6th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2015 Hatch-A-Long

[Dish chickens]

my rubber gloves, Tyvek suit, fresh air mask and safety goggles all laid out and waiting for my candling adventure tomorrow.

 

[bamadude]

 my rubber gloves, Tyvek suit, fresh air mask and safety goggles all laid out and waiting for my candling adventure tomorrow.

u hatching dinosaur eggs again? Or skunks

 

[valleychicks]

Well I cheated and I'm glad I did. I haven't looked at the eggs since I transferred the girls to the new bigger nest box on Sunday I believe. I had an extra egg...

So...I had to look at them all to determine which one had been added and when. I saw things going on in all but one, also couldn't find an X on that egg like I did the others. That one belongs to our Golden Comet "Buffie". The stinker must have gotten in there early this morning because she usually lays early and she is pretty regular with an egg nearly every day. No egg today so far so must be hers. I pulled it. I guess I'm going to have to take a look at the amount of eggs in there everyday so this doesn't happen again. I want to section off the broody box so the others can't get to it but am afraid the girls will feel trapped and stop sitting. Should I go a head and section if off or wait until the eggs start to hatch. What would y'all do?

 

[michaelf]

@michaelf they are so pretty! Are they copper marans?

Thanks! Yes they are blue copper marans

 

[michaelf]

Those are some beautiful blues! So......How far are you from Nashville? (I drive for chickens). Would LOVE to have some of your blood line to improve my BCM's !!!

I live right in the middle of Ga.

 

[Roan]

my rubber gloves, Tyvek suit, fresh air mask and safety goggles all laid out and waiting for my candling adventure tomorrow.

u hatching dinosaur eggs again? Or skunks

Well I cheated and I'm glad I did. I haven't looked at the eggs since I transferred the girls to the new bigger nest box on Sunday I believe. I had an extra egg...

So...I had to look at them all to determine which one had been added and when. I saw things going on in all but one, also couldn't find an X on that egg like I did the others. That one belongs to our Golden Comet "Buffie". The stinker must have gotten in there early this morning because she usually lays early and she is pretty regular with an egg nearly every day. No egg today so far so must be hers. I pulled it. I guess I'm going to have to take a look at the amount of eggs in there everyday so this doesn't happen again. I want to section off the broody box so the others can't get to it but am afraid the girls will feel trapped and stop sitting. Should I go a head and section if off or wait until the eggs start to hatch. What would y'all do?

Of course, I can't speak for all breeds nor do I know how often you handle yours but...we've had RIR's, BR's and Ameracaunas go broody in the main hen house. So, we wait until they are settled (usually 3 or 4 days), then at night, we pick them up and their eggs and transfer them into a portable next box. After we've done that, we move them into a brooding pen.

One time, we had 3 hens go broody in 2 days so we went to work making 3 brooding pens. To conserve space, we just made one box divided into three nests and with steel gauge wire for the runs. They didn't even have a door to pen them in at night so they had 24 hour access to their runs. The run was as wide as the nest boxes and about 4 feet long and divided into 3 separate runs.

This set up worked extremely well until the babies hatched. The first couple of days, the chicks went into and out of each run and out of the runs altogether without incident. But the hens got agitated at the close proximity of the other mothers so something snapped in one then in the others and suddenly, the chicks were the targets. They would call the chicks to them, then when the chicks came in, they would attack them. One of the babies suffered and incredibly dangerous head blow and we had to put it out of its misery.

But the point of all of this is, you should be able to pick them up at night and move them to a new location but be sure the new location is in a smallish run so they don't get confused as to where their nest is.

 

[misfitmorgan]

my rubber gloves, Tyvek suit, fresh air mask and safety goggles all laid out and waiting for my candling adventure tomorrow.

Your not being serious about wearing all that stuff to candle eggs are you?

 

[bamadude]

Anybody wanna guess what I wear during candling?

 

[hennible]

A speedo

 

[Roan]

Anybody wanna guess what I wear during candling?

A speedo

That was gonna be my guess too!