Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

I know how you feel Danz, I lived outside of Derby for 26 years & the clay soil was horrible. I worked on my big garden area for all of the years I lived there adding organic material to it & it was really good by the time I sold the place & left it. Unfortunately when I decided to have a lagoon put in they told me I had to have the septic tank destroyed & they destroyed my garden space in the process. It made me sad to know I had worked all of those years on that & then it was destroyed in one day. Anyway, as far as other plants went only certain ones would grow in that clay in other places besides my garden. I did get some lilac bushes to grow there well. Here we have limestone everywhere living on this ridge like we do. If you dig just about anywhere you hit rocks.

 

[chicken danz]

Here's a few things that might help you with your incubator. First chose a spot on an inner wall where no cold or heat from windows etc will influence the temperature. Also put it someplace where there are no heat or air vents near by. If your thermostat to a central air or heat was put in by a professional, that wall would usually qualify with those conditions. Before you ever use it go to Walmart or someplace and buy an inexpensive Thermometer hygrometer that is small or has a probe for inside and outside temps. I used to tell people to look at all of them on the rack and chose one that was reading the same as most of the others. However now they package them so you can't see what the reading is most of the time. Or have a pull tab on the battery so they don't run. The point however is to verify that the thermostat is correct on the incubator. Also it's a good idea to move it from place to place to see if there are temperature differences in different areas. Unfortunately this is usually a problem with the styro incubators. When testing the incubator be sure to run it with the turner and everything working.
Once you actually want to use it you may need to add some humidity beyond the little impressions for water. Especially for hatching. When I used a styro I would take a wet but not dripping wash cloth and set it in the incubator at hatch time to raise the humidity some.
I can help you as you go along as well. Hatching is addictive.
I still haven't gotten my seeds started. It's been one of those days where everything needed attention.

 

[CayugaJana]

I’m really disappointed the incubator is styrofoam. I hadn’t had it out of the box until I read your message. If I had known it was styrofoam, I wouldn’t have bought it. Oh well I guess I didn’t read the description well enough.

I will keep all this in mind. And that is whenever my cayugas decide to start laying. None of them are yet. They are old enough, but I’m assuming they need more daylight. Worrying over the humidity, air cell size, temperature etc. makes me nervous. I don’t want to kill something just because I’m a numbskull. We will see.

 

[chicken danz]

Hatching really is easy as long as your provide the right conditions for the species you are hatching. My geese and peafowl give me fits. They are the hardest to hatch. Ducks are easy as long as you can get enough humidity going. One thing about incubating no one ever says is the trick to humidity. You don't want it too high during the incubation period because that causes the chicks or ducklings or whatever to grow larger. So you have to hit that happy medium between too dry and too wet. Once you are ready for the actual hatching with ducks, it needs to be higher. The difference between us the a broody is that a broody will help the duckling or chick hatch at the right time. Our interference is usually just that. An interference. So we have to adapt so they can hatch by themselves.

 

[venymae]

Hey Everyone! Does anyone know of anyone in the area (east KS) that is selling extremely dark chocolate hatching eggs? I'd assume french black copper maran breed.

 

[chicken danz]

Check with @KsKingBee , his wife raises black copper marans

 

[Shevraeth]

Does anyone know of a poultry farm, or even just a small backyard type operation, near Olathe where a chicken-crazed lady can just sit and hang out with chickens? My backyard is oddly shaped and nowhere near big enough to have some and my neighbors would definitely report me if I tried to be sneaky about it, and my husband is a firm "no" to a house chicken. I've thought about volunteering at Deanna Rose or maybe asking Mahaffie, but I don't think those chickens are particularly fond of people and I don't know if I can specify "please just throw me in the chicken pen every time, thanks!" when you volunteer to help.

I just... want to hang out with some chickens and learn how to care for them hands-on lol.

 

[KsKingBee]

Hey Everyone! Does anyone know of anyone in the area (east KS) that is selling extremely dark chocolate hatching eggs? I'd assume french black copper maran breed.

Yes, we do have BCM eggs and chicks. $25 a dozen and chicks (3 day old) are $8 each, straight run. Marion, KS

 

[CayugaJana]

Does anyone know of a poultry farm, or even just a small backyard type operation, near Olathe where a chicken-crazed lady can just sit and hang out with chickens? My backyard is oddly shaped and nowhere near big enough to have some and my neighbors would definitely report me if I tried to be sneaky about it, and my husband is a firm "no" to a house chicken. I've thought about volunteering at Deanna Rose or maybe asking Mahaffie, but I don't think those chickens are particularly fond of people and I don't know if I can specify "please just throw me in the chicken pen every time, thanks!" when you volunteer to help.

I just... want to hang out with some chickens and learn how to care for them hands-on lol.

Is @chicken danz too far out for you?

 

[Shevraeth]

Oooh, Waverly on the KS side is only about an hour out, so that might work. Thanks for the tip!

@chicken danz Might I message you when the weather looks a little nicer and come visit your farm? I promise I'm not a psycho... I just want to hang out with some chickens