California - Northern

[chiqita]

Try this:
Get a piece of turf for them as week old chicks. Leave them on not medicated feed. Watch the chicks and if they start showing symptoms(statue standing, fluffed up and walking slowly) treat with corid. Medicated feed is not high quality.

Also give them Big Ole Bird!

I have to treat sometimes. The Pene x Cl and Barnie hatch I have not had to treat. The hatch before that I had to treat. I have never lost a chick to coci. Even the slilkies I hatched. I did treat them with Corid just before they went to live with Amy Beth.

Debbie, sorry for your loss!

turf from the yard? Id run out of yard fast! Or turf from like home depot? but dons't that have all sorts of toxic crap on it? Or fodder with some of my dirt under it?

 

[ronott1]

Quote:
Just a couple of inch piece and just one per brooder group. You can just use dirt but they love the sod. It inoculates them to the coci at your place to help them slowly build up resistance. Coci usually is a problem at 6 to 12 weeks, often right at 8 or 9 weeks though.

Yes, from your place but Coci is so common you could get it from the side of the road or even down at the edge of that gully. Just make sure there is some dirt in it.

 

[ronott1]

Quote:
Just a couple of inch piece and just one per brooder group. You can just use dirt but they love the sod. It inoculates them to the coci at your place to help them slowly build up resistance. Coci usually is a problem at 6 to 12 weeks, often right at 8 or 9 weeks though.

Yes, from your place but Coci is so common you could get it from the side of the road or even down at the edge of that gully. Just make sure there is some dirt in it.
Edited to add: Assumes no pesticides used recently on the turf....I do not use pesticides on my lawn.

 

[liz9910]

Ron, you were right, chickens had worms! I wormed them last night and this morning found dead worms under the roost. They were very thin white worms about an inch long. Gross!!!!

 

[ronott1]

Ron, you were right, chickens had worms! I wormed them last night and this morning found dead worms under the roost. They were very thin white worms about an inch long. Gross!!!!

Those are round worms and good job getting rid of them! Retreat in 10 days and in 6 months either treat again or do a float test first.

Chickens are like puppies--they almost always have worms and it is important to worm them at 16 weeks or so.

 

[Deerling]

There is seriously so much amazing info in this thread. If I'm ever on bed rest or something (not pregnant, just hypothetically) I'm going to go through and make a document with the all the advice organized in it. I feel so bad for people who don't live in Northern California and don't have the privilege of all your company. And reading all this info about the Genisis 5800 is great! I think we'll order ours next month. (I had to cancel our order, just in case we need the extra money for chicken coop supplies.)

And thank you again so much for the kind words about our chickie. They were profoundly comforting.

 

[Nikon]

So when we get our chicks or pullets we should just worm them?

 

[ronott1]

So when we get our chicks or pullets we should just worm them?

Wait until they are 16 weeks old or so and you can have a sample of their poo tested first. UCD charges 10.50 for the test and they had the results back to me in two days.

It is at cahfs.ucdavis.edu

 

[Ali707]

I have my 10 eggs from chiqita in the incubator! Whoo hoo!!! I went ahead and followed the directions exactly. I did put the red food coloring in the water to make it easier to see. That's a great suggestion, Ron! I am going to leave the red plug in for 10 days and then remove it and snake my aquarium tubing through the hole to make adding water easier. Come on babies! Start to grow!!!

I should have remembered to use the food coloring, would have made it easier. I think I need a note book siting RIGHT here with me so that when I read all of these handy dandy tidbits, I write them down. Otherwise they go into that dark hole called my brain and get lost until someone says it AGAIN! Getting old stinks! I used to have a memory...... now all I have is vague recollections!

We can stumble through together! I couldn't wait for my quail eggs to get here so I went ahead and put 10 chicken eggs in. I can hardly wait until I candle them at day 10!

Well luckily I didn't have to wait for my eggs, because of my shipping delay they seemed to show up on the same day, BUT I didn't wait and verify the reading so I have been trying to do it after the fact. We will see what I get from the shipped quail eggs that I have no idea how long they were sitting outside, and coming from a blizzard area! They were probably frozen and then scrambled and then baked in the heat on my porch! lol

Good job both of you!

Ali: The link in my signature has a chart for candling and air cell size during incubation. If the seem to be off, you can adjust the humidity. Yes, the temps sound good! Do keep them closer to 100 especially if the quail need it. The chicken eggs do well there too.

If the eggs have lighter shells, you can usually see some veining at 5 days...or you could wait until day 7. If adding water thought, sneak in a candle or two

Ron you are so funny! You are assuming I have a flashlight that will be bright enough!

I was going to try it on Sunday with what I have here and see if I need to go get a brighter light. The quail eggs have big brown splotches on them so I am not sure how thick they are or how easy they will be to see through.

That is very tempting but I may be getting a shipment of Blue Australorp eggs on Wed. The Ducks hatch next weekend so the incubators will be very full. I need the second Genesis for hatching. I have 48 in the Brinsea and 17 in a genesis. I suppose I could squeeze in a bit over a dozen in the bator....Very tempting....

Do ducks quack when they hatch? If so that is going be something to hear at 3 in the morning....

I didn't even realize the Australorp come in different colors. I really like the black ones because of the beetle green and purple shine on their feathers. But they weren't the friendliest of chickens They weren't mean, just standoffish.. They did lay long pointy eggs of medium size though on a pretty regular basis, but mine were hatchery stock. I saw some at the Stockton show that were GIANT! They were so big! It was funny to see those GIANT birds lay the same medium pointy egg though. They were all laying about 10:30 that day so I got to see what they produced and compare it to my hatchery stock. For some reason in my mind if the bird is big they should have laid a big egg too! Right? Nope!

 

[ronott1]

Picture Day!

The Bresse are amazing! They are real foragers even in a tub brooder:

There are 11 that look like this at 2 weeks old:



They are on top of the large Urban Predator Proof Brooder. These are the Predators. Scary right?

Bubba:



Jasper:



This is my exotic chicken pen. The Partridge Pene is Calamity Jane! Believe it or not her wound is much better now. The two OEs are from Chiqita and one of them lays those Pretty eggs. The white one is a Bresse and the pretty Mille Fluer one is a Marraduna Basque hen. You can barely tell where she was attacked:



The chicks on the left are UofA Blue Egg Layers. The one behind the pole and on the far right are Crele Pene chicks:



These are two week old Crele Pene chicks from Jason's flock: