here. I can’t figure it out. I’ve been keeping chickens for about four years. Never had an egg eater. Then, this spring, a coop of Light Sussex pullets came to age and started laying and one (only one) egg was eaten daily. At first there was simply a hole...

I am SO READY to start hatching!!!!! But, I am sitting on hands until Valentines Day, ‘cause it’s still too cold for chickies! (I just wanted sympathy. ) (And credit. LOTS of credit for being patient and good.)

Had a sad and scary thing happen last night. I was cooking dinner when my dh came in from evening chicken tending with one of our beautiful Light Sussex pullets under his arm. She had frostbite on both feet! This was a total shock because all through this cold weather we’ve had no problems...

Hi, I’ve been using Incuview incubators for two years, and now I’m stepping up to a Dickey cabinet incubator and hatcher combo. I’ve been running them for about 2 days trying to get used to controls and have a couple of questions (not specific to Dickey’s!). 1. At what humidity do you run a...

So, this year I’m getting serious about breeding (been building stock for two years). I plan a combination of family mating (3 families per breed) and pair mating for extra special birds. I plan to toe punch to start. That gives me 15 numbers... which, by my calculations, allows me to mark the...

Doing a happy dance today! Besides the fact that the weather is gorgeous, I have just ordered my first ever cabinet incubator and also a hatcher. I have been checking out various brands online for months, reading reviews on all brands here and on other websites and forums. I just felt a check...

Okay, so I'm going to be taking the plunge and buying a cabinet incubator. One reason is I want to up the volume of chicks I hatch (planning on selling them) and the other reason is I want better hatch rates. So, two questions: Question 1: how do you figure hatch rates in general? If you say...

I have had three chickens (out of hundreds) with a large, spongy.... thing that sloshes around on their breast. What is it? (First two times they were hens, this time it's a young roo.) All three times it was young birds. All of these birds are fed the same feed as all my healthy chickens...

Hi All, I've been keeping chickens for about three years and am now getting into serious breeding and selling peeps/eggs (next year). We decided to adopt a clan mating system, wherein we divide our 15 breeding hens and three breeding cocks into three "families" or "clans." Then, we rotate...

Hi all, We are breeders, so we end up with lots of heritage roosters to process. (This is the hard end of breeding for sure.) Anyways, we live in a remote place where power is iffy, so we are planning to can our meat and chicken stock, not freeze it. I have the outstanding book Putting Food By...

I have been hatching my own eggs for two seasons now in Incuview incubators. The egg position is horizontal, and the egg turner mechanism rolls the eggs first one way and then the other (up to six times/24 hour period, depending on how you set it). Sometimes the eggs turn 90 degrees to the...

I had a great time hatching in Incuview hatchers (2 of them) this spring. I am thinking of stepping up to a cabinet incubator, and looking at a Sportsman 1502 (which includes a hatch drawer). First, if anyone has used this, or loves a different cabinet incubator, can you take a moment to share...

Our first hatch for this year involved mutt chicken eggs, taken from our starter backyard flock. We hatched on March 7th, and the chicks seemed perfectly normal until about 6 weeks old. We raised them in a brooder that was a large 100 gallon stock tank with hay in the bottom for the first...

So, it's been a trying hatch from the get-go. I bought shipped eggs, and at lockdown we had lost all but two. I really did not expect to get any chicks out of this hatch, but to my great surprise, I was awakened last night at 12:30 a.m. to the sound of peeping. One of the eggs was fully zipped...

I have a chick trying to hatch, who appears stuck. He's peeping, resting, and struggling to break free... but could he be "shrink wrapped"? Should I assist? Its only Day 21, and he can breathe just fine. He's about 90% out, but, again, seems to not be able to break free of the shell. I...

So, I am on day 21 of my first hatch. I set 25 eggs, and took out three of them at day 18 lockdown, so, 22 eggs went into lockdown. During the hatch, I had some issues with keeping the relative humidity high enough. I found this out by weighing my eggs and tracing the air sacs. I also had some...

I'm on day 19 of my first hatch (though i raised chicks last year that were 2 wks old when I got them). I set up my brooder with mini pine shavings, but have been reading here about baby chicks and the danger of ingesting shavings. People mentioned alternatives like newspaper, corn cob...

Hi all! I am a newbie Hatcher, on day 18 of my first hatch. To begin with, I am using the Incuview incubator, which is a plastic model not unlike a Brinsea or Genesis for size. If you use a larger, cabinate model, your comments might not help much (no offence meant). I am confused about how...