Consolidated Kansas

[Trish44]

I agree with the not helping them hatch unless absolutely necessary, it usually doesn't have a good ending. I have come to realize that the strongest survive & that's how it is. You want them all to live, but sometimes it just isn't meant to be. I have gotten chicks from other breeders as well & sometimes they just don't thrive for some reason or another. They don't grow normally & don't live long. Danz & I were talking about that awhile back.

Well I got my breeder coop all cleaned out & now it's on to cleaning rabbit cages in the garage to get them ready for bringing the rabbits in for winter. I have a to do list for chores that need to get done before cold weather sets in so I'm working my way down it.

Today I'll try to teach the sheep to go out to the field when I let them out, wish me luck. I'll let you all know how it goes. I plan to let the sheep out there first so they can get out of the way of the goats since they're so pushy & territorial.

 

[HEChicken]

Sharol, are you waiting until the first to hatch before moving the hen, or are you saying you move them earlier and don't have any issues?

My very first broody, back at my old house, I went and got her a dozen fertile eggs and that night I just moved her to a broody coop, made a nest for the eggs and walked away. By next morning she was sitting on them and it seemed dead easy to me - just move the hen to where you want her and wait 3 weeks.

But when I moved out here and started having multiple broodies, that is when I ran into issues moving them. The next to go broody, I did just like the first but next morning she was pacing looking for a way out. I gave it a couple of days but she never sat on the eggs so I let her out and she ran back to the coop and immediately took over a nest box. Same with the next and next. Suddenly it didn't seem quite as simple as "just move the hen to where you want her to sit". I did have one hen who I always swore was more intelligent than most - she had a look in her eye and would listen when I talked like she was trying to understand what I was saying. When she went broody I moved her to my hoop coop and a short time later she was pacing looking for a way out. I knelt down and talked to her - she stopped and listened. I pleaded earnestly, telling her I really needed her to sit on her eggs here where she and they would be safe rather than in the coop. I swear - she turned and walked over to her nest and sat down and that was the end of her pacing. I tried that on the next broody I needed to move - but it only worked with that one hen.

However I have found that if I wait until eggs are pipped or a chick has hatched, to move her, the hen will always accept the move at that point. By then she can hear the chicks peeping and apparently that's the motivation she needs to stay on the nest vs. trying to go back to the coop.

 

[zigzag45]

I went ahead and moved her to a temp pen and she's up walking around, complaining and wants nothing to do with the eggs. Just leave her for the day and see what happens or is it game over?

This chicken thing is a bit scary... at first I never wanted any, then I only wanted five, then I figured I could handle a dozen, then it was 13, then a hen goes broody so I put 4 fertile eggs under her - it's crazy!

I won't be totally sad if they don't hatch as I really don't need more birds. But, it's something I haven't done and would be fun to work through.

Is there the chance she will settle down on her eggs once she adjusts to her new home? She didn't like me picking her up from the old nesting box, but as soon as she was in the new area she started singing her egg song.

 

[tweetybaby2005]

tweety, what kind of layers are you looking for? I'm not hatching for anyone else right now since I'm supposed to be taking a break but am hatching some for myself. I have Black Copper Marans due this weekend & I only wanted a couple of pullets out of them. If I get extras would you be interested in those? It just depends on how the hatch goes & it will take awhile to know sexes so I'll have to grow them out some first. The last time I got BCM eggs I ended up with 4 pullets & 13 roosters so I hope this time is slanted more towards pullets. I had sold a trio to OQB & kept two pullets & the roo is my main flock rooster, he's gorgeous. Then one pullet died from an illness so I was left from all of those eggs only one pullet to lay

. So I decided to get some more eggs & try to get a couple more pullets, keeping my fingers crossed. It sure sounds like they keep you hopping with your job.

Well we're finally going to get the last gate up for my fencing today, yay! I have to celebrate tonight, it has been a long summer waiting.

Trish, BCM is on my "wish/want" list.

I'll PM you.

This year I've been traveling quite a bit. Normally I stay put in the Wichita office and only travel maybe 5% of the time. We have also acquired an office in China/Hong Kong so I may need to travel there next year. But for now, I'm not traveling for the next 6 months

so I'm trying to get back to Wichita life for a while.

 

[HEChicken]

Wow, I started my reply, got a phone call, finished and posted it and meantime there were 3-4 other posts.

Trish - good luck with the sheep - hopefully they will realize what a great place they have to graze pretty quickly.

Tarabella, I've done the same as you - mark the eggs and let the hen sit in her chosen spot. For me it really depends on where that chosen spot is. I really got tired of birds this year taking up all the nest boxes. I had to travel some and left first DS and then DD in charge of collecting eggs and they weren't happy about having to collect eggs from under broody hens. Honestly, they really never peck me - just growl a lot, but both kids swore the hens tried to take their hands off when they collected eggs. I later found a pair of heavy duty gloves in my feed room - I'm guessing one of the kids resorted to wearing those when collecting eggs! But I did have a few hens pick a good spot to brood, so they were allowed to sit on their own eggs.

What I have found works best is to move the new family to a broody coop for about the first week. I tried letting the hen raise them right in the coop but ran into multiple issues. First is that if a chick wandered away from mom in the first 48 hours while she was still sitting pretty tight, it often got lost. Never hurt, but definitely scared. Moving them to a broody coop means the chicks only have one warm body option to gravitate to, so they learn which is their mom. The other issue was food/water/chicken door. My door is mounted 15" above the coop floor, to allow for me to use the DLM method of bedding. This is no issue for birds once they are a few weeks old, but the newly hatched chicks can't navigate it. This means they can't get out of the coop to get to food and water and I can't use water in the coop without it getting spilled and causing the bedding to mold. So - my hens go into a broody coop where they stay 24/7 for the first week. Then I start letting them out with the chicks during the day but they go back to the broody pen to sleep at night. Once the chicks are big enough to go through the pop door, we have a transitional night or two. I'm always amazed by how fast they learn to go to the coop at night. The first night the hen with chicks will return to the broody coop as they are accustomed to, and I will have to either gather them up or herd them to the main coop. The mother hen almost immediately decides she likes this idea while the chicks aren't quite so sure. The next night the mother will want to go to the coop but the chicks will want to return to the broody coop. I will help the mother convince the chicks to go into the coop. That is almost always all it takes. By the third night, as dusk approaches, the chicks will head with their mother to the coop, as though it was really their idea all along.

 

[HEChicken]

I went ahead and moved her to a temp pen and she's up walking around, complaining and wants nothing to do with the eggs. Just leave her for the day and see what happens or is it game over?

In my experience…..she won't settle down and hatch them where you want her to. However if you let her out, she will probably return to her chosen spot and go back to being broody. It is for this reason that I incubate most eggs myself and just give the hen the chicks, as she will move quite easily once you put chicks under her. The other option is to mark the fertile eggs and let her sit on them in her chosen spot and then move her after they hatch. By marking them you'll know each day which eggs to leave under and which can be collected as they were just laid that day.

This year I've been traveling quite a bit. Normally I stay put in the Wichita office and only travel maybe 5% of the time. We have also acquired an office in China/Hong Kong so I may need to travel there next year. But for now, I'm not traveling for the next 6 months

so I'm trying to get back to Wichita life for a while.

Its good to see you back Tweety - glad you will be in town for awhile now.

 

[sharol]

I went ahead and moved her to a temp pen and she's up walking around, complaining and wants nothing to do with the eggs. Just leave her for the day and see what happens or is it game over?

This chicken thing is a bit scary... at first I never wanted any, then I only wanted five, then I figured I could handle a dozen, then it was 13, then a hen goes broody so I put 4 fertile eggs under her - it's crazy!

I won't be totally sad if they don't hatch as I really don't need more birds. But, it's something I haven't done and would be fun to work through.

Is there the chance she will settle down on her eggs once she adjusts to her new home? She didn't like me picking her up from the old nesting box, but as soon as she was in the new area she started singing her egg song.

LOL you sound like me. I don't need anymore chickens. Just wait until they start developing and you can see them growing in the shell. All of a sudden it gets important that they hatch. I have spent the summer moving that darn hoop coop from spot to spot for one brood or another. Each time I swear that I'm done with this hatching thing, and every time I give in to my stubborn hens. Danz taught me to butcher earlier in the summer, so I'm ready for the cockerels (and it is looking like maybe 4 of the 6 recent ones are boys, and 2 of the previous group are boys for sure, at 10 weeks there is no question about that).. I'm trying to think of them as livestock and not making pets of them.

@HEChicken I move them before they start to hatch (except for that first bunch -- she had one out and dried off and another pipped when I moved them). So far, they settle in quite well. I wonder if it isn't because they were all raised in the hoop coop until they were several weeks old and it seems familiar. No idea. I know the eggs hadn't internally pipped yet because I have done a quick candle before I give her the eggs back in the hoop, so they aren't peeping yet. Love the story about the hen you talked back onto the eggs.

 

[TaraBellaBirds]

Wow, I started my reply, got a phone call, finished and posted it and meantime there were 3-4 other posts.

Trish - good luck with the sheep - hopefully they will realize what a great place they have to graze pretty quickly.

Tarabella, I've done the same as you - mark the eggs and let the hen sit in her chosen spot. For me it really depends on where that chosen spot is. I really got tired of birds this year taking up all the nest boxes. I had to travel some and left first DS and then DD in charge of collecting eggs and they weren't happy about having to collect eggs from under broody hens. Honestly, they really never peck me - just growl a lot, but both kids swore the hens tried to take their hands off when they collected eggs. I later found a pair of heavy duty gloves in my feed room - I'm guessing one of the kids resorted to wearing those when collecting eggs! But I did have a few hens pick a good spot to brood, so they were allowed to sit on their own eggs.

What I have found works best is to move the new family to a broody coop for about the first week. I tried letting the hen raise them right in the coop but ran into multiple issues. First is that if a chick wandered away from mom in the first 48 hours while she was still sitting pretty tight, it often got lost. Never hurt, but definitely scared. Moving them to a broody coop means the chicks only have one warm body option to gravitate to, so they learn which is their mom. The other issue was food/water/chicken door. My door is mounted 15" above the coop floor, to allow for me to use the DLM method of bedding. This is no issue for birds once they are a few weeks old, but the newly hatched chicks can't navigate it. This means they can't get out of the coop to get to food and water and I can't use water in the coop without it getting spilled and causing the bedding to mold. So - my hens go into a broody coop where they stay 24/7 for the first week. Then I start letting them out with the chicks during the day but they go back to the broody pen to sleep at night. Once the chicks are big enough to go through the pop door, we have a transitional night or two. I'm always amazed by how fast they learn to go to the coop at night. The first night the hen with chicks will return to the broody coop as they are accustomed to, and I will have to either gather them up or herd them to the main coop. The mother hen almost immediately decides she likes this idea while the chicks aren't quite so sure. The next night the mother will want to go to the coop but the chicks will want to return to the broody coop. I will help the mother convince the chicks to go into the coop. That is almost always all it takes. By the third night, as dusk approaches, the chicks will head with their mother to the coop, as though it was really their idea all along.

I'm pretty lucky that I have the setup I do. Huge coop and if need be I can move broodies to our brooding room that is attached to the the coop, but so far have not had to. I had one chick get lost once (got on the other side of a buffer wall we built inside the coop) but it found Mama pretty quick.

My broodies rarely peck at me either. I give them a little pat on the head and move my hand under their head and under them and they just grumble a bit! I learned my lesson about letting others gather eggs from under the broodies when my 6 and 8 year old gathered ALL of the eggs (under the DH supervision of course

) I didn't catch the mistake until well into the next day and we had to dispose of the entire basket, since we didn't know which eggs were broody eggs and which weren't!

 

[tweetybaby2005]

Good morning peeps, rise and shine again.

A joke on me this morning:
Been reading a bit online this morning until I dumped 3/4 of my coffee on my desk! What a mess! Guess I still haven't recovered from my jetlag. So I was cleaning up the coffee mess and throwing away soggy wet papers, wiping down the desk, keyboard tray, etc. and all of a sudden, my coworkers came around and asked me if I brought the entire office's network down by dumping coffee on the switch! I was like... "huh?". I looked at the computer and sure enough, no network. Hmmm... surely my coffee didn't cause the entire office's network to go down, right? After what seems like an eternity (only 30 seconds or so actually), my coworkers laughed till they had a belly ache... It was a joke... ON ME!!! They knew I wasn't fully awake yet and needed the coffee so they took the opportunity to give me a hard time. What actually happened was the building owner had a fire alarm test and the UPS was shut down upon the test. But the building owner did not notify us that they were doing a fire alarm test this morning so our network and phone system just went down without notice. This caused major issues because we had customers on the phones with support and we were running tests on the network which, of course, had to be restarted after the network came back. So I told all my coworkers that if they wanted to have 30 minutes off next week, just let me know so I can dump my coffee again.

Back to chicken talk. I was looking at my flock yesterday and realized that my flock is really small right now. Where in the world did my birds go? DH has no clue and didn't even realize that we have a much smaller flock. I think he must have left the gate open all day everyday while I was gone to let the birds roam and they either got attacked by something or they went some where and didn't come back. I know the predators are bad lately because I saw a red fox family strolling close to our property after I got back and could hear the howling of coyotes every evening. Of course there are raccoons and other nasty creatures out there to prey on my flock. Argh... if has to be bad or my GPs would have kept the flock safe. They are working hard every night and dead tired during the day. I need to replenish my laying flock for sure. Egg supply has gone down and some of the birds are molting (feathers every where!). Some just don't lay. With the holiday season approaching fast, I need to stock up on eggs for cooking and baking!

Speaking of helping the chicks hatch... I did it once. It was successful but it was very stressful to me. I'm not sure I'll be able to do it again. Like you guys said, only the fittest will live and live healthy.

The broody mama is still sitting in the nest box (taking up my precious real estate). I now have a dog kennel next to the chicken coop and inside the big chicken pen. Since I don't know how long she has been sitting on the eggs, I don't know whether I should move her and the eggs to the dog kennel now or wait until at least 1 hatches before I do it. Will see what happens after I candle this weekend.

Enjoy the nice day everyone!

 

[tweetybaby2005]

In my experience…..she won't settle down and hatch them where you want her to. However if you let her out, she will probably return to her chosen spot and go back to being broody. It is for this reason that I incubate most eggs myself and just give the hen the chicks, as she will move quite easily once you put chicks under her. The other option is to mark the fertile eggs and let her sit on them in her chosen spot and then move her after they hatch. By marking them you'll know each day which eggs to leave under and which can be collected as they were just laid that day.

Its good to see you back Tweety - glad you will be in town for awhile now.

Thanks HeChicken. I'm glad to be back. Never been so happy to see my own bed!