2014 breeding season begins, post your results

[zazouse]

Seen my first hump of the year and i noticed some of my hens wondering off by themselves, last year my 2 year olds started laying in april. wonder if that might change now that some are 3 year olds.

 

[DylansMom]

Nature, instinct. Why is it that a chicken's incubation period is 21 days usually but they will sit on pea eggs until they hatch. Wouldn't she just abandon the eggs once there has been 21 days? Why is it that a turkey hen will sit on chicken eggs and won't leave the nest until all the eggs that will hatch hatch?

We all know you will choose to believe what YOU want to believe and I have no desire to be drawn into another debate with you, so this will be my last post on this subject. A week old egg and a 5 minute old egg are the exact same neither has any development in them. I have set 12 day old eggs along with 1 day old eggs, I did nothing special for them and they hatched at the same time. Why? Because neither one started to develop until they reached the required temperature, the 12 day difference meant nothing. I have seen hens "Try out" a nest, they will lay and then sit for an hour or two, but they then got up and returned to their perch, once all eggs were laid they actually got serious about it and stayed put, this didn't hurt the eggs and I believe they were not on the nest long enough to warm the egg to the required temperature. I have had hens who sat for 40 days and had no eggs hatch, I had to take the eggs from them for their own good or they would have continued to sit indefinitely, this is well documented in chickens as well. Why didn't those hens know that the eggs under them were duds? Because instinct will keep them sitting until something hatches that's all. Number of days, species, nothing matters primitive brain says "stay put". What you are attributing to your duck and other hens requires complex thought, reasoning and some problem solving skills, Anything but nature and instinct. Unfortunately those are not something poultry is capable of. And to point out the obvious, chickens cannot count to 21 or 28, and eggs do not have little alarm bells that go off when they are due to hatch, so the bird just stays sitting. Why do you think people use ceramic decoy eggs to keep broody hens broody?

 

[Peafowlssssssss]

New peachicks pictures, note that all my new peachicks pictures will be taken in their new mini studio

2 weeks old Bronze BS


Spalding could be split pied. He came from a pied hen and i can't see any white feathers, should he be split pied?


3 weeks old Bronze BS


Spalding bronze




Finally, a Spalding pied.

 

[PeepsCA]

Quote: Here ya go Zaz.... I am really horrible at taking candling pics (can't figure out the correct settings on my camera, then hold the light and the egg and snap pics all at the same time, lol) but here are 3 of my eggs that are now on day 13 of incubation, as of about 10PM PST tonight. These are from my own Hens (but I think all 3 are from the same Hen), and the embryos were all 3 very much alive and moving, I had to keep turning the egg to try to catch the embryos in the pics.






And just in case anyone needs this pic for comparison here is an egg that is on day 22 of incubation (not much to see tho, lol). It was also alive and moving, but it was not as active as the 13 day old embryos.

 

[frenchblackcopper]

You're right we don't know the exact cause of death all we know is she had a hole in the back of her head she died a week later. Most likely that is your cause of death. Wasn't expecting an earthworm to be eaten and then transmitting two parasites and diseases to my bird. Most birds can eat earthworms and you don't have to worry about it. Do you catch all of your birds once a year for about 3 to 4 weeks to worm them?

As a matter of fact here at the Palace YES WE DO TWICE a year. End of February or very early March all birds gets safe gard for 3 days in a row in drinking water,ten days later once again.Then each bird is caught and ivomec at 2cc's is dropped on their backs right where the neck meets the back underneath the feathers. Same procedure is repeated normally in late September,first the safe gard then the ivomec at which time each bird is picked up and moved to inside pens. If you have a sick bird that will need treatments over several days it just pays to put the bird inside a dog crate,limiting it's mobility and makes them much easier to catch for vaccinations. Captive birds are 100% dependent on their keepers for everything from water to feed,housing and health. Since they cannot communicate with us telling us what's wrong it is up to us to intervene,plain and simple.Perhaps if you consider having to catch all your birds just one time a year is too much work,maybe you shouldn't even own peafowl?

 

[casportpony]

Quote: I can assure you that @new 2 pfowl meant no harm, she's always one of the first to greet new comers and always tries to help them out.

Now for your chicks... I can't speak for others, but it would help me if the pictures you posted were larger and showed more of their wings and backs.

I think that both @new 2 pfowl and @zazouse deserve greeter badges, so I say we all vote for them the next voting time!

-Kathy

 

[DylansMom]

I mean this in a nice way, really, I do, but what am I thanking you for?

-Kathy

Good question, I look forward to seeing it answered.

 

[casportpony]

And so it begins, lol. This is from my coming 5 year old IB that has a white throat patch and white flights.



-Kathy

 

[frenchblackcopper]

KsKingBee, I made my own hatcher specific for keeping like colored peachicks all together until I can zip tie their legs until I wingband them at about 1 month of age. Since we raise so many black shoulder colors unless we're here while they hatch to identify and mark each one,we would be waiting on some colors 4-5 months until we knew.I've came home one time only to find 6 yellow fluffy black shoulder peachicks from 4 diffrent colors.I started a thread on how I made this hatcher. It has a top slide out drawer that has dividers for 12 diffrent colored peachicks to hatch out in,while keeping them confined and not mixing with the other chicks.Under this compartmented tray is a slide out drawer the same size,just with no dividers. It will hold probably 200 eggs if both drawers are full. I might have $250 in this and two days worth of time but I couldn't find anything that would work for what I needed unless it cost thousands of dollars.

Here is that thread https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/780847/homemade-peafowl-hatcher-pics-galore

 

[zazouse]

Nature, instinct. Why is it that a chicken's incubation period is 21 days usually but they will sit on pea eggs until they hatch. Wouldn't she just abandon the eggs once there has been 21 days? Why is it that a turkey hen will sit on chicken eggs and won't leave the nest until all the eggs that will hatch hatch?

Sweet heart i got broody hens over here that have never left the nest with chicks or golf balls, they are feathers incubators that i never turn off till mid winter, i can put anything under them and they will sit but if i do not pull the eggs some of them will peck a chick when it hatches out