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

[satay]

Hi I have 3 Rhode Island reds and four black ladies (not sure on their breed but they've got kind of a greenish tinge to their feathers and bright red crests?)
We're in Mackay of QLD living on my husbands cane farm. We currently have issues with snakes, water rats and in summer goanna so we are in the process of doing a total rebuild of the coop and make our feather babies a brilliant new home

Hi welcome Trish. Your black ones sound like Australorps.

 

[TheChookPatch]

Hi Trish, Cute babies Kat and Satay, I've got one baby so far from this hatch... She looks really good so far, hatch day is officially after 9pm, only a few pipping, lots shaking. I'm hoping all the power outs haven't done too much damage... I'm on mains powers here, the generator is just because the power goes out so much but I need to get one that works, this old one I have has had it...
It was a new cheap incubator luke, it has a warranty but the guy says that if I return it and they test it to be functional they will charge me for testing it. Who knows what they deem functional. He also said that he will only give me a partial refund if it has been used but told me that they would not take me seriously until I have had an unsuccessful hatch. Thus having to use it so I won't get all my money back.... DODGY! DODGY! DODGY! I got a bellsouth glass thermometer with my new rcom and used that inside the crap bator which is more accurate than the digital ones that I calibrated.. I might just use it as a hatcher for my cross breeds, dunno....

 

[cluckcluckluke]

Welcome Trish, good luck with it all.

If you upload some photo's of your black hens I can ID them for you, but I am assuming from your description they are Black Sex-Links.

 

[cluckcluckluke]

Buggers are all these commercial companies these days.lol. They seem to have a trick for everything, like seriously how much would that bator cost them compared to how much they are selling it for.
Hope you sort it all out.

 

[Sunnylee]

Hi all, Im on the South East Coast of NSW and have just recently located from the city and have fallen head over heels for chickens. I have 3 clucky hens and have reached 21 days with still none hatched. Is it too cold this time of the year for my chickens to be sitting? Appreciate all comments, I love my chickens. oh and Yes we have roosters

 

[TheChookPatch]

Hi all, Im on the South East Coast of NSW and have just recently located from the city and have fallen head over heels for chickens. I have 3 clucky hens and have reached 21 days with still none hatched. Is it too cold this time of the year for my chickens to be sitting? Appreciate all comments, I love my chickens. oh and Yes we have roosters

Hi Sunnylee, clucky hens can sit up to 28 days I believe to successfully hatch their chicks. And because it is cold they might be more likely to go over 21 days... If you are really worried and the hens let you, you could quickly candle them and see if there is anything happening in there. I would probably let them go a few more days before getting too worried though. Might be best to hear from one of the others on here who have frequent clucky hens though, I don't get too many with the breeds I keep...

 

[Pinky Macgyver]

I'm sorry about your incubator trouble, I feel your pain.
On another note, did you see the man on the marans fb page selling black copper trios (or quads, can't remember) for $600? I messaged him to see if he had a single hen available but apparently everything he had sold in minutes. Anyway, he had some eggs under a broody and said I could have the chicks so long story short, I'll have some black copper marans chicks soon I may be falling for the ol high cost=high quality thing but the chicks were actually pretty cheap compared to how much the adults were.

 

[TheChookPatch]

Yay Pinky! I didn't see the add, I might go back through and see how they look though, $600 for 4 chooks is really expensive, I feel bad charging how much I charge for mine but that makes me feel way better. Is that a picture of his chicks and eggs?

 

[Trish28]

Welcome Trish, good luck with it all.

If you upload some photo's of your black hens I can ID them for you, but I am assuming from your description they are Black Sex-Links.

 

Thanks. I will try and upload some photos in the morning They're still pretty skittish of us so won't let us close to them most of the time which is sad as our new Rhode Island reds peck me for a pat lol

 

[Trish28]

Oh, Also, I'm wanting to start looking into getting a rooster so we can breed our chickens (not for sale but hopefully some for meat purposes?), Could I put one straight into the same coop as our ladies and what would I do once we started getting suspected fertile eggs? All our girls lay in the same coop so would I keep roo separate and then just add a broody chookie in with him and go from there?