Welcome Adam! You don't say where in CT you are located. I'm in Bristol and have many of these breeds in my mixed flock. They're all hatchery stock, but I love them. There's lots of great chicken folk in CT, check out the Connecticut! thread.
One last thought!!! How are the draughts (drafts?) in your house? Do you heat with forced air? We don't, but hubby keeps turning on the ceiling fan....takes a degree out of my bator!!!
I've got my first eggs in a bator so I'm no expert, but here's my thoughts. First of all I'm pretty confident that the hatch is not ruined. A degree or two too low is better at this point than "cranking it up" so far you turn your back and cook them. I'd also recommend giving it more time...
Sounds like you are having lots of chicken fun already You say it's "cold" in Florida??? It was 1.3 degrees when I went out to the coup this morning. My coop is a converted tool shed, the thermometer inside said it was 10 degrees. My chickens were quite comfortable, I love to pick then...
We use the deep little method and only clean out the coop in the fall and spring. This year we cleaned out the coop and about two weeks later we noticed mites!! I shut all the chickens in the coop and dusted the run. Then I took the girls one by one into the house for a spa day. I bathed...
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And I add.... they still need ventilation, frostbite is caused by high humidity. If you cover up all the windows/vents at night be sure to open something during the day. If I go into my coop and it stinks, there's not enough ventilation. I'm in CT and all of mine did ok today...
I don't post all that often, but I lurk alot and your posts have been a great help to me. Dawg, my thoughts are with you and your family.
Peace, KimberlyJ
I'm in CT, too far to help as well. But this is what I LOVE about BYC. It really makes me feel good when BYCers jump in to help each other out!
I'll be praying for you all and that the current owner finds peace.
KimberlyJ
With my first set of chicks I fed non medicated, organic, no meat by products chick starter. With my second set of chicks I fed non medicated, organic chick starter while the older girls still had organic layer food. It seems my hens are a bit small and there was some discussion as to whether...
My flock gave me the Chicken Purse from MyPetChicken.com. I just noticed while they were shopping for me they also bought themselves meal worms and a big bag of DE....those girls are sneaky!
A rule of thumb here at BYC is 4 sq ft per chicken in the coop and 10 sq ft per chicken in the run. So:
For the coop 8X8=64 64 / 4 = 13.5 chickens. For the run 16 X 8 = 128 128/ 10 = 12.8 chickens
I started with 12 chickens in a coop thats 12 X 5 and a run that's 12 X...
This whole "not giving gifts thing" started a family feud three years ago that has ruined the most wonderful time of the year for me. I hope your family handles this challange better than mine did. There's a lot of really good suggestions here, maybe one will help me too.
KimberlyJ ~Good Luck
Eric,
MyPetChicken.com will ship as few as three chicks provided you are not too far from a major post office. The chicks are nicely priced but the postage can be a bit expensive. Makes them out to be about ten dollar per bird if I recall. Other options may be share with a buddy or find a...