California - Northern

[lawatt]

summing up my recent two months of broody craziness: in a way it was a perfect storm of we-don't know-what-we're-doing, with me being fairly new to chickens and never having hatched anything, and FIVE broody girls, staggered over 4 weeks or so, none of whom had ever been broody or hatched or raised a chick before. in short, chaos.

i think i set a total of about 40 eggs under the various girls, and quite a number never hatched -- not sure what combination of fertility problems, shipped eggs, or operator error (having too many eggs & unable to keep them all warm, or other chickens wanting to lay their eggs in the same nest, etc) contributed to that -- and a total of nine, i think, have died (weak at hatch & didn't thrive, or injured/killed by other chickens, most likely one of the broodies) -- and one broody hen i had to give away to a neighbor, as for whatever reason(s) everyone else would no longer tolerate her. outcome now is 4 mama hens with a total of 11 chicks -- all of whom seem healthy and vigorous and are happily trotting around outside the run (whenever i'm home to help supervise) learning how to scratch for bugs and etc.

lessons learned: i don't think i'll try to manage more than two or three (at most!) broodies at a time again; i'll stick to giving them 8 eggs or fewer unless they seem a lot more experienced/capable as they get older; i think my attempts to keep two of the broodies with their chicks inside enclosures, ostensibly to protect them from being picked on, backfired, as the chicks were able to wiggle through the mesh of the enclosure & then were in the flock on their own without mama's protection, and got hurt. the ones that i just left alone & didn't try to move or protect, ironically, did the best. (isolating them from the flock completely, i'm sure, works even better, but i didn't have space for that, and then they have to get re-introduced at some point -- at least all the broodies & little ones now are already fully integrated into the flock.)

i also can see the idea of using an incubator to hatch some extra eggs, then popping the hatchlings under the broody along with whatever she hatches herself could be a good idea, if i really wanted to be sure i got lots of chicks.

so, more drama than i'd anticipated, but i'm sure we (the chickens and me) will all be better at it the next time!

and thanks to all on this thread for help/suggestions at various times!

 

[debs_flock]

Quote: You NEED more serama boys!

Ya, she needs to pay for rye flour and the bags full of wheat flour and sesame seeds her husband bought!

Bingo!

It's like when your first egg is worth $2,000 and all the rest are free. Think I can sell a loaf of bread for $20?

summing up my recent two months of broody craziness: in a way it was a perfect storm of we-don't know-what-we're-doing, with me being fairly new to chickens and never having hatched anything, and FIVE broody girls, staggered over 4 weeks or so, none of whom had ever been broody or hatched or raised a chick before. in short, chaos.

i think i set a total of about 40 eggs under the various girls, and quite a number never hatched -- not sure what combination of fertility problems, shipped eggs, or operator error (having too many eggs & unable to keep them all warm, or other chickens wanting to lay their eggs in the same nest, etc) contributed to that -- and a total of nine, i think, have died (weak at hatch & didn't thrive, or injured/killed by other chickens, most likely one of the broodies) -- and one broody hen i had to give away to a neighbor, as for whatever reason(s) everyone else would no longer tolerate her. outcome now is 4 mama hens with a total of 11 chicks -- all of whom seem healthy and vigorous and are happily trotting around outside the run (whenever i'm home to help supervise) learning how to scratch for bugs and etc.

lessons learned: i don't think i'll try to manage more than two or three (at most!) broodies at a time again; i'll stick to giving them 8 eggs or fewer unless they seem a lot more experienced/capable as they get older; i think my attempts to keep two of the broodies with their chicks inside enclosures, ostensibly to protect them from being picked on, backfired, as the chicks were able to wiggle through the mesh of the enclosure & then were in the flock on their own without mama's protection, and got hurt. the ones that i just left alone & didn't try to move or protect, ironically, did the best. (isolating them from the flock completely, i'm sure, works even better, but i didn't have space for that, and then they have to get re-introduced at some point -- at least all the broodies & little ones now are already fully integrated into the flock.)

i also can see the idea of using an incubator to hatch some extra eggs, then popping the hatchlings under the broody along with whatever she hatches herself could be a good idea, if i really wanted to be sure i got lots of chicks.

so, more drama than i'd anticipated, but i'm sure we (the chickens and me) will all be better at it the next time!

and thanks to all on this thread for help/suggestions at various times!

Congratulations on the 11 happy, healthy chicks. And it's always a good day when you can come away saying that you've learned, even if sometimes the lessons are hard.

 

[HighNDryFarm]

I'm reposting this pic by itself in case someone who has an answer missed it.....this an OE I hatched from my Blue Copper Marans (Jeane Wade in case that matters) and my Silver Ameraucana roo. She doesn't have tail feathers. Well, she has tail feathers like an Aruacana but I've never hatched anything from my roo with a tail like this. Any ideas?


Edited to add, she's about 9 weeks...I think.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

So the bottom of my coops are going to be 4x8 plywood. Should I stain it or oil it or something? Won't the poop rot it? Even with straw/litter? What do you guys do for floors? It's going to be raised up off the ground about 2 feet.

vinyl or hardy board

 

[ChickNmamma]

I'm reposting this pic by itself in case someone who has an answer missed it.....this an OE I hatched from my Blue Copper Marans (Jeane Wade in case that matters) and my Silver Ameraucana roo. She doesn't have tail feathers. Well, she has tail feathers like an Aruacana but I've never hatched anything from my roo with a tail like this. Any ideas?

Does she have a Pope's nose? If not, maybe she is a throwback to the original birds brought over from South America. They were not separated into Auracana/Ameraucana at that time - they were a mix, and were further mixed when brought into this country.

She is a pretty girl. What color egg does she lay?

 

[debs_flock]

I'm reposting this pic by itself in case someone who has an answer missed it.....this an OE I hatched from my Blue Copper Marans (Jeane Wade in case that matters) and my Silver Ameraucana roo. She doesn't have tail feathers. Well, she has tail feathers like an Aruacana but I've never hatched anything from my roo with a tail like this. Any ideas?


Edited to add, she's about 9 weeks...I think.

I'd still give her time. I can't answer the question, but I have a SPPR roo that never grew more than a few tail feathers and they all droopped downwards. I kept thinking he was a late bloomer and slow featherer, but he's going on a year old now. I like him otherwise, but he was recently relegated to a cull pen. I've got a younger boy coming along with a tail, LOL

 

[OR4-hmom]

This girl has the tiniest little tail, took me forever to find it. I was assuming she had none, but when she developed small tail feathers on one side I went looking and found a little button.

 

[Hangtown Farms]

I'm reposting this pic by itself in case someone who has an answer missed it.....this an OE I hatched from my Blue Copper Marans (Jeane Wade in case that matters) and my Silver Ameraucana roo. She doesn't have tail feathers. Well, she has tail feathers like an Aruacana but I've never hatched anything from my roo with a tail like this. Any ideas?


Edited to add, she's about 9 weeks...I think.

ameraucana can be slow to feather out all the way. I would wait and see what she does. 9 weeks is not that old.

 

[HighNDryFarm]

summing up my recent two months of broody craziness: in a way it was a perfect storm of we-don't know-what-we're-doing, with me being fairly new to chickens and never having hatched anything, and FIVE broody girls, staggered over 4 weeks or so, none of whom had ever been broody or hatched or raised a chick before. in short, chaos.

i think i set a total of about 40 eggs under the various girls, and quite a number never hatched -- not sure what combination of fertility problems, shipped eggs, or operator error (having too many eggs & unable to keep them all warm, or other chickens wanting to lay their eggs in the same nest, etc) contributed to that -- and a total of nine, i think, have died (weak at hatch & didn't thrive, or injured/killed by other chickens, most likely one of the broodies) -- and one broody hen i had to give away to a neighbor, as for whatever reason(s) everyone else would no longer tolerate her. outcome now is 4 mama hens with a total of 11 chicks -- all of whom seem healthy and vigorous and are happily trotting around outside the run (whenever i'm home to help supervise) learning how to scratch for bugs and etc.

lessons learned: i don't think i'll try to manage more than two or three (at most!) broodies at a time again; i'll stick to giving them 8 eggs or fewer unless they seem a lot more experienced/capable as they get older; i think my attempts to keep two of the broodies with their chicks inside enclosures, ostensibly to protect them from being picked on, backfired, as the chicks were able to wiggle through the mesh of the enclosure & then were in the flock on their own without mama's protection, and got hurt. the ones that i just left alone & didn't try to move or protect, ironically, did the best. (isolating them from the flock completely, i'm sure, works even better, but i didn't have space for that, and then they have to get re-introduced at some point -- at least all the broodies & little ones now are already fully integrated into the flock.)

i also can see the idea of using an incubator to hatch some extra eggs, then popping the hatchlings under the broody along with whatever she hatches herself could be a good idea, if i really wanted to be sure i got lots of chicks.

so, more drama than i'd anticipated, but i'm sure we (the chickens and me) will all be better at it the next time!

and thanks to all on this thread for help/suggestions at various times!

I had a similar experience when I had 4 broodies at the same time, and was new. In my quest to move eggs around between them I opened an egg to eggtopsy that had a live chick in it. I decided that I needed to back up a bit on my intervention.

I did trust my broodies to take care of their chicks and they did. My flock is unimpressed with chicks in general now and when they go broody again I will leave them alone (someone quote me on this when I try to intervene) until they leave the nest to raise chicks, then I will take the remaining eggs and put the live ones in the incubator and finish hatching because that's where I saw the most loss.

I really appreciate the "conclusion" posts after someone has gone through different experiences. I think they really help us all learn and apply to our own experience or add to our chicken knowledge bank!

I think you did a great job after these girls threw you into the hatching chicks game!

Thanks for sharing your experience.

 

[Janeothejungle]

Bingo!

It's like when your first egg is worth $2,000 and all the rest are free.

HA HA HA. This made an entire dinner party crack up! I've been teased mercilessly about my expensive egg factory. I still think it's cheaper than therapy, though.