Recent content by bwindrope

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    First timer, is my rooster doing doing his job?

    I'm a zoologist and science teacher by profession! Can't help myself. But this egg hatching thing is a fun new adventure and I appreciate all your help. As for temperature, I read different things. My DIY incubator is steady at about 100-101, but I have to remove the lid to do stuff and the temp...
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    First timer, is my rooster doing doing his job?

    Oh yeah, I see it now. So maybe the young man is at least doing the cloacal kiss some of the time. Now it's a question of whether it has been too cold while they sat in the coop before I brought them in to incubate. Maybe I should collect them from the coop every day and bring them into the warm...
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    First timer, is my rooster doing doing his job?

    I've read that this isn't too much of a concern. That hens will not brood their eggs for some time until there are enough to bother with, and so they sit in nature for some time, even in cold. But maybe there are boundaries to what temperature they can tolerate at this stage of sitting?
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    First timer, is my rooster doing doing his job?

    I now realize I may not have even photographed the right spot! I thought the stringy white thing was the business area. From doing some more reading, it seems like the bullseye is elsewhere.
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    First timer, is my rooster doing doing his job?

    Here are pics from two eggs. I don't have the gift of discernment on these things.
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    First timer, is my rooster doing doing his job?

    Ok, will do!
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    First timer, is my rooster doing doing his job?

    So I've had a rooster in my flock for the first time and love the guy. I've raised him and the ladies together since they were chicks, and they are now about a year old. He's certainly keeping the flock happy, as I've never had such good looking chickens before. No feather picking or bloody...
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    Another coop built, some nice features

    A benefit of the location I forgot to mention is that this coop is built right up against the side of the house near our laundry room. And so now I can go to our laundry room and look out the window right down onto the chickens! I can even see directly into their nest boxes to see if there are...
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    Hardware cloth

    I can vouch that it won't hurt their feet, especially when on the ground. And I would be very wary of using it as a skirt, as several of those predators you mention are fully capable of heroic acts of digging and lifting. The only certain way to keep out racoons and weasel species is to use...
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    Another coop built, some nice features

    Because of various moves, I've ended up building five coops now, each reflective of their situations. I've never gone for the Taj Mahal, though I like how they look. This newest coop incorporates some wisdom learned from previous efforts. For one, I continue to use sand as the bedding. Enough...
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    Adding a light to dark coop to see if eggs increase

    I do let them out every few days or so to run around and let them be chickens, but our local racoon and bald eagle population prevent me from having them out unsupervised. Here in the NW heat is not a concern, and neither is cold (thankfully, having lived in SoCal and CO), but darkness is...
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    Adding a light to dark coop to see if eggs increase

    I appreciate your perspective Fred's Hens as it sounds quite comparable to mine. I'd say the light in my coop is pretty similar to a barn and our latitude is pretty much the same too. If having the light on for 12 hours a day results in them laying steadily it will be more than worth the cost of...
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    Adding a light to dark coop to see if eggs increase

    So my coop is built under our patio deck, in the only place it can really work in our backyard. I'm quite proud of it as it is the 4th coop I've built and I applied many lessons learned from previous coops (Sand! Sand! Sand!). However, the one failing of the coop is that it gets no direct...
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    7 week chicks not using nipples

    Success! Yesterday afternoon I went down and finally they discovered the nipples. They were so thirsty they attacked them ferociously. Thanks for the encouragement here. I'm excited about my system because it will let me not have to clean or refill their water for long intervals. Besides the pvc...
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    7 week chicks not using nipples

    Good to hear it's not an age thing. No, I removed their old plastic waterer because I figure they won't use something new if the old one is there. The nipples are about at the height of the top of their head. They can easily peck at them without stretching, in theory. Should they be lower? Seems...
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