California - Northern

[liz9910]

I'm in Stanislaus county. Anyone close to me? Looking for breeders of show quality birds for my 4h kiddos. Most are first year primary kids. Not interested in bantams. Mostly looking for Orpingtons, Marans, and Australorps, but open to just about anything that is good with children except game birds. Thank you.

Welcome to BYC! I'm in Modesto. No chickens for sale however

 

[CackleJoy]

We had a bad Cocci outbreak in the brooder. I'm hatching weekly and the entire family had the stomach flu last week. So, we have temporarily abandoned our brooder until it can be re-vamped and sterilized. Rather than put more chicks back in that Cocci-laden environment, I built a chick condo out of boxes. The main box in the middle doesn't hold food or water. It is the heated area. The boxes on the ends are the food and water boxes. I use those heavy duty shop paper towels, on top of paper bags, for layers of fresh floor, it can be rolled up and disposed of every two or three days. All I have to do is lay new shop towels in one box and sprinkle some food. The chicks will then mostly go to that box and I can change the bedding in the next box over. I took some pictures this morning because it was kind of comical. I think there must be close to 50 chicks all shoving themselves into this box! They are all within 3 days of each other in age.



Since this is in the house, an old fashioned incandescent bulb works well for heat. You can see I'm gearing up for the next hatch (starts tomorrow). All the new babies will go in the plastic bin until I get to costco for some new boxes. I rather like the condo idea. The chicks zip from end to end and all the water mess is kept away from their bed. DH is going to have a new brooder box built in the garage by the end of the weekend. This will buy us some time to figure out what to do with the old one, it is outside and won't work for winter babies very well, although it will work fine as a grow out pen. We'd like to get away from the shavings and I think we are going to put in a new floor with 1/4" wire instead of 1/2" wire. This way we will never need shavings again. Meanwhile it is chick condos in the office! If that isn't motivation to fix the outdoor situation, I don't know what is!

 

[casportpony]

This happened down the street from me last Saturday. No homes were lost, but several pigeons and their coops were.

Picture from https://www.facebook.com/pages/Gilroy-Fire-Department/115450808610635
On Saturday, E47 and Batallion 47 assisted South Santa Clara County Fire Department and CalFire on a structure fire near the intersection of Godfrey Ave and Ferguson Road. Unfortunately, multiple barns and pigeons that were used for breeding were lost in the blaze.

-Kathy

 

[caychris]

I was thinking food coloring--that stuff lasts forever...

...And it just hit me that my older daughter has most of a gallon freezer bag's worth of those rubber band loom bands. Much less messy than food coloring!

I'm going to have to have my husband help me separate the chicks from Frieda so I can swap out the zip ties for the rubber bands tomorrow--they're already starting to fill them in. I swear they've nearly doubled in size since Sunday!

They seem to do that about once a week for the first 6-8 weeks. (Double in size)

My wife had a terrible time when we were raising the 4 foster buffs. They all looked the same. She liked it better when I had a mix of chicks and my delawares were easy to tell apart even though they were all yellow fluff for a while. The feathered in differently and one was half blind so it made everything easy.

Im looking forward to the time when im raising so many that banding is needed.

 

[casportpony]

We had a bad Cocci outbreak in the brooder. I'm hatching weekly and the entire family had the stomach flu last week. So, we have temporarily abandoned our brooder until it can be re-vamped and sterilized. Rather than put more chicks back in that Cocci-laden environment, I built a chick condo out of boxes. The main box in the middle doesn't hold food or water. It is the heated area. The boxes on the ends are the food and water boxes. I use those heavy duty shop paper towels, on top of paper bags, for layers of fresh floor, it can be rolled up and disposed of every two or three days. All I have to do is lay new shop towels in one box and sprinkle some food. The chicks will then mostly go to that box and I can change the bedding in the next box over. I took some pictures this morning because it was kind of comical. I think there must be close to 50 chicks all shoving themselves into this box! They are all within 3 days of each other in age.



Since this is in the house, an old fashioned incandescent bulb works well for heat. You can see I'm gearing up for the next hatch (starts tomorrow). All the new babies will go in the plastic bin until I get to costco for some new boxes. I rather like the condo idea. The chicks zip from end to end and all the water mess is kept away from their bed. DH is going to have a new brooder box built in the garage by the end of the weekend. This will buy us some time to figure out what to do with the old one, it is outside and won't work for winter babies very well, although it will work fine as a grow out pen. We'd like to get away from the shavings and I think we are going to put in a new floor with 1/4" wire instead of 1/2" wire. This way we will never need shavings again. Meanwhile it is chick condos in the office! If that isn't motivation to fix the outdoor situation, I don't know what is!

Funny and cute! Hope you, your family and your chicks get better soon!

-Kathy

 

[caychris]

We had a bad Cocci outbreak in the brooder. I'm hatching weekly and the entire family had the stomach flu last week. So, we have temporarily abandoned our brooder until it can be re-vamped and sterilized. Rather than put more chicks back in that Cocci-laden environment, I built a chick condo out of boxes. The main box in the middle doesn't hold food or water. It is the heated area. The boxes on the ends are the food and water boxes. I use those heavy duty shop paper towels, on top of paper bags, for layers of fresh floor, it can be rolled up and disposed of every two or three days. All I have to do is lay new shop towels in one box and sprinkle some food. The chicks will then mostly go to that box and I can change the bedding in the next box over. I took some pictures this morning because it was kind of comical. I think there must be close to 50 chicks all shoving themselves into this box! They are all within 3 days of each other in age.



Since this is in the house, an old fashioned incandescent bulb works well for heat. You can see I'm gearing up for the next hatch (starts tomorrow). All the new babies will go in the plastic bin until I get to costco for some new boxes. I rather like the condo idea. The chicks zip from end to end and all the water mess is kept away from their bed. DH is going to have a new brooder box built in the garage by the end of the weekend. This will buy us some time to figure out what to do with the old one, it is outside and won't work for winter babies very well, although it will work fine as a grow out pen. We'd like to get away from the shavings and I think we are going to put in a new floor with 1/4" wire instead of 1/2" wire. This way we will never need shavings again. Meanwhile it is chick condos in the office! If that isn't motivation to fix the outdoor situation, I don't know what is!

Boxes of goodness. Do I see CLB boys in there.

 

[casportpony]

I use these for brooders:
http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/rubbermaidreg;-structural-foam-stock-tanks-50-gal--capacity

-Kathy

 

[ronott1]

We had a bad Cocci outbreak in the brooder. I'm hatching weekly and the entire family had the stomach flu last week. So, we have temporarily abandoned our brooder until it can be re-vamped and sterilized. Rather than put more chicks back in that Cocci-laden environment, I built a chick condo out of boxes. The main box in the middle doesn't hold food or water. It is the heated area. The boxes on the ends are the food and water boxes. I use those heavy duty shop paper towels, on top of paper bags, for layers of fresh floor, it can be rolled up and disposed of every two or three days. All I have to do is lay new shop towels in one box and sprinkle some food. The chicks will then mostly go to that box and I can change the bedding in the next box over. I took some pictures this morning because it was kind of comical. I think there must be close to 50 chicks all shoving themselves into this box! They are all within 3 days of each other in age.



Since this is in the house, an old fashioned incandescent bulb works well for heat. You can see I'm gearing up for the next hatch (starts tomorrow). All the new babies will go in the plastic bin until I get to costco for some new boxes. I rather like the condo idea. The chicks zip from end to end and all the water mess is kept away from their bed. DH is going to have a new brooder box built in the garage by the end of the weekend. This will buy us some time to figure out what to do with the old one, it is outside and won't work for winter babies very well, although it will work fine as a grow out pen. We'd like to get away from the shavings and I think we are going to put in a new floor with 1/4" wire instead of 1/2" wire. This way we will never need shavings again. Meanwhile it is chick condos in the office! If that isn't motivation to fix the outdoor situation, I don't know what is!

I use these for brooders:
http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/rubbermaidreg;-structural-foam-stock-tanks-50-gal--capacity

-Kathy

Something made out of plastic makes the best brooder--bugs do not live in them like mites do, they are resistant to water funkiness and they are easy to sterilize.

 

[tridentk9]

 I use these for brooders:
http://www.tractorsupply.com/en/store/rubbermaidreg;-structural-foam-stock-tanks-50-gal--capacity

-Kathy

LOL- sometimes that size stock tank sells for 75 bucks on Craigslist.

I start off with a cardboard box, then to a wading pool surrounded by an ex-pen (in dining room) and finally the indoor 8 x 8 x 4 foot high dog run with horse mat flooring (plus shavings) out by the laundry room. The ex-pens are used inside the run to keep them from sneaking out through the chain link and to adjust space as needed.

The horse mats give then a nonslip flooring, shavings are easy to pick up, as needed disinfecting of the mats can be in place or for total disinfection, the run and mats can be taken apart. Works for puppies too.

 

[CackleJoy]

Boxes of goodness. Do I see CLB boys in there.

And girls! Maybe four of them? The hens are starting to lay again! Got 10 eggs last week. That is way better