Bob Blosl's Heritage Large Fowl Thread

[BarnGoddess01]

Quote:
Hens don't provide forced air or artificial heat. Their "heat" is moist heat. The forced and still air heat in incubators sucks the moisture out of the air making conditions too dry for the chicks to have any chance of making it out in many environments and circumstances. I've also seen my hens help the slow-pokes. We have to provide moisture in such artificial circumstances as an incubator. Just as I have to humidify my house during the winter months when the furnace is on or my hair stands on end, wood furniture splits, and I get shocks from everything I touch including the cats which, I can assure you does NOT amuse them!

 

[fowlman01]

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

Hatching

 

[BarnGoddess01]

http://incubatorwarehouse.com/incubating-eggs/getting-started-egg-incubating <---- These guys use the term "lock-down" and they explain it ....

 

[HEChicken]

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.

Gotcha!

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.

This has been a good discussion. I think of "heritage" in the context of a breed versus a particular line of a breed. I.e. a Rhode Island Red is a heritage breed vs. one of the new-fangled breeds that has recently been created.

Hens don't provide forced air or artificial heat. Their "heat" is moist heat. The forced and still air heat in incubators sucks the moisture out of the air making conditions too dry for the chicks to have any chance of making it out in many environments and circumstances. I've also seen my hens help the slow-pokes. We have to provide moisture in such artificial circumstances as an incubator. Just as I have to humidify my house during the winter months when the furnace is on or my hair stands on end, wood furniture splits, and I get shocks from everything I touch including the cats which, I can assure you does NOT amuse them!

Oh I totally agree and I up the humidity at the end myself since I have had good results by doing so. My point was really that the hen is unable to raise the humidity by 30% right at the end - the eggs are subject to much the same humidity throughout incubation.

 

[fowlman01]

Hey Walt, as an Aussie, a "roo" to me is still a Kangaroo

That said, please educate me on the correct terminology. I have always used "hen" and "rooster" to differentiate female from male, with "pullet" and "cockerel" indicating they are young birds of those same genders. I think of "Cock" as the British term for "Rooster", (although it clearly was an American term when the Wright Brothers were having their heydey, since "cockpit" derives from "cock" for "male" because the early pilots were all males...but I digress). I figured it went out of style to use the term "cock" here because the word now has other meanings. Are you saying that "rooster" is NOT the correct terminology for an adult male chicken?

I think of a kangaroo when I see roo posted too. People seem to have a problem using words like cock and ***** when refering to chickens or dogs...it's just one of those words that some folks are not comfortable using. In my circle cock, cockerel, hen and pullet are used often as ***** is used often in my wife's world of dogs. It will be interesting to see if ***** makes it through the naughty words filter here on BYC.

Rooster is a very acceptable term with the people I know...it just does not give you a sense of age.


ahahahaha the female dog term is forbidden here..........LOL

Walt

 

[bnjrob]

Hens don't provide forced air or artificial heat. Their "heat" is moist heat. The forced and still air heat in incubators sucks the moisture out of the air making conditions too dry for the chicks to have any chance of making it out in many environments and circumstances. I've also seen my hens help the slow-pokes. We have to provide moisture in such artificial circumstances as an incubator. Just as I have to humidify my house during the winter months when the furnace is on or my hair stands on end, wood furniture splits, and I get shocks from everything I touch including the cats which, I can assure you does NOT amuse them!

So have you compared successful hatches/chick raising between your hens and incubator hatching?

We had several go broody on us the past couple of months. Let one finish some eggs that had been in the incubator - one out of 3 eggs that I gave her hatched but several days later I found the chick squished flat underneath her.

I'd really like to go more natural - wanting to get back to old fashioned homestead birds including having them hatch and raise the chicks. Just a little leery of letting any more broody hens go ahead and hatch when the breeding flock is still small and losing just one is frustrating. Hardly anyone these days seems to do the natural hatch thing to give information on their experiences, so I don't know if it is even worth it to have "natural" hatching/raising as a goal.

 

[fowlman01]

Hens don't provide forced air or artificial heat. Their "heat" is moist heat. The forced and still air heat in incubators sucks the moisture out of the air making conditions too dry for the chicks to have any chance of making it out in many environments and circumstances. I've also seen my hens help the slow-pokes. We have to provide moisture in such artificial circumstances as an incubator. Just as I have to humidify my house during the winter months when the furnace is on or my hair stands on end, wood furniture splits, and I get shocks from everything I touch including the cats which, I can assure you does NOT amuse them!

Do you have any pictures of you with your hair standing on end? I would kind of like seeing that. As noted, your location has a lot to do with how the incubator works. I have hens that stay off the nest for quite a while sometimes and it doesn't seem to make a difference which stage the hatch is in. Hens are the most effecient hatching machines and if you watch some hens, they don't replicate what you might have to do with artificial incubation. IMO I think diet is far more important than degree's and humidity in an incubator.

Walt

 

[HEChicken]

bnjrob, I'm sorry your first broody hatch didn't go so well. My experience has been the opposite so I would encourage you to try again. I incubated first (always wanted a broody but had to wait 3 years to get one - now I've got several). My first hatch yielded 4 chicks starting with 11 eggs. The second incubation of shipped eggs yielded just one chick. Then my first hen went broody and I gave her a dozen eggs, out of which she hatched 7 chicks. The next broody was a bantam and I gave her 3 eggs and wound up with 2 chicks. I later opened the unhatched egg and it was clear so nothing she did would have made a difference there. Both times the hens were excellent mothers. The first raised all 7 without losing one, and kept them with her until they were 15 weeks old. The second raised them until 5 weeks, at which point they ditched her and she finally gave up trying to keep them with her and went back to laying.

I do run my incubator as it allows me to pick and choose when I have chicks, and brooder raised chicks are always more handleable as adults, but I also give any hen who goes broody a few eggs to sit on as I love watching them mother their young. Plus, the best way I know to break a broody is to allow her to hatch chicks.

 

[fowlman01]

http://incubatorwarehouse.com/incubating-eggs/getting-started-egg-incubating <---- These guys use the term "lock-down" and they explain it ....

I guess if it is online it must be correct.........I had never heard that term until I joined BYC....so that is about 45+ years I was unaware....
w.

 

[Wynette]

I guess "hatching" for me doens't really describe days 19, 20, 21....they're not actually hatching until day 21. But it doens't really bother me in any event, and I guess there's simply a lack of a true, "descriptive" word for the last 3 days.
I've actually seen Barb's hair standing on end, it's not as funny as you might think.

And...one last parting comment...."the female dog word" WOULD be allowed here, if this was a DOG forum.