Colorado

[Ashdoes]

I was wondering how that one works as far as decreasing the temperature - a light is so simple, just move it further and further above the chicks. 

It's basically a warm surface. a plate, if you will.  You can adjust the height to 3 different positions, depending on how tall the chicks are.  When first hatched, it's at the lowest position and they can snug their little backs right up against it, just like mamas breast.  As they get older, you can move the position higher, but the chicks also spend less and less time under it, just like they would with a broody.

I guess that's why I like it so much.  besides the energy savings (substantial), it seems more natural for the chicks and they seem healthier for it (to me).

~S

How many chicks can fit under it? I had the hardest time with the red light for my brooder, and keeping the temp consistent. Constantly moving it up and down, got very frustrating. Every time we walked in that room one of us would say "it's like a SAUNA in here!"

I'm very excited...we just picked a new puppy for our family. Found a Great Dane breeder in Penrose, and get to pick up our girl in the next couple weeks. Hubby is lucky, by the time he gets home potty training will be done.

 

[dennarahl]

How many chicks can fit under it? I had the hardest time with the red light for my brooder, and keeping the temp consistent. Constantly moving it up and down, got very frustrating. Every time we walked in that room one of us would say "it's like a SAUNA in here!"
I'm very excited...we just picked a new puppy for our family. Found a Great Dane breeder in Penrose, and get to pick up our girl in the next couple weeks. Hubby is lucky, by the time he gets home potty training will be done.

That's awesome! I was pretty young the last time I saw a great dane. All I remember was that they were humongous, as tall as kitchen counters. They're so cool, but I couldn't imagine living with one in the house.

 

[dennarahl]

I am in complete agreement. I have not bought one yet, and am still deciding whether to just buy a couple of silkie hens for now who have already been broody once, they are apparently among the most likely to go broody, or just wait and see if one of my own girls obliges. If I bought the silkies I'm looking at, the shipping would be high - $75 to ship 5 or 6 and I really only want 2 or 3. NPIP breeder though, which I don't think is all that common among silkie breeders. Have to keep thinking it over I guess. Ideally I would like to hen hatch as much as possible, but I know there's an incubator in my future. Whenever that happens, it will have a turner.

I have an 11 month old silkie who has went broody twice already (and an EE who went once). Once in September to raise some babies, and then again about three weeks ago. It took her almost 2 weeks to figure out that she wasn't going to have anything but invisible eggs/babies. What's really funny is that she still mothers her bigger babies after she went broody again.

I'm tempted to just let her be my egg hatcher but we plan to hatch a few every other month or so to provide us with meat (serious lack of storage space in the freezer and the last batch of 25 has bit us in the butt because of that lack of space) and I just don't know that we could get that kind of reliability out of her and the others. My other silkie, whitey, was dumb as a box of rocks and got carried off by a hawk a couple weeks ago, I wasn't sure she would ever go broody for us. Blackie gave us one pure silkie female in last bunch and I hope she turns out just like her mama. She also gave us a RIR x silkie girl that I'm hoping goes broody easily, but we'll have to wait and see on that one.

Does anyone know about the broodiness of Naked necks and Doms?

 

[kmatt87]

http://news.yahoo.com/official-27-dead-conn-school-shooting-175512619.html


Anyone else following the shooting at the elementary school in Connecticut? So far there are 27 dead. 18 of those are kids between the ages of 5 and 10. So sad! The shooter is among the dead but there are no details released about them yet.

 

[gnatboy911]

Please check out the pictures of my rooster. Free to a good home, preferably not a stew pot. very gentle.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/729763/buff-orpington-roo-needs-a-new-home-silt-co

 

[wsmith]

http://news.yahoo.com/official-27-dead-conn-school-shooting-175512619.html


Anyone else following the shooting at the elementary school in Connecticut? So far there are 27 dead. 18 of those are kids between the ages of 5 and 10. So sad! The shooter is among the dead but there are no details released about them yet.

Very sad. I've been following it as it developed.

 

[wsmith]

Does anyone know about the broodiness of Naked necks and Doms?

I don't know anything about Naked Necks, but Dominiques have average broodiness, but are AWESOME moms. Go to my facebook link in my signature and look at the posting from yesterday. It is a video of a Dom hen with chicks and a hawk attack.

 

[wickedlees]

Yes, I'm following the shooting. I'm sick. We used to live across the street from Columbine, my kids went to the elementry school across the street. Now I live in Aurora, and of course we know about that shooting. Last night I got a message from the school my son attends (Grandview) and there had been a thread in the form of Grafiti on the walls there in regard to today. I felt apprehensive about letting him go to school today. But I let him, now I'm having him come home with a friend. I'm terrified.

 

[kmatt87]

Yes, I'm following the shooting. I'm sick. We used to live across the street from Columbine, my kids went to the elementry school across the street. Now I live in Aurora, and of course we know about that shooting. Last night I got a message from the school my son attends (Grandview) and there had been a thread in the form of Grafiti on the walls there in regard to today. I felt apprehensive about letting him go to school today. But I let him, now I'm having him come home with a friend. I'm terrified.

my oldest is 6 and at school at the elementary school at the end of the block. I'm tempted to go and pull him out. My 4 yr old and 3 yr old are doing art stuff at the kitchen table right now. They told me to stop hugging them because it was messing up their pictures. lol.

 

[ScottnLydia]

How many chicks can fit under it? I had the hardest time with the red light for my brooder, and keeping the temp consistent. Constantly moving it up and down, got very frustrating. Every time we walked in that room one of us would say "it's like a SAUNA in here!"
I'm very excited...we just picked a new puppy for our family. Found a Great Dane breeder in Penrose, and get to pick up our girl in the next couple weeks. Hubby is lucky, by the time he gets home potty training will be done.

I have the small ('20' chick) model, and currently I have 14 that I'm brooding. Everybody seems to have plenty of room at 3 week, and as I said, they spend less and less time under it. Brinsea also makes a '50' chick model, I do think they are a little optomistic about the sizes, but so far, so good.

We hatch chicks on a pretty consistent basis for our meat needs. We also currently have a broody (black sex link) working on some more. So far our turkeys have hatched their own quite well, but the Brinsea incubator handles turkey eggs too, if we would like to hatch more. I guess that all depends on if we can find a market for Midget White poults this year.

I was a paramedic for 14 years in the Denver metro area until I got hurt. I saw too much of how brutal people can be, especially to women and children. Always the innocent. I can't watch news of children being harmed any more, too many memories that haunt.

~S