EDUCATIONAL INCUBATION & HATCHING CHAT THREAD, w/ Sally Sunshine Shipped Eggs

[Fire Ant Farm]

So slow today.

Too busy outside and building brooders to be on BYC much...

Quote:
Hey, ChickenCanoe!!!! We missed you - sorry you weren't feeling well. Regarding the CCLs, I have a very nice rooster and super healthy hen that are the pullets' parents, who are roomies with Jenny (the CCL hen who is near blind form ocular Mareks). If I wanted more, I could have them... And as of today, both hens have started laying again after their long break - REALLY nice colored eggs. SO far so good with option #2, though I caught them picking on the OE again today (even with Monkey in there). No actual damage being done, that I can tell. If it doesn't stop, I'll need to identify the ringleader, and take her out for a vacation in the chicken hospital for a little while, hoping that when she goes back, she'll be at the bottom of the pecking order. That's my next option. But I'm hoping I won't need to.

My eggs are all numbered and ID'd as well, with full spread sheet. I just also added a really big black X so I would be SURE not to move the wrong ones... (OK, so I'm paranoid...)

Sweet potatoes and peas have to go in when it's cooler.
Peas go in as soon as the ground is warm enough to work. You can get a fall crop in as well.
Bell peppers need the same conditions as chilies. Watermelon - heat. They have one of the highest temp requirements for germination.
You will need short season melons in PA.

Um, NO NO NO, sweet potatoes cannot go in until it's WARM.

@casportpony Here is her wing.
I don't feel any broken bones. The wing got damaged, but it kept the bar across her neck from killing her. I was so afraid when I saw her that she was dead. I am amazed that she survived at all.

Quote: @MotorcycleChick , while I have a different climate, I do have some thoughts.

You will need 100-120 days to harvest sweet potatoes (have you grown them before?). I have personally found the best yields with Bunch Porto Rico, and the Purple varieties (either All Purple or the other Japanese purples) have been more vigorous plants for me.

Bell peppers need full sun and heat, but you also have to watch for sun scald if there's LOTS of sun. I found late afternoon shade avoided this for me. YMMV depending on how much direct sun you get though.

Peas indeed can go in early. I really like both snow peas (like oregon pod) or your general sugar snap pea more than other garden peas, so it may be just me.

Highly recommend Blacktail Mountain watermelon. Very good, hardy plant, smaller melon, 73 days. If you start the seeds indoors, no reason you wouldn't have a chance of getting a few good ones. Best watermelon results I've had. From my seed supplier: "73 days. [1977, developed by Glenn Drowns] Small-fruited, earliest of all. An excellent small, fast maturing, highly productive watermelon that can be successfully grown in cool short season areas or southern hot, humid, areas. The earliest of 114 varieties that Glenn Drowns grew in 1994. Round 9 in. fruits have a dark green rind with small brown seeds. Orange-red flesh has sweet, rich flavor. When harvested just underripe, melons will ripen in storage and keep up to 2 months."

You could also try Early Moonbeam or Golden Midget, which might be neat:

Early Moonbeam: "76 days. [Alan Kapuler] Sweet, crisp yellow icebox melon, 5-8 lbs. Thin, light green rind. Short vines make this a great melon for small gardens."

Golden Midget: "72 days [1959] Early, small 3-lb. melons with salmon-red flesh and a built-in ripeness indicator: the rind turns yellow when the melons are ready for harvest. (Don’t be alarmed by the leaves: some yellow foliage is normal for this variety.)"

- Ant Farm

 

[kwhites634]

Quote: You ever tried to grow yellow-meated watermelon?

 

[daxigait]

@Fire Ant FarmHi, I know the feeling about being too busy to be on.
I am still amazed she survived a cattle panel falling on her. I was so scared when I saw her with that panel on her and the one bar across her neck. She was not moving. She is a very sweet ISA that I planned to use with my Ameraucana cock for EE.

@MotorcycleChick If you give sweet potatoes a good mound and then give them an old piece of cattle panel or field fence to grow on they will bet quite big.

 

[BantyChooks]

 

[dan26552]

 

[BantyChooks]

How's the chicks?

 

[BantyChooks]

One of Maple's feet is a bit worrying. It has a clear gel in the centre that won't squeeze out, unlike the other, which popped immediately with little coercion. The foot is very warm and she won't put weight on it.

I've coated it again with triple antibiotic ointment and re-wrapped it....

 

[dan26552]

How's the chicks?

Fine, just fine.

 

[BantyChooks]

Chrissy ate a good half bowl of feed by herself today.

Still not quite as much as she should be, but I think if I keep bugging her to eat she'll be back up to 5 oz of feed per day pretty quick.

 

[Akrnaf2]

That rules out all Missourians...

Are you referring to me?

or if you have any leftovers that are meat, all of my birds love them

Chickens get all the meat and fish leftovers here. There aren't usually enough to go around unless I grill up some meat that's been in the freezer too long. A grilled opossum is on the menu if it ever stops raining.

I give my hens all year long artificial light! They get light till 23:30 every day.this benefits them in severl way. 1. Reducing their stress in winter. 2. Make them molt in a very lightly = they dont loos more then 10% 3. They lay all year long! And yes the Endocrin (=hormonal) system is HUGELY influenced from the photoperioa =the light length in a 24 hour so it is more then sure that the fertility of your roos is influenced from it!

Good point on the roosters' fertility. Not sure about the light molt though. Don't they need to replace all the tattered feathers rather than just a few? Handling light and molt is much different closer to the equator than what we do.

eggs really dont have much protein about 12%

True but they have a better balance of essential amino acids than vegetable based foods. Not to mention a perfect blend of vitamins and minerals.

Yes it is true, but egg protein have a biological value of 100! It is the BEST protein around!

And the only animal protein that makes the body more alkaline.

Maple's toes...

Is that bumblefoot or frostbite?

Walked over to check the humidity in the bator and found this!!! Fastest I have ever had a Serama hatch! I think I looked around 3 today and no pips!

Nice vigorous line. Keep it going.

I may or may not have loaded my MPC shopping cart with over 20,000$ of stuff before sighing wistfully and closing the tab.....

And they had their fingers crossed the whole time saying "hit buy now"!

I built a cabinet incubator (thanks for the info specially sally). Test runs are great but having no luck with humidity. Any tips? tried various pan arrangements with wicks. I'very started a cooler hatcher project as well and hope to be full go by the end of January but no luck getting any humidity whatsoever. Doesn't help I heat with wood and it's winter

Quote:

I do that already. Contemplating a humidifier run off a humidistat but was hoping to keep it a tad less complicated...

I'd try the humidifier. You don't need a humidistat. It doesn't have to be that precise. Just increase the ambient humidity.

When mine is done I wish.....

So do my neighbors.

I'm lucky to maintain 30% RH with multiple calibrated hygros...fine until I need to hatch. I may move everything to the basement but it's alot cooler

The temp swings won't be as much of a problem near hatch date.

I am not from here originally so I will not get too offended. ChickenCanoe might get offended though if he comes back. [@=/u/72519/ChickenCanoe]@ChickenCanoe[/@]Where are you? You are missed. Congratulations on the seven you got. How many toad tadpoles? [@=/u/350041/Fire-Ant-Farm]@Fire Ant Farm[/@] [@=/u/314399/dan26552]@dan26552[/@]Great news on your hatches!!! :Woot

I've been under the weather and busy. Lots to do, everything covered in ice and couldn't stop coughing. I'm regaining strength. It was exciting a couple mornings ago. A U.S Marshall called me 'partner'. Just after dawn, I was replacing a headlight in my wife's car when I noticed through the trees that there were several men walking around the house next door. They were just far enough away that I couldn't quite make out the word 'POLICE' on the back of their jackets. This house faces my chicken coops and is probably about 100' or so from the 2 closest ones. They got in their SUVs and drove off. The house has a huge circle drive with 2 entrances that goes around the entire property. After I finished the car, the next thing I knew that driveway was filled with SUVs and cop cars. Lots of guys in riot gear complete with shields, helmets and assault rifles. I couldn't quite make out the name they were calling from their loudspeaker. What I could make out was, "THIS IS THE U.S. MARSHALLS SERVICE. THE HOUSE IS SURROUNDED. YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO GO. COME OUT THE FRONT DOOR WITH YOUR HANDS UP". This was repeated over and over for close to an hour. I walked around the back of one of the coops to get a closer view when one of the marshals said, "Back up partner". Then they broke out one of the front windows. It just happened to be a window into the garage so it didn't help them gain entry. Eventually they took a battering ram and knocked down the front door. Then about 6 of them slowly backed away from the door with assault weapons and flashlights trained on the door. Finally they entered the house and brought out a guy in handcuffs. It was the owner's boyfriend. They made a big mess of the house.

HOW DO YOU GUYS HANDLE YOUR KIDS GROWING UP???? I'm not one of those "slow down time!" mamas. I just go with the flow. But I'm seriously falling apart over DD turning 8. I CANT EVEN DEAL.

I really miss my kids being young and probably always will. I'm happy I took so many videos when they were growing up.

Just out of curiosity, I just treated my birds with Wazine, and can't eat any of their eggs for a while. On the off chance some of them are fertile, would it make any sense to incubate them? Would they even develop with the medication still being in the hens? Would the Wazine eliminate the possibility of fertility?

Just my opinion but things I feel that lots of chemicals have the ability to alter DNA.

Something like that?

What do they do about the dust and cobwebs?

CC you are right about the feathers change. BUT it is more important in FLYING birds and less in chickens and the most important point is that IMHO there is no evolutionary logic in loosing all your feathers exactly in the time point when the chicken NEED THEM THE MOST ( AOTHOM BEFOR WINTER ). So the severe molt exactly in AOTHOM could have some other human caused reasons.