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

[ronott1]

Morning' fellow chicken addicts! I have a couple questions.
My hubs is an OTR truck driver so he goes all over. We live in rural Georgia so getting eggs, chicks, etc is pretty limited. If he were to pick up chicks and bring them home would they do okay? And if he's in y'all's area would you be willing to meet him? Since he obviously can't drive a semi most places not on a main road.

If the trip is over a couple of hours, The young ones would need some heat. An inverter and an eco glow in a moving box or a rubber maid brooder would work. The eco glow runs on 17 volts and will not cause a fire.

 

[chiqita]

oh got it. Honestly they have become completely un interested in scratch now and gorge on things other than it so I may have to switch to worms for their candy or just hold them off the scratch for quite some time so they come to me like you say. I may have spoiled them. Uh oh

Careful with feeding them worms from outside if you get turkey. That how blackhead gets around

Day 7 for me! I know I'm a day behind most of you

Set 10 eggs. Egg #'s 8 and 9 are clear. Egg # 4 I can see veining but no kidney bean or movement...if there's an embryo, I think it's suspended in the center of the egg. I can see kidney beans and movement in the rest of them though!

Question. I am turning 5x a day. I have a schedule...turn when I get up, then at 11 am, 3 pm, 7 pm, then before I go to sleep. How bad is it if I miss one or two of the turns? I have to go out today and get feed for the animals. I'm also doing some grocery shopping, so I am going to miss the 11 am turn. Then, on Christmas Day, we will be gone most of the day because we spend it with my hubby's family. I do not have an automatic turner. So, will it harm the eggs if I don't turn them 5 times? TIA.

Just turn an odd number of times. You can also turn the whole incubator rather then each egg if you have the eggs upright it's much faster!

[COLOR=800080]My wonderful hubby fixed my flashlight last night, and I finally got to have a look in my Marans eggs. 4 are clearly going strong, 1 is soo dark I can make out veining and the dark spot, but I'm wondering if it's moving, the other is either clear or that dang egg is so dark it's fooling me. But YAY my Marans are growing! So, overall 16 eggs going strong and 2 time will tells![/COLOR]

Ron already mentioned it but candle completely in the dark and look for glowing eggs. If the light hits the top and is bouncing off the shell it is empty.

Morning' fellow chicken addicts! I have a couple questions.
My hubs is an OTR truck driver so he goes all over. We live in rural Georgia so getting eggs, chicks, etc is pretty limited. If he were to pick up chicks and bring them home would they do okay? And if he's in y'all's area would you be willing to meet him? Since he obviously can't drive a semi most places not on a main road.

Have him get hand warmers packs for the chicks to sit on. Keeps them nice and warm and less stressed.

 

[abmaddox1981]

Thanks! Now I just need some extra chick money and a way to convince him we NEED more chickies! Lol.

 

[SilkieSensation]

Morning' fellow chicken addicts! I have a couple questions.
My hubs is an OTR truck driver so he goes all over. We live in rural Georgia so getting eggs, chicks, etc is pretty limited. If he were to pick up chicks and bring them home would they do okay? And if he's in y'all's area would you be willing to meet him? Since he obviously can't drive a semi most places not on a main road.

I'm near Wheeling, WV & have chicks, ducks & geese available right now. I will have turkeys as well come spring. PM me if interested. I'm NPIP.

 

[abmaddox1981]

@silkiesensation I tried to pm you but am using Byc mobile. It may not have sent or I might have sent it multiple times. Sorry! And my husband just informed me I had better st least *try* to sell part of my hatch if I want more....his logic makes no sense to me.

 

[ronott1]

@silkiesensation I tried to pm you but am using Byc mobile. It may not have sent or I might have sent it multiple times. Sorry! And my husband just informed me I had better st least *try* to sell part of my hatch if I want more....his logic makes no sense to me.

@abmaddox1981 He needs a course in Chicken Math!

 

[chickengirl1193]

Layer feed is about 4% calcium. All other feeds(starter, grower, finisher, etc.) are about 1% calcium. If you think about it, a single mineral making up 4% of the diet is a huge amount. A bird that isn't building an eggshell every day that is 3 grams of calcium doesn't need it. Excess calcium must be processed and eliminated by the kidneys. Too much will overwhelm and be deposited in other organs and soft tissue, cause kidney stones, gout and eventually, death.
A Canadian study showed that broiler breeder males died at 4 times the rate of females. Necropsies showed they died from kidney disease.
Poultry feeds have been developed based on research and commercial production. Egg farms flocks are all the same age and use a lighting program that isn't practical on a small scale. The growing pullets are kept on 8 hours of light and lighting increase is timed so that all the birds commence laying shortly after the switch to layer feed.

http://www.agbiosecurity.ca/healthy...m and Vitamin D3 problems in laying birds.pdf

http://www.poultryshowcentral.com/chicken_gout.html
People will tell you otherwise. I know lots of people that feed layer to their whole flock whether they're laying or not. And it is true that some breeds/strains are more tolerant. But when chickens die, they won't get a necropsy and never suspect nutrition was the cause.

I've quit feeding layer and won't again unless I'm sure the whole flock is laying and there isn't a rooster with them.
It is however to make sure oyster shell or other large particle calcium source is available all the time. Since I quit using layer feed I added an additional container of oyster shell right next to the nests as well as the one I always kept in the run.

The scratch grains shouldn't be mixed with the feed. That's why they're called scratch, the chickens like to scratch for them so they get scattered on the ground. They can be put in a container but the chickens will eat all of it before they eat their feed. Scratch and other treats shouldn't make up more than 5-10% of the diet. Most grains are about 10% protein, corn is a little less, wheat and oats are a little more. If your feed is a 16% protein and half of the chickens' intake is scratch, they're only getting 13% protein and that's not enough. Most feeds will have a statement on the label to the effect "Feed as the sole ration, no other supplements are needed"
As for the rooster eating layer feed.
http://www.reproduction-online.org/content/early/2011/06/13/REP-11-0131.full.pdf

thank you! out of curiosity where did you get all your knowledge on nutrition for chickens? Im very into nutrition for my animals and have done lots of research on dogs and goats but have just started with my chickens because it seems more complicated than goats lol. Ill read those two links tho! and hopefully my one bag of layer pellets didnt over do it for my girls. from now on they will get a grower feed or an all flock feed because i will have roosters in there. I always thought it was interesting when reading the labels on the layer feeds that calcium was so high on the ingredients list. I even went to a local feed mill to try to feed my animals local feed but the chicken feed was just corn soybean meal and limestone. Considering im trying to stay away from GMOs and those are the two biggest GMO crops i didnt buy that feed lol but it was surprising to me that limestone would be the third ingredient but now i understand more. thanks again

 

[abmaddox1981]

Ron I totally agree. He calls y'all my Crazy Chicken Lady Enabler Group. Lol. But if I mention turkeys ducks or geese it's another storey.

 

[FeyRaine]

Morning' fellow chicken addicts! I have a couple questions.
My hubs is an OTR truck driver so he goes all over. We live in rural Georgia so getting eggs, chicks, etc is pretty limited. If he were to pick up chicks and bring them home would they do okay? And if he's in y'all's area would you be willing to meet him? Since he obviously can't drive a semi most places not on a main road.

I'm 6/10th mile off a main truck route, or 2 miles from a service station on that route (I imagine plenty of us rural folks are actually close to roads like that).
Anyway, I'll hopefully have several breeds of purebreed hatching eggs, as well as chicks, (& tons of EE mixed eggs & chicks b/c they lay & hatch great), the purebreeds won't be for another couple months but EE/OE under CL roo would be sooner, as in I've got those now even. PM me if you are interested, I'm 1 hr N of Chattanooga TN so they wouldn't have too long of a ride to anywhere in GA from here. (spring/early summer purebreeds to include Heritage BR, Cream Legbar (2 diff roos), & SFH small # at first from black background crested gal, more to follow in summer).

These picutes are from back in Sept -- H. BR & SFH have both matured *a lot* since then, but this gives you a general idea what they look like.

 

[ronott1]

Ron I totally agree. He calls y'all my Crazy Chicken Lady Enabler Group. Lol. But if I mention turkeys ducks or geese it's another storey.

Do you Turkeys, ducks or Geese?

Geese are supposed to be mean sometimes. Turkeys and Ducks are very sweet when they hatch.