California - Northern

[BCollie]

Quote:
Thank you!! I'll just keep doing what I'm doing then! They don't seem to mind the watery feed so that's good. They actually seem to really like it. It's not quite fermented yet, but it's getting there. Just needs another day or two. Thanks again!

Ugh, some of my feedstore EE 'pullets' are getting suspicious streamers... and getting into small scuffles with the Maran that is already trying to crow. If they turn out to be cockerels I'm going to be annoyed. Having no luck getting my daughter some blue/green eggs.

The nights have been so warm and the Marans are feathering out so fast we moved them into a grow-out already. The first night or so always makes me nervous. Going to wait a bit longer to be certain of the sexes before taking half to my parent's flock.

I hope they turn out to be girls for you.
The first night chicks spend outside always makes me nervous, too. I always go to check on them very first thing in the morning!

 

[Kaylish]

Stay tuned . . . later this afternoon.
I have high hope for 2 - the last 1 does not look like it ever developed but I couldn't candle it well in the daylight.
I have to take it inside the house & into the closet to be sure. Or I guess I could tent myself with a big thick beach towel. Now, there's a visual....

To hold you over:

"Hey Ma! When can we go on walkabout?"
"Once you are all out of your shells & the nosey human leaves"

Too Cute!

UofA update:
#1 egg hatched successfully - its a splash
#2 egg had not progessed, chick (a black) was totally shrink wrapped. Thanks to all of you I knew what to do & its out and fluffed out under mom but really weak. I will be surprised if it survives the night though.
#3 egg had no movement & i saw yellow when i candled so I cracked it open. Chick (a blue) was fully formed but had not absorbed any yolk. A late quitter.

There were 5 blues, 4 splash, & 3 blacks total. Doing well are 4 blues, 3 splash, 2 blacks. Iffy is a splash & a black.

Nice fertility for your birds Ron!

An FBCM cockerel should have more red in the neck. How old is the chick?

At 6 weeks would copper around the neck be a for-sure boy? Just asking because I have one that I'm pretty sure is a boy but has a much smaller comb than the 2 I'm sure are boys and almost no wattles at all.

My incubator isn't even here, and I'm lurking in the hatch-alongs already thinking it'd be handy to be going through with a group of people all at the same stage as me. I don't even have any eggs I want to hatch in mind yet! I kind of like the idea of TJ eggs (and would like to have some White Leghorns) but setting refrigerated eggs of uncertain eggs in a brand new incubator for my first hatch since I was a kid (when I can only set about a half-dozen) seems like I'm setting myself up for disappointment. Maybe I'll have to wander over to Papa's Poultry's facebook and see if he has cuckoo Silkie eggs on special coming up.

I'm hoping for a good special from him on Orps.

I gathered eggs, set the basket on a stump while I misted, came back to it not two minutes later to find a scrub jay has managed to open two and is guzzling the whites down with a pair of fledglings.

I left them unattended for two minutes!

Pellet Gun. Hate those little *&^%$.

 

[SpringPeeper]

Pellet Gun. Hate those little *&^%$.

I don't know, my 3 year old adores the little blue jerks.

 

[BCollie]

Speaking of little birds...we have a Magpie nest in the HUGE Oak tree in our yard. A few days ago I found a baby magpie on the ground in our back yard - it's very lucky I found it before the dog did. It had swelling under one of it's eyes, so I took it to the wildlife center by my house. Found ANOTHER one today, this one was uninjured and very lively, but couldn't fly. Put it back up in the tree for it's parents to take care of it until it can fly(called the wildlife center and this is what they said to do). The parents of that little bird are EXTREMELY angry with us for touching their baby, but it's better up in a tree than down on the ground where my mom's devil cat would find and kill it. The parents of that bird were yelling at us all morning. You should have heard the commotion they were making when we were trying to put the baby back up in the tree!

 

[SpringPeeper]

Most birds fledge before they are fully flighted, and the parents feed and protect it on the ground for a bit. Hopefully that is all that was going on with the second chick.

 

[BCollie]

Most birds fledge before they are fully flighted, and the parents feed and protect it on the ground for a bit. Hopefully that is all that was going on with the second chick.

I think so. They told me to put it back up in the tree, so I did. The parents were encouraging it to go up higher in the tree. It's much safer up there than on the ground! My mom has a cat that routinely kills birds, the little thing wouldn't have stood a chance! Hopefully it stays up high until it can fly.

 

[SpringPeeper]

I think so. They told me to put it back up in the tree, so I did. The parents were encouraging it to go up higher in the tree. It's much safer up there than on the ground! My mom has a cat that routinely kills birds, the little thing wouldn't have stood a chance! Hopefully it stays up high until it can fly.

Cats are the devil! I am not a fan.

 

[BCollie]

Quote:
Neither am I. There's a few I have liked, and I like "my" cat Buddy(he lives with my parents) because he beats up the dogs when they misbehave, but in most cases I don't like cats. I'm more of a dog person. I WAS a cat person...until I got a dog.

 

[chiqita]

Too Cute!



At 6 weeks would copper around the neck be a for-sure boy? Just asking because I have one that I'm pretty sure is a boy but has a much smaller comb than the 2 I'm sure are boys and almost no wattles at all.

I'm hoping for a good special from him on Orps.

Pellet Gun.  Hate those little *&^%$.

If it is more then 1 or 2 feathers yes. Occationaly the hens will get 1-2 early but not a ton.

 

[CackleJoy]

I've recently had some mysterious unexplained deaths in the broody house and it's all when the lab is closed of course! The chicks are all fluffy and look happy until they die. No pasty butt or gasping.

Since I had a case of yolk sack infection a while back I'm wondering if this is the same thing. I had a broody sitting on eggs and I put them in the incubator because she hatched some and left the others. They hatched 10 days earlier than the incubator eggs. I cleaned out the shells but the chicks would have crawled all over the other eggs. I'm wondering if this allowed a bacteria to grow that would cause infection. I don't know when I quit being so GREEN and making dumb mistakes. Whenever that happens, I will be very grateful! It would have been far less costly to toss the 3 mutt eggs from under the broody than to lose 9 chicks from specific breeding.

Starting Thursday I've lost 2 a day and I'm not very happy at all! I can't pin point the problem because it doesn't look like anything.

Before that it was just one here and there so I didn't really alarm. Losing one or two out of 50 chicks doesn't shake me up - usually they are runts and you know they were going to die anyway. When I start losing one or more a day then I know there is something wrong.

I've two chicks, one of the first and the one from tonight, set aside for UC DAVIS to get Tues.
(Yes, wrapped in napkins, hiding in the fridge in sandwich bags, tucked away so no one opens them.

Don't know what else to do).

Is there anything you would do in the meanwhile? If it is yolk sack infection - is this treatable with something I can hunt down and buy on Monday? I'd like to preempt any more losses as 3 of the dead chicks are some of my new Basque flock. They were so happy and chunky. I hate to lose any more!