The Sussex we have, we got around 5 weeks old. They've gone through a 25 lb bag of chick starter a week! At around 3.5 months old, they are bigger than any other bird we have! They are eating machines (not very smart though )
I have/had 2 broody hens sitting on eggs. One of the hens is having a staggered hatch (actually both probably will). Her first 4 chicks hatched out and she lost interest in sitting on the others. I moved a couple underneath my other broody hen, then moved the rest to my incubator. I had 4 that...
You guys have been so helpful - thank you!
I've candled them several times and never could come up with anything definitive. A couple of days ago, I realized that something was stinking and discovered it was 2 of my "floater" eggs so I got rid of all 3. I finally saw a tiny bit of movement in...
With the "floaty" ones, if there was a developing baby in there, it probably wouldn't float in the top of the egg, right? Hubby thinks it's a sign that they are not going to make it.
With the other ones, it seriously looks like a boiled egg with just the air bubble - it's just that solid...
I've looked at a lot of candled pics now and still don't have a clue. I just recandled two of mine - one has that noticeable air bubble at the top but the rest is just solid dark. No shape, no movement, just solid other than the air pocket. I have two others the same way. The other one I just...
I just put them in the bator. but, i'm pretty sure they aren't all viable. I wiped them down with a warm, slightly damp cloth b/c they were *nasty* so I hope that didn't affect the bloom too much. I attempted to candle them but . . .yeah, I don't have a clue what I'm supposed to look for. I'm...
A few weeks ago, one of our hens was persistently brooder, so I thought, "Why not? I'll just let her sit on a couple of eggs." About a week later, hubby checked under her and saw that the "couple of eggs' were now 6 eggs, only 1 of which belonging to her (she is a Marans). A few days later...
Out in the run earlier, I noticed that one of the hens has a swollen, purple and red mass just below her ear. Does anyone have any ideas what this could be? Some sort of gland that is abscessed?
Right now, we do have too many roos. 2 of them, our mutt roos, are heading to freezer camp this weekend. Until recently they were staying away from the girls b/c the BO roo was running them off but we added a couple of hens to our flock and the BO isn't really claiming them as "his girls" yet...
My pullets head are getting bald and raw and a couple of them have had torn combs lately. I'm pretty sure it is from the roos beaks when mating with them. Is there anything I can do to stop this (other than getting rid of all my roos?) Is this common?
I don't know - I didn't notice a light in their coop. But we're in the deep south and get a decent amount of light, even in winter. All of my other girls are still laying great.
A couple of weeks ago, we got 2 new hens (maybe 3 weeks now?). The person I got them from said that 1 was laying an egg a day and the other an egg every other day. No eggs for the first several days - ok, I expected that - but since then, we've gotten at most 1 egg every 2 or 3 days.
So, what...
Oh wow! I put a paperback book and a block in there to put the glass thermometer on and it's reading around 102.5! The thermometer on the racks is still reading 98.6 - I can't believe there is a 4 degree difference in an inch/inch and a half! How on earth do people still get good hatches with...
I'm kind of test running my LG still air to see how it responds and how consistent temps are. For the past 26 hrs, temps have been ranging between 99.4 and 100.4, with the only outlier being this morning when I put books on top of the viewing windows (but not covering the holes) to see how much...