well, I was right only one chick survived. Except now, the chick has some sort of prolapse in the rear. Dosent look like an a nal prolapse, its just a hard lump coming out the back, and she has a pasty butt.
Im a farmer and I can tell when something is going to be fatal, my instinct is that...
21 days ago one of my harco black sex links went broody. I set up a place for her on her own and gave her 9 eggs to sit on.
After about a week she had pushed three eggs out of the nest and ate them. So im down to 6 eggs.
at 10 days I candle most of the eggs with a high power flash light and...
are you happy with the your chicken processor? are the rates good? is the job well done?
I cant seem to find a processor that dosent rip the legs and wings off half of my birds. I just had a batch done by a different facility than I usually go to and they were even worse. Out of 32 birds, 13...
they look like delawares to me, or columbian rock x red.
The reason they are called sex links is because the size of the pin feathers on the wings identify sex. If the two rows are the same size, then it is a male. if one row of feathers is longer, its a female.
is this long pine needles from the scotch pine tree your talking about? ive never heard it refered to as pine straw before, or people using it for livestock bedding.
Interesting.
my problem with wood pelets and shavings is price. I use it in my brooders and in my laying boxes, but for bedding for my layers and meaties i use straw.
I have to add fresh bedding to the meatbird pen twice daily, but my laying birds only needed fresh straw a few times when they were penned...
ya our coyotes are more like dogs, sheepish and timid.
See how you make out with your first batch of meaties. if you find that the air is getting stuffy inside the brooder around the 4 week mark, then you may need to build a hardware cloth or wire top for your brooder.
we do have a fairly large population of coyotes here. but they dont seem to bother my livestock as much as racoons and weasels and feral cats do.
once i got my dog, i havent had a problem since. She comes in at night too, but im convinced that her scent is enough to keep the coons and coyotes...
oh and meatbirds put out alot more heat and moisture than layers. I do the same thing, i can keep my layer chicks in a fairly tight space but meatbirds are much different.
no problem, im just trying to help. I cant really see your situation so i dont really know. I think your off to a good start, but all im saying is you might find that heat, moisture and gas will build up in the inclosed brooder once they start to get bigger.
I dont doubt you have problems with...
meaties put out alot of really wet poo. this soaks their bedding really fast. I use straw, not hay because its more absorbant and if they eat too much dried hay they can get impacted crops.
I usually give my birds a half of a slab of straw twice daily, once in the morning and once at night...
Also, what I have done before is built a frame out of 2x2s and stapled chicken wire to it. this gives me a portable wall that I can place on top of my brooders or pens, to keep them from flying out and predators from getting in.