California - Northern

[lawatt]

I will be shutting my off for about a month or so after I finish hatching the chicks in it.
I opened ALL my coops the other day. Everyone is free ranging together. I wanted to give everyone a break. I have hundreds of grow outs and really need to get a handle on this mess..

letting them out will assure I will not incubate

hmm, now imagining a roadtrip to the sierra foothills to visit Deb and Molly & see if they have grow-outs to spare... Deann, you want to go sometime?

 

[liz9910]

No new chicks this morning hope to have some more when I get off of work tonight

 

[debs_flock]

Perhaps I am heading for serama? But what on earth do people do with their culls? Make toothpicks!?!

Broth

Quote:
I'll let you know. Wait until they start laying, their egg is HUGE for such a small bird. At least extra large, bigger than the goldens that lay a large.

While some of you are winding down on the hatching, I'm trying to work out hatching at our fair. We have been given a wall to line with incubators, broodies. Now to work out the timing and hope we aren't going through a heat wave in mid-August.

Today I set the first group of eggs for State Fair. I'm supplying all the eggs for the hatchery there and they would like a few chicks to hatch each day. Tomorrow is three weeks to opening day. I'm planning to start off six eggs per day of my really reliable, easy hatchers. I worst thing, is they plan to give back all the chicks. So by the end of the 17 day run of the fair, I could end up with nearly another 100 chicks to brood. I already have 200-300,

(and eggs of my own in the incubator).

I think my favorite are the Brabanters I hatched from Molly. They are soooo darn cute. I also acquired a flock of Olansk Drawfs from Dyanne (Chooklet) which I adore. I will get a picture of them soon.

I love the Brabanters and was so tempted by them. I thought about getting rid of the OD, just because of space issues (not that they take much), but DH said no, he really likes them.

Quote:
I've been trying. I've been really cutting back on what I "need" to set. Until I can sort out the piles of chicks

Molly - let me know when you pen them back up and they are pure again. I really do want some of those Brabanters.

I have to say, I really might need to find space for them too.............................somebody slap me! Didn't I say at the Stockton show that anyone was welcome to slap me if they saw me acquiring a new breed? No retribution from me.........

 

[PetRock]

No new chicks this morning hope to have some more when I get off of work tonight

I have Bresse chicks hatching today! It is day 20 later today but one was looking up at me this morning when I checked the incubator! It is just sitting there in the bottom half of the shell! I have 4 or 5 more eggs that have pipped!

 

[debs_flock]

Quote: Congrats on new chicks!!!

 

[HighNDryFarm]

Quote:

Quote: Congrats! I just went out to the coop and another chick hatched.....and I think another broodie

.... I'm not going to let this one set. I'm selling beer/wine at our Farmers Market for the next 12 weeks and I wanted to sell eggs too! With 3 broodies and having them in the laying boxes I have to search all over for the other eggs!

 

[PetRock]

Congrats! I just went out to the coop and another chick hatched.....and I think another broodie

.... I'm not going to let this one set. I'm selling beer/wine at our Farmers Market for the next 12 weeks and I wanted to sell eggs too! With 3 broodies and having them in the laying boxes I have to search all over for the other eggs!

My head hen keeps wanting to lay her eggs in the barbecue! She has laid a couple of them on the shelf and they have rolled off, broken, & been eaten. Today, I finally just opened the lid for her. She will probably not want to lay there since I made it easy for her.

 

[PetRock]

Congrats! I just went out to the coop and another chick hatched.....and I think another broodie

.... I'm not going to let this one set. I'm selling beer/wine at our Farmers Market for the next 12 weeks and I wanted to sell eggs too! With 3 broodies and having them in the laying boxes I have to search all over for the other eggs!

Congrats on the chick and

on the unwanted broodies! I have 2 broodies right now but both are first timers who are close to the bottom of the pecking order. One of them is my tiny silver AM. Earlier in the month, I had given her 3 fertile eggs to hatch that were only 5 days away from hatching. Unfortunately, they were due to hatch that really hot weekend. One hatched, one disappeared (think that one of the other hens crowded Amelia out of the nest box, laid their egg, and ate the baby), and the other didn't hatch. I had to take the baby away from her because she was not taking care of it and it looked one step away from death. It was just too hot out there. So Amelia is now sitting in an empty nest box except when she jumps ship and sits on the other girls' eggs. My Coronation Sussex is also broody and doing a better job of sticking with her chosen nest box. I gave her 3 eggs from the ranch. I think that 2 are Langshan/Langshan mix and the other is a Bresse egg. We'll see how she does with them. They would have just been eaten so at least they have a chance at life.

 

[ronott1]

My head hen keeps wanting to lay her eggs in the barbecue! She has laid a couple of them on the shelf and they have rolled off, broken, & been eaten. Today, I finally just opened the lid for her. She will probably not want to lay there since I made it easy for her.

Silly Chickens!

My Oldest Bresse pullet, the one that is laying, lays her egg nearly each day behind a stack of pallets! She is the only one that still lays there--I did find a two day nest of 8 eggs there last week....

 

[juststruttin]

I'm going to scrounge what I can from deb... But if you are driving distance from Tahoe I will start begging your spare od! I don't mind the work, it's just so hard to put together a flock to work with in this area... I am OFF shipping for now!

I am going to Tahoe at the end of July. I could bring you some eggs then.