5th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2014 Hatch-A-Long

[ronott1]

I didn't see my name in the list, thought I had entered.... What do I do?

So sorry,

I will get it on there now!

 

[ronott1]

@ctfeathers You are on the list!

Good luck on the Random Post contest!

 

[Whoops]

Woohoo

36 of 36. All eggs have veins. I'm excited that I currently have 100% hatch rate but if all do hatch I will be shocked. This is only my 3rd hatch and it seems I always run into problems when it comes to day 21. If this hatch goes all well I will definitely have enough laying hens to supply our egg buying customers again.

I may be going 100%, but the opposite way. I guess I will know new years. Blasted dark mystery eggs.

 

[abmaddox1981]

...

Only if he cooks and cleans while he is talking!
[/q

Totally not gonna happen. You should see my house after they leave. Ugh! And besides, I wouldn't wish his cooking on any one, much less the awesome peeps here.

 

[Chase Family]

Your beat me to this answer!

I have read about too many of us that had to cull all the chickens and start over. How about a local group that meets for coffee to talk to other chicken obsessed owners?

I let a fellow chicken farmer barrow a rooster for a month to fertilize his hens. Does that count as a play date? My rooster thinks it did, I know because he said " cock a doodle doooooooooooooooo"

This was the kind of play date I was talking about.

 

[chickengirl1193]

so once you take out your clear eggs and eggs with blood rings, how do you know at your 14 day candle that an egg stopped developing?

 

[Whoops]

I filled out the survey, but where do you see the results?

 

[Wunjo]

Question I have never really seen on here. How gently do the eggs need to be handled? When I candle I try to do it as fast as possible so that they will not get cold. Will the jostling them around make them die or burst the veins? Or can they take a pretty hard drop or shake?

 

[Pozees]

I am glad to see the information sharing about general flock keeping as well as hatching here. Most of us read lots of things, and eventually discover conflicting information. When all else fails, your flock will tell you whether you need to change something.

As a general rule, as others have said, I do not feed layer. I feed a grower or all-flock/general poultry feed, and offer free choice grit and oyster shell, always available. I also give plain homemade yogurt, apples, meal worms, etc. as treats, and all my birds right now are getting a treat dish of scratch (DH calls it crack LOL) right before bedtime. I mix my own scratch. I mix cracked corn, whole wheat, rolled oats, wild bird seed, and whatever else is on sale or sounds good at the time I'm buying ingredients. Commercial scratch almost always has a ton of milo which my birds just don't eat that much of, and it is a waste. I hate waste.

When I am fermenting I mix all-flock/general poultry feed with my scratch mix. Here, for me, right now, FF doesn't work, but once spring is here I'll start fermenting again. I had to be out of town several weeks in a row 2-5 days at a time starting in October, and I do not expect DH to maintain FF, nor does he especially wish to, so I switched all to free choice dry plus treats. For several weeks I used Nutrena All-Flock and Starter/Grower, and my flock seemed to be on the decline, so I switched back to locally ground starter and grower and a Ranchway Poultry Feed for the adults, continuing treats and of course grit and oyster shell. When I read about the recall due to low calcium in Nutrena feeds, I upped yogurt, and figured I knew at least part of the problem.

 

[KristyAnn]

Oh yeah

I think I had owned chickens for about 6 months when I found this out.  But now I won't buy layer.

From what I have read, during the grazing weather, scratch can be like candy but still have its uses.  Many people toss scratch down on the deep litter to encourage their chickens to turn the litter.  During the winter or colder months, many people use scratch or corn or Cay. pepper to help keep their chickens warm.  I'm going to try some next week and see if I notice a difference. 

As for mixing the two together, it lowers the overall protein and calcium levels.  I think layer is about a 16% protein and a 3% calcium.  I think scratch is about a 7% protein and calcium is not typically included.  a 50/50 mix would end up with a 12.5% protein and a 1.5% calcium.  That puts the calcium more in line with the rooster's needs but the protein low.  Maybe toss some scrap animal protein out for your birds until the mix is gone. 
I use oyster shell and as long as the hens have a way to get to the  container they will eat it as needed.  But once in a while a meaner hen will block a lower order hen and I have to put out two oyster shell area's.  I also toss crushed egg shells out for the hens.

good one. I do the oyster and egg shell as well, but I find I have to crush it up really well or they get stopped up, but how much is too much ?