Consolidated Kansas

[Chickies-duckies-etc]

I am going to try without a thermostate. I have read a few ways to do this. I am taking HEChickens directions and tweaking them.. I hope it all goes well. SO far the little bator is holding heat and we are at 99

Are you using a dimmer switch?

 

[maidenwolfx80]

Thank you danz I Ihave the heating pd for repitles I am playing with right now.
Chickies- I am not using a dimmer

 

[chicken danz]

You'll have to fill us in maidenwolf when you get things adjusted.
I just looked at the extended forecast. It looks like the weather is going to take a dive mid-week and we will get snow. Not good! Then there is a chance of snow on Christmas day. I You know it seems like snow on Christmas seems perfect but it fills me with horror thinking of people on the road and the potential for accidents. In view of the things that have been happening lately with the school shootings and now the killed police officers in Topeka I don't think we need to have any more bad things happen.

 

[HEChicken]

I agree with Danz that it will be difficult without a thermostat. If it is holding steady at 99 that is good, but it may be subject to temperatures in your house as well and if those fluctuate, so will the temp in the incubator. A dimmer would be a cheaper alternative, not to replace the thermostat but to give you a little more control over the temperature. If the temp starts to rise, you can turn it down via the dimmer.

ppimf, if you wrap it in blankets be careful about leaving enough ventilation. It is one of the most overlooked factors in successful hatching - the incubator needs to have a GOOD exchange of air, especially at hatch time. Hatching is hard work for a chick so they breathe hard and need all available oxygen, or they will suffocate. If you wrap it too tightly you might do a good job of keeping the temp stable but cut off air exchange and circulation.

 

[HEChicken]

Danz, if you had a big enough dog house, would the dogs share? Our dogs are only medium sized - about 40lb apiece - and they share one dog house at night. I think it helps them to stay warm to be able to snuggle up together and share heat.

 

[chicken danz]

I had a big dog house but it is now a chicken house. I wasn't going to make an announcement just yet, until I was sure everything was okay. We are having puppies. Cloud the youngest GP had a silent heat. I kept checking her because Fluff was being too protective of her for normal so I kept waiting for her to go in heat. I checked day after day and never found blood. Now sometime later she suddenly has blossomed out like a balloon and has full tits. I am thinking she is probably in her last two weeks before whelp so it could happen any time. That is my rush. She needs a place to whelp a bunch of pups and an area to herself.
I didn't want to breed her for at least another year because I wanted her to be really mature. I let Marshmallow get over 3 years old before she was allowed to breed. Sometimes a young dog just isn't developed enough hormonally to birth easily. It's like breeding a young teenager. It goes against every principle I have. They will be pure pyrenees without a doubt. There are no other dogs around. So I want to give her the best conditions I can and make sure to watch for any complications. Just my luck she'll have pups on Christmas day and have problems. The weather is also turning colder which endangers them even more. There is nothing worse than loosing puppies other than of course loosing your dog. So....that is my urgency to get this done. I can't chance waiting since I don't have a due date to go by.
Maidenwolf if you are just getting 99 degrees that could slow hatching by a day or two. It's close but it doesn't take a lot to throw off development time in your chicks.
Speaking of chicks I am hatching a few today. I have one more egg to go.

 

[JosieChick]

I started a reply to this last night and wore out. Yesterday was such a busy day. Maidenwolf I really don't know how you could get by without some kind of thermostat. Once years ago I had a heat thing I used on the bottom of an aquarium for some critter I had. I didn't have a thermostat so I just wired it to an old electric blanket control and tweeked it until the temperature was adjusted right. I don't know how accurate it stayed cause all I had was a 99 cent thermometer, but it did work for what I was doing.
The marks need to be on the long sides of the eggs so they can be turned 180 degrees a minimum of 3 times a day. In an incubator with a turner they are sat large end up but the turner moves them from side to side. You would need to lay them flat like the hens would lay them in a nest and then turn each one to the opposite side. It is easier if you set a particular time of day for each turn to help you remember to do it.
Ppmif, the farm innovators comes with more equipment,including the candler, has the hard outer shell rather than just styro and is cheaper. In my books any incubator can be made to work if you adjust it here and there regardless of cost. And the most expensive ones can be worthless if you don't know what you are doing.

I had a very busy day yesterday. I got my feeding and watering done. It just kept getting colder and colder and the air was thick in fog-like mist. I was already cold but decided to start building a new big dog house. DH was home so of course he had different ideas than I did and kept slowing me down. I just wanted to get it done. I planned to build it with a basic design but he had this idea to build it faster. Which faster for him equates to much slower for me. Because he was here, I ended up havign to change sizes several times, design several times, how to build several times, etc. I tried to do it my way but of course he kept inputting. So when he didn't listen to what I wanted to do with the floor, and later it wasn't working, it was my fault because he was rushed too much to think it through.
Soooooo, I could have had it all done but it is sitting on a trailer, anything but done still needing lots of work. I do hope he plans to get back out there today and help me with it since I am trying to adapt to his plan. He has to go back to work tomorrow and I need it done today. He was complaining that we couldn't ever do a project together. It's very simple that I don't have the patience to stand around and stare at something. At any rate I started cutting boards and putting things together so the basic box is done. I wanted to frame for the doorway and cut it out but he wanted to have the box built and do it later. I see that as pretty silly, cause now I will have to crawl inside it to do it. But I go along with some of these things just to keep the peace. I am going to let him do the roof framing and I sure hope he doesn't take forever. I want this thing in place by this evening. I have three dogs and two houses. One of the houses is bigger and two dogs can get in it but one of them usually ends up getting pushed out on the ground. It's not fair to them. Of course these big dogs take huge dog houses too.

They do take big dog houses! We build Molly a mini horse run in and put a front on one half because she refused to use any of the traditional dog houses and would just lay outside. At least she uses this one a lot, thank heavens.

Danz, if you had a big enough dog house, would the dogs share? Our dogs are only medium sized - about 40lb apiece - and they share one dog house at night. I think it helps them to stay warm to be able to snuggle up together and share heat.

Cute!


So I talked to the guy who was going to build us our barns at the new house and about fell off my chair when he gave me the quote. Sigh. Guess it is back to the drawing board. I had no idea it would cost that much to build two metal run ins. Everyone has them so I figured they wouldn't run us too much. Now I am back to doing exactly what I didn't want to do which is retrofitting the barn, building pens for the geese and a couple shorter wood open air coops for the bigger chickens. I was so excited to have them all in one place and easy to care for without having to haul all over hill and dill to feed and water. Oh well. Pea chicks left yesterday. I was kind of relieved because that is one less pen to build! And they scratched the daylights out of me trying to catch them so that made parting ways easier!

Well I need to get my butt in gear today and get everyones water and feed filled and finish mixing bins of feed so there aren't bags all over the place in the garage. Errands to run too! Hope everyone has a good day!

 

[Trish44]

Danz, I'm surprised your dogs will sleep together, my two GPs don't even like to lay side by side. They argue all the time for one reason or the other & don't like to share anything. If one thinks the other is going to get something she isn't they fight over that, even if that doesn't end up being the case. I have a pile of cattails out close to my new coop & they think I put it there for them specifically. If you look at where the places are they have hollowed out, they are on opposite sides. This morning I went out & was doing chores & went over to the faucet by the front of the house to get water & one was laying by one end of the house & the other at the total opposite end. I had dog houses for them & they wouldn't use them, so I put cattails under the pickup topper I got just to see if they would get in there, so far they haven't. They're such silly girls.I just read that Cloud is having puppies, I hope everything goes all right, keep us posted.

My birds are all getting sick now, so I have had to start Tylan. I'm treating all but one pen, they haven't shown any signs yet, so I'll wait & see. I hope the peafowl & turkeys don't get this stuff. It's the sneezing & wheezing thing. I'm sure it's related to the wide temperature swings we have been having & another one is coming this week again. Heck, it's hard on us humans too. I hope to get things done in the next couple days that need to be done before it hits again, but I won't have money until Weds. to get more pine shavings for the rabbit cages. I may try chopping up some cattails & see how that works, I have not tried that in their trays, but it has to be fairly fine to stay in there.

Did you all happen to see the ad that I posted on the Kansas Poultry Swap taken from the Wichita Craigslist? It was a woman who was selling two full grown hens that have been living in 10 gallon aquariums. There was a lot of outrage over it after I posted it. Hopefully the hens were going to a new, better home today. I wish people wouldn't get chickens or any other animals for that matter if they can't care for them properly.

 

[Trish44]

Who was it that was going to make their own version of VetRX? I was thinking of getting some essential oils & doing that too, I think you could get a larger amount that way for the money. My question is how much carrier oil do you need to use with the essential oils & how much alcohol & what kind? I looked up the ingredients for the VetRX & they use corn oil in theirs.

 

[chicken danz]

I made vet RX last year. The essential oils are pricey. I spent about $60 all together but I bought enough to make gallons literally. I've been using it with great success. My oils came in small bottles so I just mixed them proportionately in the order they were given and put them in a very large dark colored container that had had peroxide in it. Then filled it up with the corn oil. It certainly smells right. The one thing I didn't add was alcohol. I was going to use ever clear or something but never got any. It seems to work the same without it. I saved my vet RX bottle and funnel it into that for use. That way I still have my recipe when I want to mix up more.
Maidenwolf was going to make her own and use vodka for the alcohol part.
Trish I am sorry you are having sick birds.
That's awful. Things seem good here but there is a big weather change coming. They are talking snow in 2 days.
Cloud sleeps with Fluff when it is chilly. Marshmallow is very picky about having her own bed. The other two like to snuggle. If the weather is good though they all just lay out in the yard and sleep.
I spent most of the day in town helping my Dad. And as I suspected my dog house is not done at all. I knew I should have just waited and built the darn thing when DH was working. At least the part I built yesterday is done and now we have a door way. Just no roof!!
Josie that is what I found when I started pricing lean to type buildings. I got estimates from $4500 to $11,000 which is ridiculous for no front and no floor. That is why we built the one we did. I have less than $1000 in it. Of course it is only half the size I wanted. Places like Sutherlands have kits to build them which are cheaper. I think if you could get the poles set you should be able to put one together pretty fast. But then the pens cost some to build as well. I would be happy to just hire someone to come in and set all the poles for the building and the pens. The rest of it goes a lot faster.
Sorry things didn't work out. I still want to build a poultry building some day but I don't see it happening.