If they eat meat from the grocery store go right ahead and show them some lovely pictures of factory farming. Then explain how you can't abide by that kind of animal abuse and would prefer to take the hard road where you look your meat in the eye and give it the best life it can have before it...
Do you have other adult chickens you're trying to integrate with? If not, they can go into the coop anytime - just move your heat lamp into one corner of the coop and they will go sit under it for a warm up when they get cold. No need to keep them inside until they're feathered if you're able to...
I used aquarium thermometers from Walmart pet section - just a few dollars each and they can handle the humidity during lockdown without failing. I put a few in different areas of the incubator to make sure the incubator was heating evenly, if it's not you may need to rotate the eggs through the...
New layers do that a lot. Their system is trying to figure out how to make eggs and sometimes throws out a weird one :)
Just make sure they are on layer feed and have lots of oyster shell available free choice and give it time - within a few months they should have everything sorted out.
Yes I agree with Blooie - it's easier in my opinion to overheat them than to chill them. One lamp, no drafts, good ventilation and lots of room to move away from the lamp.
I should add, on the first check we noticed the bandaid had stretched allowing too much space between the legs, so on the second dressing we put the legs a little closer together to ensure they were in the right position under her when she was sitting. Then she simply sat on them until she...
I had one hatch out Thursday who I noticed was spraddled about 6 hours after she was in the brooder. She was getting trampled and unable to stand up - I did the bandaid method (cut a standard bandaid in half lengthwise, then wrap using the middle pad as a guide for width). We placed her back in...
Yes totally normal - I think of it as a "fugue" though for some reason lol. Kind of the same as when they're broody or concentrating on laying eggs. It's all serious business to them!
I noticed in my recent hatch that the outer membrane (just under the shell) looked dry and "papery" and white on all the hatchers who were successful on their own. The ones with trouble looked more leathery or another colour other than pure white (like a little off white or brown or yellow). I...
Cool idea!
I just used a half width strip of a regular bandaid, taped her up and popped her in a little nest above the others so she wouldn't get trampled. 36 hours later I removed the bandaid and she's running around with the rest happy to be part of the scrum
Yes! She's braced and in a little elevated nest so the others can't bully her. They're savages I tell ya! She's starting to lift her body up now, fingers crossed she will recover in the next few days. I'm calling it a "she" for good luck LOL
Ok! Day 22 over here any I have some further advice. Please bear in mind it's turned out I'm a big time meddler so that'll affect what you do in your own FI incubation lol
Once chicks started to hatch I got major high humidity spikes. This resulted in them being unable to fluff, so I moved...
That's where the problem lies! I couldn't get more than 15 feet away from either the brooder or the incubator without just locking myself into my 5' bathroom... Ugh! Looks like I'll just be super grey for another two weeks until they're in the outside brooder :P