Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[HEChicken]

Walt, you posted as I was typing...I'm a slow typer. Yup, yup! What is the correct term for "lockdown"?

Wynette, Walt will correct me if I'm wrong but I think what he might have been getting at is that there is really no such thing as "lockdown". Hens don't change much about the way they do things in the last 3 days, yet when incubating we treat that time period as though it is something different altogether. I've heard that hens don't get off the nest as much at the end, but as I can't spend 24/7 at my coop (much as I'd love to), I have no way of knowing if that is true or not. But their ability to raise the humidity 30% and lower the temperature by a degree is far more limited so it probably doesn't happen.

 

[BGMatt]

Just jumping in here...

APA says:
Cock = male chicken over a year
Hen = female chicken over a year
Cockerel = male under a year
Pullet = female under a year

I too am interested in correct term for "lockdown" I was very confused last month when I stumbled upon that term here. I always just said "eggs in the hatching tray" or "in the hatcher" depending on which if I was using multiple incubators at the time.

Add a plus one to the list of people that strongly dislike the term "roo". Also "heritage" and "designer" name "breeds" but that's probably due to my involvement with dogs and seething hatred for the "designer" breeds like whatever-doodles and the various other "cute" names people give to mutts to try and make money. But that's not a discussion for here.

 

[HEChicken]

APA says:
Cock = male chicken over a year
Hen = female chicken over a year
Cockerel = male under a year
Pullet = female under a year

Aha. So I was using 3 out of 4 correctly....interesting. Nevertheless, while I may change my use of the term on BYC, among my circle of friends, I might still use the word "rooster" since a) it is more widely understood and b) it doesn't have those connotations that could get me in trouble depending on how it is used in a sentence.

One more thing on the question of "lockdown", I think the term was probably coined to get beginning hatchers to leave the eggs alone there at the end, to hatch in peace.

 

[BGMatt]

I find myself using "male" a lot for the same reasons you describe. I try to type the correct terms but personally I use male and female and bird a lot, not because I don't know the correct terms but just because when I started with poultry, I was brought up by folks (myself soon included) that raised chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys do it was easier in conversation to do that rather than cock, hen, cockerel, pullet, drake, duck, gander, goose, tom, hen, chick, duckling, gosling, poult. Oh and we had pigeon people in the group too and I won't pretend to know what those correct terms are.

 

[ronott1]

Quote: GQF 1590 instructions say:

7. PREPAIRING FOR THE HATCH
A day or two before the scheduled hatch date (see list of hatching times) stop
turning the eggs. If the Automatic Egg Turner is being used, remove it and place
the eggs on the wire floor. Add clean water to both troughs to raise the humidity.
Replace the top on to the incubator and do not remove it until after the hatch.
Frequent removal of the top will expel the warm humid air which can slow the​

hatch process or possibly stop a hatch that is in progress.

 

[HEChicken]

GQF 1590 instructions say:

7. PREPAIRING FOR THE HATCH
A day or two before the scheduled hatch date (see list of hatching times) stop
turning the eggs. If the Automatic Egg Turner is being used, remove it and place
the eggs on the wire floor. Add clean water to both troughs to raise the humidity.
Replace the top on to the incubator and do not remove it until after the hatch.
Frequent removal of the top will expel the warm humid air which can slow the​

hatch process or possibly stop a hatch that is in progress.

I'm not sure of your point....unless you mean what I said about "leaving them alone". I simply meant not opening the incubator and handling them a lot at that point.

 

[winniem13]

Aha.  So I was using 3 out of 4 correctly....interesting.  Nevertheless, while I may change my use of the term on BYC, among my circle of friends, I might still use the word "rooster" since a) it is more widely understood and b) it doesn't have those connotations that could get me in trouble depending on how it is used in a sentence.

One more thing on the question of "lockdown", I think the term was probably coined to get beginning hatchers to leave the eggs alone there at the end, to hatch in peace.

In the 4H Guide to Raising Chickens, the definition they give for rooster is a male chicken of any age.
I know its not the APA, but its what I am teaching the youth in our group (we do pullet, hen, cockerel, rooster).

 

[ronott1]

Quote: No point really. Just that lockdown is not used here but no other term for that period other than "the hatch" is used. I like also that it says the last day or two. Some instructions want me to move them to the Hatcher 4 days before hatching. I have a hard time keeping humidity up for that long. I also have had several hatches where they Pipped(Is that a wrong term too?) on the turner before I moved them and raised humidity. They all hatched fine so I now lean more towards waiting.

I quoted your post to give context to my post: for continuity of discussion.

 

[3riverschick]

Adding the term Heritage to the name of any breed is starting to annoy me as much as SQ & fuzzy butt. They're Rhode Island Reds, not Heritage Rhode Island Reds. Some are well bred & meet the Standard description & some aren't but they're still Rhode Island Reds. There are some very poor examples of Rhode Island Reds pictured on this site with the term Heritage attached to their name. Used in that context it's a meaningless term.
Heritage, as used by the SPPA & the ALBC is a term meant to identify a class of birds, those belonging to breeds established prior to a point in history & that meet other criteria. It's not a term intended to identify a certain strain or a certain bird. On this site in particular it is so overused & improperly used as to be useless [and IMO it's not a very useful term in any context].

Sorry NYREDS. The bold type is what I was going for. Guess I was too terse in my writing. You do have a point, perhaps best to just not use "Heritage" at all.
Best,
Karen

 

[BGMatt]

In the 4H Guide to Raising Chickens, the definition they give for rooster is a male chicken of any age.
I know its not the APA, but its what I am teaching the youth in our group (we do pullet, hen, cockerel, rooster).

As someone who is a proud 4-H alumni, and has done a lot of work with the youth in the past, I ask please teach the correct terms. It's no different than any other animal (similar to dog's actually, where the correct terminology now has negative implications to an overly sensitive society, but is nonetheless important to know) and it's very important to know the correct names even if they aren't used all the time. Also creates a lot less confusion when the kids hopefully continue on in poultry. The next generation is the most vital part of this fancy and always has been (which you obviously know).

That being said, THANK YOU for volunteering your time to work with today's youth and bring them into the world of poultry!