Arizona Chickens

[Mahonri]

Have you ever hit post reply and then forget what you were going to answer.

Must be lack of sleep or half timers...

oh yeah, they say keep eggs at 50 degrees and you can store for up to two weeks prior to placement in the bator.
Then there are those who belong to the Trader Joe's club that pic up eggs that have been layed & refrigerated perhaps 3 weeks prior and they still hatch a few of those white leghorns.

After I put the shipped eggs in, I'll put my most recent eggs in (I've been marking the day collected on the top)
I've always just kept mine at about 70 degrees and I've rotated them 3 to 4 times a day at an angle before they go to someone to hatch or before I hatch them... it must work because I've had folks get 15 of 16 to hatch before.

Last year I caught an egg as it came out of the chicken and promptly placed it in the incubator the day I had set eggs. It was the first one to hatch.

 

[Nuclear Chickens]

NoSkiveez- Update on the eggs you gave me to test the Incubator. Today is day 18. I candled and here are the results. 5 SLW eggs with lots of movement. 2BOs with lots of movement. 7 of the original 9 are progressing. Thanks again for the eggs.

 

[chillmiller]

good morning guys the pigeons that have made the space where the soffit as fallen off ( right outside my bedroom window)

have awoken

it sounds like a flock of angry silkys trying to pound there way through my ceiling

 

[5pinkarrows]

My 12yo daughter and I have really enjoyed reading the posts about the poultry show. She really thought it was cool that a homeschooler showed and won.

All of this talk has her really wanting to show chickens. That's great, but I am afraid I have NO knowledge about this stuff. We decided to try to go to the Tucson show in March. Since it is a small show (right?) it might be a good place to start. We have a few questions (no surprise there).
1. Am I correct that you can show your hens and roosters?
2. What is the cost to enter each bird?
3. We thought maybe it would be nice to start with our rooster, but we have no idea if he is show quality or not. I don't know if we should buy a new couple of chicks from someone that raises show quality, or start within our own flock. Anyway, here is our silkie rooster. Can anyone tell me if he would be show quality if he was cleaned up a bit? He had been rolling in the black dirt a little. Hee hee!
TIA!
Ginger

 

[5pinkarrows]

Bob's Henhouse :

So, do ground up hot peppers work the same as cayenne pepper in the feed to get the ladies laying again? I've got a pepper plant the has peppers that will take the skin off the roof of your mouth. I've noticed that the chickens will eat them when they get into the garden, so I picked half a blender full, ground them up added some scratch, calf manna, and poured it into trays for them (and the ducklings) to eat tonight. If I hear them squawking in the middle of the night I'll know it has the same effect on them as on me.

That cracked me up! So, how did it work?

~Ginger​

 

[Mahonri]

Everybody is up and awake and I want to go back to sleep. Those roos just don't stop crowing.

 

[pastrymama]

well shoot, it looks like i am in the same crappy boat as everyone else. one of my best layers, a rhode island red, has stopped laying! she is from an april hatch, so what the ****???????? she does not seem sick, she is running around eating, drinking, getting jumped by the young roo, but no eggs for 4 days. i checked, does not seem to have a stuck egg, tried to check for "critters" on her but she clearly didn't like it and almost pecked me in the eye, she's kinda mean that big red hen. so is it chili powder and calf manna, plus bob's superhot garden chilis?


the only thing i did diffrent this week was switch them from tripl duty to egg maker and put in a 15 watt bulb instead of the 25 watt bulb. everyone else is still laying.

 

[NoSkiveez]

Bob's Henhouse :

Oh come on Mahonri, you still have room back there.

How long are fertile eggs viable, and at what temp do they need to be stored? I've seen a couple of different answers, but most don't suggest more than a few days.

The oldest egg I've put in was about 14 days old. My last hatch in the prefab incubator and both hatched. No issues. I'm sure fresh is best. From what I understand hatchability decreases with each day after its laid. I prefer my eggs to be under 10 days old. If I was going tp buy shipped eggs I would want them collected in a 3 day time period and shipped on a Monday or Tuesday so they would arrive under 10 days old.​

 

[NoSkiveez]

Quote:
Were the other two clear or stop progressing somewhere along the way?

I think I am only 3 days behind you in hatch.

 

[NoSkiveez]

Quote:
I did a food switch over the summer and everyone stopped laying abruptly. I was getting eggs like clockwork and they just stopped. It took a fee weeks for them to start laying again. There was another factor involved that could have played a roll. I used to hose my coops down to cool them off, then my chicks got sick and I stopped hosing all coops because I thought I could make my older chickens sick as well. But that wasn't possible. That all happened with about 24 hours so I'm not sure which played a role in stopping production.