Setting 80 on 9/8, 10/1, 10/24, and probably 11/16

Great summary, and great questions.

I do think it is interesting that after all your experiments of bucking the "best practices" that you ended up with "best practices" pretty much what we were already saying.

Being able to have mentor chicks and flock integration is definitely far more natural. However, be aware that it does not always work out that way, especially if you bring in different color birds to a monocultural flock.

WVduckchick said:

One more question, if you don't mind, of your 8 settings, how many of those were done before you improved their feed and nutrients?

Click to expand...

It was a period of time (like 6 weeks) after the first hatch (I think), but I don't remember when exactly.

WalnutHill said:

Great summary, and great questions.

I do think it is interesting that after all your experiments of bucking the "best practices" that you ended up with "best practices" pretty much what we were already saying.

Being able to have mentor chicks and flock integration is definitely far more natural. However, be aware that it does not always work out that way, especially if you bring in different color birds to a monocultural flock.

Click to expand...

My project breed is producing birds of many different colorations. Pure white, pure red, pure black, and every combination pretty much imaginable. Are they a "monocultural flock"?

NTBugtraq said:

My project breed is producing birds of many different colorations. Pure white, pure red, pure black, and every combination pretty much imaginable. Are they a "monocultural flock"?

Click to expand...

No, and that is why integration is working well. With a confined flock of production reds, introducing any chickens of different colors is a challenge. If mine were free ranging it would probably be different. The turkeys are the same way to newcomers that look different.

FWIW, I woke up to another squawker this morning. Very loud, distinct cheeps, over and over...so I found it, and it was by itself away from food and water. Since I'd been using vitamin water, I used a syringe and watered it directly. It seemed to like this, and so I repeated it every 30 minutes or so. Unfortunately, after ~3 hours, it passed. Clearly a distinct feature of a stressed chick. This particular chick was the smallest of the bunch, and I suspect had not eaten in addition to not drinking. I don't know how to tell a blind chick from any other, and frankly I would cull such a bird from my flocks anyway.

Perhaps if I'd had more warning I could have saved it. Next time I will try to make up some chick mush so I can give it food as well as vita-water. But really, if a chick isn't eating on its own after 1 week and almost 1 day, its probably not going to survive.

NTBugtraq said:

FWIW, I woke up to another squawker this morning. Very loud, distinct cheeps, over and over...so I found it, and it was by itself away from food and water. Since I'd been using vitamin water, I used a syringe and watered it directly. It seemed to like this, and so I repeated it every 30 minutes or so. Unfortunately, after ~3 hours, it passed. Clearly a distinct feature of a stressed chick. This particular chick was the smallest of the bunch, and I suspect had not eaten in addition to not drinking. I don't know how to tell a blind chick from any other, and frankly I would cull such a bird from my flocks anyway.

Perhaps if I'd had more warning I could have saved it. Next time I will try to make up some chick mush so I can give it food as well as vita-water. But really, if a chick isn't eating on its own after 1 week and almost 1 day, its probably not going to survive.

Click to expand...

I completely agree. I've ordered shipped chicks and poults that appeared okay in the first few days but were clearly behind their peers after a few days. I believe there is always an underlying issue, whether it is being overly submissive or physical. Those are culled from my flock. Sometimes "cull" means put them in with meaties, but they never make it to the layers/breeders flock, they are too disruptive.

Over the last 3 days I moved my 35 brooding chicks into my juvenile run. None have died so far. 28 pullets have been moved into my main flock, and I am now getting ~5 eggs/day out of my project pullets. Interestingly, about 1/2 are much darker than the other half...still not on a BCM color chart dark, but much darker than what I got out of my original layers. I've re-homed my 11 1.25 year-old hens, and will process the remaining 12 3 year-olds on 12/9...leaving me with nothing but my project layers.

My next setting will be on 1/6/16, it will be interesting to see how many eggs are fertile out of that setting. At least I have 3 BCM roosters in there now, so fertility should go up.

As of today I have lost 6 of the young birds I recently put into the Juvenile pen, all in that one corner. I put a bunch of stuff into that corner today, an upside down bucket and a bunch of split wood, in the hopes of breaking it up to avoid the mass of chicks trampling one (or more).

I just got off the phone with a local famer's market/auction barn, who've told me they sell chickens every Saturday throughout the year, yeah! I will have somewhere to take my maturing cockerels through the winter when there's no processing facility available. I probably won't get much for them, but at least I will be able to stop feeding them as they reach appropriate ages. That's a huge relief.

I have ordered my Ova Easy 100, and will shortly put my Octo 40 up for sale on Kijiji. So, the trick will be to see if I can come up with 100 eggs by 1/6/16 to fill it. These will be Generation 2 hatchlings, so I have decided that the first hatch need not be selected by egg color...just quantity. This will give me Gen 3 layers laying by ~7/1/16 (by which time I will have sold all my Gen 2 layers). Since there will be so many more of them than in the past in a relatively similar timeframe, I hope I will then be able to choose by color from those Gen 3 eggs and still have the quantity I need to set.

So my first Gen 4 eggs should arrive around the first week of January 2017. Pls lolz with me as this is all based on a spreadsheet, not reality, but I am incorporating my past losses into the sheet. Hopefully, as generations progress, losses should decrease.

By March 2016, when I start to cull the Gen 1 laying flock, I will reach 60 layers (I was never higher than 23 with Gen 0), so more eggs to sell. Gen 2 layers get to 100 (my legal maximum) by September 2016. After that I keep 100 layers...so even more eggs to sell. Throughout this process whatever excess birds I can't presell as meat will go at auction (hopefully)...so no need to invest in fridges/freezers to store tons of process birds in.

If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to send you my Excel spreadsheet I use for scheduling...

I have created a new thread titled; Setting 100 on 1/6/16 in new Ova Easy 100...hatch along...please join in.