Backyard Brahmas!!

[yardbird53]

Me too! How do chickens do in winters in your area of SD? We want to move there eventually and I've been thinking on how to do my chicken area.

 

[yardbird53]

sand and dirt. Somehow they manage to get the feathers clean again.

 

[City farm]

I've got 2 light Brahamas. They are very vocal girls, much more vocal than my other hens. Here they are a biddies and then at 4 months old. They love to eat! [COLOR=B42000] [/COLOR]

Do your girl's eat the piñon.. Or just diging for bug's? Shoot I just cahnged my setting and it keep's correcting. PiNON.. There..

 

[SD Bird Lady]

Me too!  How do chickens do in winters in your area of SD?  We want to move there eventually and I've been thinking on how to do my chicken area.

They do well, I simply have a chain link run connected to a small garden shed. I have electric fencing along the bottom for predators.
ETA: We live in the south central/south eastern part of the state. Where the Missouri river crosses into Nebraska. Not as cold as northern and not as wide open as western. But we definitely see all the seasons in their glory haha

 

[shelleyd2008]

Excellent. I figured if I asked the question enough times SOMEONE would tell me I needed a silkie! Haha! Just kidding. My girls range in age from 1-7 years so I think it may well be in their makeup. Who knows...

Honestly, I don't get the hype with silkies. I have some, and while they do go broody at the drop of a hat, they are not very good hatchers. Give me an OEG or OEGB any day

 

[mes]

Honestly, I don't get the hype with silkies. I have some, and while they do go broody at the drop of a hat, they are not very good hatchers. Give me an OEG or OEGB any day

I think silkies are ridiculously cute.

 

[bumpercarr]

Silkies can be good hatchers if you limit the number of eggs that you give them to cover. Since they are small birds, they need to only cover a few large fowl eggs in order to be successful (again, my opinion). With that said, I don't particularly like silkies for myself. If I were to try to get a broody, I would probably look for a heritage bred Orpington to mix into my brahma flock. But, I just use an incubator as a rule and give any of the broody girls eggs when they go broody and slip any extra chicks that I hatched in the bator under them when their own eggs hatch (or don't). There is an old fashioned broody hen thread on here somewhere, you can get a lot of information from there.

@mes , the biggest problem that the two of us have is altitude. High altitude hatching is a real crap shoot, even when you use your own eggs. Even worse when you use shipped eggs. I think I finally have a handle on it. I've had to go to a cabinet incubator in order to give the eggs lots of oxygen inside the bator (also have automatic humidity control). That has improved the hatch rate on my own eggs from about 40% to over 80%, but I've only hatched in it twice this year so far. So far I'm thrilled with the results. Let's hope that it stays up there. The first hatch I put in 8 eggs, only two were fertile but both of those hatched. The second hatch I put in 16 eggs, 14 were fertile and all 14 hatched. I know that is 100% of the fertile eggs hatching, but I'm not a great candler so I'm hedging my bets by saying 80%. Either way, I'm thrilled with the results. Earlier in the fall, one of the girls went broody and I put 4 fertilized eggs under her. Out of those 4, only two started and only one hatched. Whether it was altitude or she didn't set tight I don't know, but that was my experience last year in the bator as well so I suspect altitude.

Anyway, some food for thought for you.

 

[mes]

@bumpercarr yes...altitude is definitely part of the challenge! Like you, my incubator success is off to a good start. I have begun incubating through day 18 in a Brinsea Octagon 20 and then moving into a styrofoam hovabator for lockdown. It is working well for me so far (so the silkie is a bit of a pipe dream). I'd say 80% is great. Previously, 50% was my hatch rate - but that was with the hovabator alone. The Brinsea seems to have stepped things up quite a bit. I resisted buying a different incubator for a while - it is likely going to prove its value fairly fast.

 

[bumpercarr]

@bumpercarr yes...altitude is definitely part of the challenge! Like you, my incubator success is off to a good start. I have begun incubating through day 18 in a Brinsea Octagon 20 and then moving into a styrofoam hovabator for lockdown. It is working well for me so far (so the silkie is a bit of a pipe dream). I'd say 80% is great. Previously, 50% was my hatch rate - but that was with the hovabator alone. The Brinsea seems to have stepped things up quite a bit. I resisted buying a different incubator for a while - it is likely going to prove its value fairly fast.

I thought about the Brinsea but ended up going with the Sportsman 1502. Not that I'll ever try to hatch 270 eggs...LOL. Just thought that maybe with all of that space I wouldn't have any more oxygen problems. I've been losing my starters at about day 17-hatch before this. Now those that start are making it to the end. I also think the humidity control might have been a big help as well.

 

[mes]

Here are the splash brahma's first chicks at ~ 1 week. One seems lighter than the other to me. Maybe a blue and a black. I am glad I don't have capacity for 270 eggs. Too tempting! Haha!