Adventures in Incubating Shipped Eggs

[Zinjifrah]

I'm not incubating shipped eggs right now, but the nine that are left out of twelve looked alive and thriving at lockdown yesterday. One of them was wiggling last night. Hatch is due Wednesday...

So I grabbed my handy dandy spay bottle of disinfectant to go sanitize the brooder one more time, sprayed everything down, wiped it off, sprayed it again and left it to dry. The cleaner that I have on hand for disinfecting snake tubs as I clean them.

And then it occurred to me... is this stuff actually safe for chickens...?

So I ran to Google to find out. And lo and behold, what answers come up? This place. However, I hunted through all the responses from BYC until I actually found some referencing veterinary practices, and confirmed that yes - Chlorhexidine solution is perfectly fine for chickens, at the percentage I mix it at. It's amusing me just how much of my 'snake stuff' is perfect for 'chicken stuff' as well. They even like the frozen (thawed) pink mice the smallest Kingsnake doesn't eat.

 

[Morrigan]

They even like the frozen (thawed) pink mice the smallest Kingsnake doesn't eat.

Although I did see two of my chickens fighting over a dead pocket gopher the other day. I wish more of them would develop a taste for those things, they are such a nuisance.

 

[Zinjifrah]

Although I did see two of my chickens fighting over a dead pocket gopher the other day. I wish more of them would develop a taste for those things, they are such a nuisance.

Ugh, indeed. The one I caught here was about three pounds - way too big for a chicken to eat. It may have been bigger than that, I just estimated. It ate very well over the winter... two apple trees, a peach tree, a maple, a crabapple, some honeysuckle, all of my flower bulbs almost, rugosa roses....

Big fat male. And then no sooner did I get it trapped and disposed of, another one moved in. It was a small one, though - and I had it caught and disposed of before it could do much damage. Or 'normal' sized, just small compared to the first one. Maybe a pound. After all the damage the first one did, I've had to make a no tolerance policy - the live traps don't work. The kill traps do. Repellents don't work, either.

 

[Rebel58]

I'm not incubating shipped eggs right now, but the nine that are left out of twelve looked alive and thriving at lockdown yesterday. One of them was wiggling last night. Hatch is due Wednesday...

So I grabbed my handy dandy spay bottle of disinfectant to go sanitize the brooder one more time, sprayed everything down, wiped it off, sprayed it again and left it to dry. The cleaner that I have on hand for disinfecting snake tubs as I clean them.

And then it occurred to me... is this stuff actually safe for chickens...?

So I ran to Google to find out. And lo and behold, what answers come up? This place. However, I hunted through all the responses from BYC until I actually found some referencing veterinary practices, and confirmed that yes - Chlorhexidine solution is perfectly fine for chickens, at the percentage I mix it at. It's amusing me just how much of my 'snake stuff' is perfect for 'chicken stuff' as well. They even like the frozen (thawed) pink mice the smallest Kingsnake doesn't eat.

Fingers crossed for a good hatch.

 

[Zinjifrah]

Fingers crossed for a good hatch.

You need to go easy on the finger crossing! Hatch day isn't until Wednesday, and I just came back inside from hosing down the chicken run to discover a pip!

 

[Cerise1924]

You need to go easy on the finger crossing! Hatch day isn't until Wednesday, and I just came back inside from hosing down the chicken run to discover a pip!

Well, that's exciting!

 

[Zinjifrah]

I have two "kill traps" that wandered up to the porch and moved in with us last fall - a ginger tabby and a grey tabby. Here's the ginger boy chilling with the hens. You can see that the ladies trust him: heads-down, fluff-up and foraging. He grabs snakes and mice, but won't harm the hens. His grey sister is quite the predator. She once brought me a shrew! I had to look up "mouse with beak," because I'd never seen a shrew before. I don't fully trust her with chicks, but so far she hasn't made a move on any of the poultry, and my apples, crabapple, nectarine, honeysuckle, roses and flower bulbs are safe.

Maybe you need a barn cat? View attachment 1444368 View attachment 1444370

No barn cats. Cats around here have a very short life expectancy if left outside. I have two cats who are not allowed outside, and they're healthy and happy. As it is, there are way too many feral cats dumped out in this area. I do not feed them. There's no TNR program here, and it would cost me about $300-$400 each to have them neutered. The animal shelters don't take cats. They recommend shooting them. Domestic and feral felines are responsible for a remarkable number of small animal kills, usually small birds, to the point that in some areas they pose a serious threat to population viability. That's more extreme in some locations than others - it's certainly more extreme in places like MacQuarie Island, where they pose a severe threat to penguin hatchlings, and New Zealand, where there are a number of flightless birds, than here in the middle of the US. But it's still a viable concern.

Sorry, a bit of a soap box of mine. I'm tired of having cats dumped near me, bringing in diseases, having kittens all over the place (Apparently it's much easier to blame the cat for getting pregnant, and dump it, than it is to be a responsible animal owner and get your cat neutered) and drawing the coyotes in by providing them with easy meals.

Also... there's a second pip. Yeesh. Silly birds don't know it's early.


The problem with the gophers was that I spent too much time trying to find a way to get rid of it without killing it, before I caved and got a trap. Once I did that, it was dead within four hours of setting the trap. The second one took me about two hours. I'm not sure how fast the first one was caught, because I left after setting it and didn't get home until four hours later. 'Cinch' traps work very well.

 

[auroaSfarm]

Anybody know what grit is good for, for chicks?

 

[Zinjifrah]

Anybody know what grit is good for, for chicks?

If you're just feeding chick crumble, then the general consensus seems to be that it's not necessary. I provide it for mine, because they also get foraging time outside, and it helps to grind up the bugs/grass/etcetera that they brows on, just as it does with adult chickens. To my understanding, if they're eating anything other than chick crumble, they should have it available.

 

[Zinjifrah]

Oy. I have a hatchling. Egg #8 just zipped and popped out in about fifteen minutes, only about four hours after its external pip. I couldn't get a good photo - this LG incubator clouds up too much on the little viewing ports.