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  1. Chickpocalypse Now

    Chickpocalypse Now

    The working-title of this article was "You took HOW MANY fertilized eggs to school ???" There's nothing quite like a minor crisis to move the progress-meter along at a brisk pace. In this particular case, Migraineman Jr. had asked if he could take some fertilized eggs to school to for the...
  2. MigraineMan

    4 week old chicks have been evicted from inside to outside grow out brooder/coop

    Relocated our 3-week-old chickies outside today - won't deal with the dust all over the basement like last time ... We hacked a small crate to house the heat lamp and installed that inside the A-frame tractor. Food and water were placed immediately outside the crate's door so it would be easy...
  3. MigraineMan

    Chickens killed with only heads eat

    Photos of the perp ...
  4. MigraineMan

    Chickens killed with only heads eat

    Update: the injured RSL is moving around a bit better. Earlier, she was standing still and had a wobble - much the way small chicks do right before they fall asleep and face-plant. She drank some water, and came running to the fence with the others when I went out with this evening's...
  5. MigraineMan

    Chickens killed with only heads eat

    Well, crud. MM Jr. discovered four dead and three MIA chickens this morning. So we are down to 12 from 19, and one of the RSLs was found outside the run, and she appears to be injured. She might not survive the night. Two interesting points - 1) two of the chickens had their heads removed; 2)...
  6. MigraineMan

    UGH Egg exploded in the incubator!

    Had another egg explode in the incubator. This has not been a good experience ... we're 1 for 19. We shut down the incubator and retired the remaining three eggs.
  7. MigraineMan

    UGH Egg exploded in the incubator!

    Just pulled a stinky oozing egg out and "popped" it on the compost pile.
  8. MigraineMan

    Broody vs Incubator Pros and Cons

    We had bad luck with the broodies - stepping on eggs, fighting with other hens for the "favorite" nesting box, returning from the morning constitutional and sitting on the wrong eggs, etc. With our first broody, we had 0/10 hatch. The second broody walked off the nest after a week, so we ended...
  9. MigraineMan

    cardboard box incubator?

    Update - the thermostat failed on Day 21, which was "a bad thing." We scrambled to get an auxiliary heat source in place and tuned properly. Managed to get it stable at about 99F. One of the eggs started leaking a black ooze ... also "a bad thing." We culled that one and another that clearly...
  10. MigraineMan

    cardboard box incubator?

    Necro-thread resurrection ... We hadn't planned on incubating, but our broody hens dropped the ball, so to speak. So we decided to build one from a cardboard box. (Yes, I probably could have driven to Tractor Supply and purchased the $50 Little Giant, but raising the chicks is largely a...
  11. MigraineMan

    first time hatching - homemade incubator

    When we had our broody abandon her clutch, we move the eggs to a cardboard box with a heat lamp. Took a few hours to get it mostly stable in the basement, and we were seeing pretty solid 100.5 on the thermometer. Outside temps dropped overnight to the point where the HVAC system shut down, and...
  12. MigraineMan

    1 Broody....2 Broody....3 Broody....and more!

    So we are back to "no broodies" again. Kelly showed no sign of going back to the clutch (in spite of the Downtown Apartment being pretty much an ideal location.) She seemed more interested in antagonizing the roving band of juvenile delinquents. We put her back in the community area. She...
  13. MigraineMan

    1 Broody....2 Broody....3 Broody....and more!

    Well, that didn't work. Kelly was off the clutch when my son came home from school this afternoon. He said the eggs weren't warm, so she had been roaming around for a while. Miss Broody was out in the run, behaving very not-broody-anymore. So we snatched the eggs Kelly had been sitting on...
  14. MigraineMan

    1 Broody....2 Broody....3 Broody....and more!

    Our first attempt to let a broody hen do her thing au-natural was a miserable failure. Miss Broody started with 10 eggs, which blossomed to 18 (because she was camped in the "popular" nesting box - #1.) We culled back to 10, but then found her in nesting box #3 sitting on a clutch of new eggs...
  15. MigraineMan

    Spooky Broody!

    This evening, we implemented Operation: Downtown Apartment. We relocated Kelly and her clutch of green-dotted eggs to a nesting box located in the garden tractor, complete with a roving band of juvenile delinquents (aka "the Wyandotte teenagers.") Initially after relocation, she sat in the box...
  16. MigraineMan

    Spooky Broody!

    Well, we threw-in the towel on Miss Broody's clutch. We were down to three eggs. One rattled, one had a detached air sac, and the third just looked developed-but-stalled. We didn't do an eggtopsy, and opted to bury the eggs in the event they were funky. That was prudent, as one egg "popped"...
  17. MigraineMan

    Spooky Broody!

    Congrats (I think.) C'mon, they're fuzzbutts ... you can't sell 'em. Just expand your coop and run a little ... I promise you'll be fine. Fuzzbutts are not a gateway to a chicken empire ... probably. We candled the eggs under Miss Broody this afternoon. We are down to five. Four have...
  18. MigraineMan

    Spooky Broody!

    Oooh, oooh, oooh ... me too! (looks like we have a second broody hen)
  19. MigraineMan

    Spooky Broody!

    Dang it. Didn't make it through the night.
  20. MigraineMan

    Spooky Broody!

    A peep has emerged! (This is a good thing, as my son was getting dejected with the recent failure.) Seems to be breathing well, and I don't see an exposed yolk sac. It alternates between sleeping and "fussing." We are going to leave it be for a while and let Miss Broody do the "momma" thing.
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