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

[Wunjo]

Ty both very much!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Hey, one important thing to understand about the Mareks vaccine: It MUST be administered the day of hatching. For what ever reason it is not effective after that. You can purchase the vaccine from several companies. Strombergs and Jeffers Vet Supply I believe both carries it.

It is in a race with environmental Mareks. If you have the birds indoors, it can be effective after the first day. It just becomes less so with each passing day.

Congrats everyone on the hatches. I do have one question. I ordered 10 Buff Orps, but they won't ship until the 22nd. Will they be okay to add to my chicks that hatched for New Years? The NYD ones will be 3 weeks. I'm just worried about the pecking order.

Depending on what breed yours are, they should get along. Wait till the new ones are about 4 days old so they can run if it gets rough. Pecking order doesn't kick in that fast.

Anyone know?

At 8 weeks they'll be fine. I would add another heat lamp in case one goes out during the night.

 

[roostercluck]

It is in a race with environmental Mareks. If you have the birds indoors, it can be effective after the first day. It just becomes less so with each passing day.

If your homemade works ok otherwise try one of these. They're more precise control
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Temperature...493?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4ace4dca6d

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Very-Accura...970?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4aaa619da2


Depending on what breed yours are, they should get along. Wait till the new ones are about 4 days old so they can run if it gets rough. Pecking order doesn't kick in that fast.


At 8 weeks they'll be fine. I would add another heat lamp in case one goes out during the night.

Thank you. Right now I have SLW and they are pretty docile. I will just put some wire in between until the new ones will be old enough to run.

 

[Myfourladies]

I thought I would do a little update on baby Hawke. She is doing so good today!! She has spent most of the day in the broody without any loud cheeping, all happy peeping. Yeah, for her!! She is getting some big girl feathers on her wings that are white.... we will see if they stay since she is suppose to be black. LOL
Another bad luck ickiness for this week.... my silkie pullet I bought this fall to add another hen to my lone one crowed this morning.... yes Lavender the silkie pullet is indeed Lou the roo. *sigh* I guess that just shows that even though the chicken was 4 months old you still couldn't really tell hen or roo. =( That explains why I haven't got an egg yet I guess. LOL

 

[GerbilsOnToast]

The vaccine you and I can purchase is not the same as what the hatcheries use, unless something changed since last time I checked on this, and it certainly may have - last time I checked I also could not buy vaccine for fewer than 1000 chicks.

Anyway, I digress.

Marek's is a herpes virus. Turkeys all have it in its mildest form, and if chickens and turkeys are kept on the same ground, the chickens pick up this mild form of the virus, and their immune systems "learn" to fight herpes viruses - usually completely asymptomatically; you never know they have become infected and developed the resistance. The vaccine available to us is the same as what the Turkeys carry. The vaccine used by the hatcheries is a triple vaccine. Vaccinated birds will shed all three forms (as I understand it anyway), which places not only any newer birds at risk, but if you show or have other flock owners visit, you can spread the virus to other birds.

I had been cautioned repeatedly not to keep turkeys with chickens, yet two local keepers who are friends of mine have had turkeys every year with their flocks with no negative consequences, and neither has lost a bird to Marek's. Yesterday I put 21 Midget White Turkey eggs in the incubator, and am hoping at least a few hatch. I don't really want great big turkeys, but these stay smaller and seem manageable to me, and if keeping them helps the flock without harming it, I'm all for it.

Immunity and resistance are different, to be sure, and for me, keeping their immune systems working and developing resistance to something so omnipresent is helpful.

I'm aware that there are several different formulations; which is being offered to whom, I didn't bother to investigate because by that point we were seriously re-examining they system we inherited / reducing vaccine usage and it was among the jettisoned. (I've never administered it, but did have all hatchery chicks vaccinated.in the past. I've administered shots to chicks in lab research, and IM antibiotics to bumblefoot cases in adult hens, but sticking needles in chickens is something I prefer to avoid these days, LOL) I do know that I could order 250 dose vials of whichever formulation it was at that time; this was three years ago, so I don't know what's available now.

I was also cautioned about turkeys and chickens - mostly about blackhead, *only* about turkey health. I was gifted a pair of young adult turkeys at christmas, so I suppose we're entering natural exposure now whether I intended it or not. I really like the turkeys, and they 'herd' so easily! It's unlikely I can maintain a flock of any size, though, because Aviagen has gotten a LOT of laws and regulations passed here to protect their corporate system - and they have a set of grow-out barns 200' from the fence at the south end of our farm. While our barnyard is almost a mile from there, it's visible from the highway and I think they'd notice if the turkey flock got large. If the owls move out of the riparian area on the northeast side, I might be able to raise them there without interference. The owls move every year or two, so... I'm hoping (and glad they moved out of the silo last year!) Unfortunately, I can't see them out there so the enjoyment factor would be gone. I had decided on Midget Whites before Santa Neighbor pre-empted my choice, so I'm looking forward to watching yours grow!

 

[Pozees]

Midgets aren't as small as one might think. My Tom weighs close to 26 lbs and the hen 18. Mine sleep in the later coop all winter and the tom sleeps in the trees when weather isn't snowing pouring rain or windy

That's a good sized bird, for sure, but nothing like the BBB a friend raised last year that hit 53 lbs before processing LOL. I have never raised any kind of turkey, so this will be a learning curve for me if I hatch any. Fingers crossed!

 

[Whoops]

Congrats everyone on the hatches. I do have one question. I ordered 10 Buff Orps, but they won't ship until the 22nd. Will they be okay to add to my chicks that hatched for New Years? The NYD ones will be 3 weeks. I'm just worried about the pecking order.

Depending on what breed yours are, they should get along. Wait till the new ones are about 4 days old so they can run if it gets rough. Pecking order doesn't kick in that fast.

Wait - I have eggs in the incubator now - are you saying that I can add any chicks that hatch to my George and Astrid (My NYD chicks) in the same brooder after a few days? That would be awesome! It would make life so much simpler.

(George is a Marans, Astrid is a maybe Australorp mix, and the new chicks would be Marans. )

 

[ronott1]

Wait - I have eggs in the incubator now - are you saying that I can add any chicks that hatch to my George and Astrid (My NYD chicks) in the same brooder after a few days? That would be awesome! It would make life so much simpler.

(George is a Marans, Astrid is a maybe Australorp mix, and the new chicks would be Marans. )

Oh yes! but wait until the new ones are a couple of days old.

 

[Whoops]

Quote:
Oh, thank you! I am so glad I saw this!

 

[chickengirl1193]

Poultry is big business in VA. I'm sure the commercial farms are working to have the state locked down.

-10 here tonight, -3 for a high tomorrow, we're also in the midst of a true blizzard.

My son just called and said he heard on the news that people in my zip code were without power.
Good thing I got the generator fixed. I'll just have to find a way to helicopter it up to the house.

Find small diameter straws, cut them to length, put them on that one and adjacent toes.

I'm going to have chicks on 24 hour light a few days longer than I wanted. One of my ceramic emitters broke as did one of my red heat lamps. I have 3 little brooders. One has a red infrared, one a ceramic and the other a red flood light. I have a white infrared but it's too bright in such a small space.
I added a rope light to the one with the ceramic so they can eat at night too. The ceramics were over $20 at the pet store yesterday. The same ones are $8 on ebay. .

Great job!

Like mother, like daughter. Way to go.
Such a pretty basket. I love a mixed egg basket.
I used to have JGs, Orps and Rocks. Great birds but the egg basket was a little boring.
I wanted some white, green and dark brown eggs.
For whites I got some Anconas, Jaers, White Minorcas, Black Leghorns, Buttercups and Polish.
Ameraucanas for green and Welsummers for dark. Since I tend to walk to the beat of a different drummer, Rather than go the Marans route, I decided to find dark egg Barnevelders and Penedesencas.
I found a line of Barneys that had beautiful eggs here in MO but never got any. The lady with them retired so her birds are now in Oklahoma.

I saw ceramic heat emitters in the small heating section of tractor supply, is that what you use? when I move my birds outside they will still need heat so I'm debating a heat lamp or one of those heaters from tractor supply whichever is less of a fire hazard. I live in way north Jersey on a mountain so I have a while until it's gonna be warm enough for no supplemental heat( my older flock is fine without heat because they were fully feathered before winter)