7th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2016 Hatch-A-Long

[Cynthia12]

What bedding material do you use in the brooder? I've switched to using plain old dirt out of compost pile. For the last three hatches anyways. They love it and far less poopy butts. Dust bathing in days. If I can find dry dirt this time around.

Outdoors, for the babies! Lucky!! I use sawdust, in a bin, in the house! There is snow out there, and we are getting close to 0 degrees at night. Don't mind the snow at all, but this cold is not a good thing at all. The furnace is on, then off, then on again in no time all through the night. Brrrr....

 

[Cynthia12]

sorry to say that at that age he is probably infertile. But I wouldn't be completely sure... I haven't had that yet... roosters develop at different ages

I am finding this to be so true. My first rooster that I dared to keep until I got some fertile eggs, was 9 and a half months. My next rooster, was only 4 and a half months! And he was fertilizing eggs! Now, this RIR boy started mating at 6 months, didn't crow until a couple of weeks after he started breeding. His eggs are fertile.

 

[Cynthia12]

A picture from todays egg collectionPullet SFH, BCM, pullet GCM, Isabelle Leghorn, pullet isbar. Thank goodness for the pullets! 21 eggs went into lockdown. Currently 16 have hatched and more are pipping. Today is day 21. I've got an incubator full of SFH and Isabelle leghorns!

Cute chicks!

 

[Cynthia12]

ok so with all the talk of drawing down (sorry to ask the question again) What is it... I thought it was the air cell? is this correct?

Ok, take a look at that egg on the top left, second egg down. You can see where I've drawn the line as to where the air sac is. This egg shows the draw down better than the others on here. You may be able to click on this photo to make it larger. You can see that the l have the drawn part facing up.

No, won't go bigger, go to post 3530..page 353.

 

[LocalYokel]

Oh my. The worst I got hit was a skunk that took 9 six week olds in one night. Ate their heads off and left the rest, sickening. Thought I had the problem fixed and he came back the next night and got three more.
I had a dog once that ate two of my roosters. I cured him of that. He was a great dog around them after that.

How did you cure the Dog?

 

[LocalYokel]

Go chicks!
Shipped eggs during the first week can be bad for the eggs.

Why's that?

 

[LocalYokel]

I love this for candling my eggs, from the turner/carton.
I lost mine and had to buy another.
I wanted to let yall know the combo is awesome and the smaller one runs off one AAA and is GREAT for quail eggs!
For those of you who hatchem!

 

[Jessimom]

Quote: Wow, I don't know what I would do! My dog LOVES the chickens. I had a silkie baby pop out of her broody cage and the dog pushed her along with her nose over to us. She'll charge over to the pen with the adults and stick her nose in and let the hens peck it. Strange. I did have hawks kill a few silkies. But not my entire flock. I'm so sorry!!!!

Good luck with your start over!!! Happy hatching!!

 

[Mirajane]

Hello Everyone! My name is Mirajane, but I'd like it if you called me Mira. I set eggs to hatch on the 1st. I just joined today, but I was wondering if I could still participate? I don't need any prizes, I just wanted to know if I could hatch with everyone and be counted. I wanted my chicks to hatch on New Years, and didn't even know about this site until today.

 

[yummychocolate3]

I have 7 viable eggs! Is lock down tomorrow at 12 noon? Pacific Standard Time???