Australia - Six states..and that funny little island.

[vehve]

Tandy, I'm liking your bator build. But is the temp range a bit large? I think a 1C range would be enough. Just my two cents though. Filling the whole base with water sounds like it will raise the humidity a bit too much, but then again, I'm not really familiar with your climate. Personally, I've decided I prefer hatching with a broody, our hatching is so small scale that it's a lot less effort. Building a bator would be interesting though.

 

[tandykins]

Tandy, I'm liking your bator build. But is the temp range a bit large? I think a 1C range would be enough. Just my two cents though. Filling the whole base with water sounds like it will raise the humidity a bit too much, but then again, I'm not really familiar with your climate. Personally, I've decided I prefer hatching with a broody, our hatching is so small scale that it's a lot less effort. Building a bator would be interesting though.

Thank you. Frankly yes, I think so. I'd like to see it hover around a 1C range. I think he allowed a 2C range to reduce the amount of time the light spent being on - but I think be better if we could keep it constantly closer to 37.5.

I think I'd prefer the light turning on more often than such a high variation. It would be simple enough to control.

We actually briefly did have the whole bottom filled with water and it didn't really get the humidity up past 30% without closing vents or increasing the surface area of moisture (like with folded paper towels). We live near Canberra so it's rather dry but not too terrible.

However, the fans control the humidity. When the humidity gets above an acceptable range they vent the moisture from the incubator. But without a surface area of water large enough during lockdown we can't even achieve humidity high enough.

Keeping in mind that this was just the first test. On the graph the large changes in temp are from the constant opening of the incubator.

My last broody hatch we ended up with a 17% hatch rate. Pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I wanted to make it as controllable as possible.

 

[tandykins]

Tandy, I'm liking your bator build. But is the temp range a bit large? I think a 1C range would be enough. Just my two cents though. Filling the whole base with water sounds like it will raise the humidity a bit too much, but then again, I'm not really familiar with your climate. Personally, I've decided I prefer hatching with a broody, our hatching is so small scale that it's a lot less effort. Building a bator would be interesting though.

Thank you. Frankly yes, I think so. I'd like to see it hover around a 1C range. I think he allowed a 2C range to reduce the amount of time the light spent being on - but I think be better if we could keep it constantly closer to 37.5.

I think I'd prefer the light turning on more often than such a high variation. It would be simple enough to control.

We actually briefly did have the whole bottom filled with water and it didn't really get the humidity up past 30% without closing vents or increasing the surface area of moisture (like with folded paper towels). We live near Canberra so it's rather dry but not too terrible.

However, the fans control the humidity. When the humidity gets above an acceptable range they vent the moisture from the incubator. But without a surface area of water large enough during lockdown we can't even achieve humidity

Keeping in mind that this was just the first test. On the graph the large changes in temp are from the constant opening of the incubator.

My last broody hatch we ended up with a 17% hatch rate. Pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I wanted to make it as controllable as possible.

 

[tandykins]

Tandy, I'm liking your bator build. But is the temp range a bit large? I think a 1C range would be enough. Just my two cents though. Filling the whole base with water sounds like it will raise the humidity a bit too much, but then again, I'm not really familiar with your climate. Personally, I've decided I prefer hatching with a broody, our hatching is so small scale that it's a lot less effort. Building a bator would be interesting though.

Thank you. Frankly yes, I think so. I'd like to see it hover around a 1C range. I think he allowed a 2C range to reduce the amount of time the light spent being on - but I think be better if we could keep it constantly closer to 37.5.

I think I'd prefer the light turning on more often than such a high variation. It would be simple enough to control.

We actually briefly did have the whole bottom filled with water and it didn't really get the humidity up past 30% without closing vents or increasing the surface area of moisture (like with folded paper towels). We live near Canberra so it's rather dry but not too terrible.

However, the fans control the humidity. When the humidity gets above an acceptable range they vent the moisture from the incubator. But without a surface area of water large enough during lockdown we can't even achieve humidity

Keeping in mind that this was just the first test. On the graph the large changes in temp are from the constant opening of the incubator.

My last broody hatch we ended up with a 17% hatch rate. Pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I wanted to make it as controllable as possible.

 

[Teila]

Howdy folks

I have been lurking and keeping up with the posts but have not had time to reply until now.

Sidhe13 I so hope that you have a better hatch this time around!

satay your baby quails are adorable!

cwrite Dusty cornered a Dove in the run once and proceeded to remove all of it’s tail feathers!

Tail feathers:



No tail feathers

tandykins congrats on the bubbies, soo cute! More emphasised congrats on the save also!

Good to see you again vehve the snow pictures are beautiful; I especially love the fifth one in, looks like a frozen waterfall.

Congratulations on the bubs. I have a broody and chicks of my own that I can listen to but watching your video and listening to the bubs peep, the mum’s talking to them and the alarm calls is so nice; can’t get enough of it.

I saw the bunny home you built on one of the other threads and just wanted to say that you did a great job! Looks fantastic!

Looking forward to baby bunny pictures

So, we had lots of rain again today and once again, we flooded. Cilla and the Nuggets spent the majority of the morning hiding in the nest box and on the balcony, watching the water flow through their run.

It is not that their run is in the wrong spot, it is just that we have had so much rain of late any heavy downpour has nowhere to go and sadly we are lower than next door; at least they all have high, dry ground to sit and wait for the tide to go back out.

It rained so hard, knocked a poor little Dove out of the tree and onto the ground; sadly he didn’t make it

Hubby is getting the materials for the run extension tomorrow as we figured Good Friday was a good day to make a start, nothing much else going on; weather permitting of course.

 

[vehve]

Tandy, just a thought, but have you tried a sponge instead of the fabric? They wick up water and provide a humongous moist surface.

Teila, it is a frozen water fall, just not a very big one.

Thank's for the compliment. Here's a pic of the bunny pen in case someone's interested.

 

[tandykins]

Tandy, just a thought, but have you tried a sponge instead of the fabric? They wick up water and provide a humongous moist surface.

Teila, it is a frozen water fall, just not a very big one.

Thank's for the compliment. Here's a pic of the bunny pen in case someone's interested.

Yes - we tried sponges but the paper towel seemed to help more. However, at the time we needed to act quickly and only had kitchen sponges. I think that next time I'm going to try a large car wash sponge, a bowl full of sea sponges or one of the loofah gourds from my garden.

That's a nice bunny pen you have there! I'm jealous!

 

[tandykins]

Oh, just in case anyone is interested - there's a Chicken Behaviour and Welfare class starting on Coursera.org in the next day or two. It's free unless you want to take the Signature Track (A$63) and is through the University of Edinburgh which has quite well done classes.

https://www.coursera.org/course/chickens
Again - it's free unless you want a fancy certificate that is verifiable.

I'm also running a Facebook-based study group for the class if anyone wants to join that.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/394581767368173/

 

[RodneyRooster]

Wow! Yes very nerdy household lol. So complicated! Fantastic that u can do all that tho and although u and the hubby obviously have completely different opinions all the time haha u seem to work really well together

Wow those snow pictures are BEAUTIFUL!

Thx for info tandy id love to do it if i werent already crazy busy studying! Haha. Goodluck to all who do it

Oh no not another flood teila! Wow u do get a lot of rain. Ours are always dribbles lol.

Chickens still not accepting the new girls.. any input there? :-( cheers

 

[vehve]

Rod, how have you gone about introducing them? For me, the easiest way has just been to plunk new arrivals in with the old ones, and let them settle things on their own, but some swear by using a wire separator between them for a while so that they can see each other but not get physical about their disagreements. Also, I think it's easier to have some sort of balance when introducing new ones. Putting three older ones in with 6 young pullets work, or if they're the same size and age, combining equally sized groups. Of course, the groups you start with should get along by themselves to begin with.