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

[Pensmaster]

They must really like your new coop

They sure do. Haven’t missed a night going into coop and really like the feeder I built for them today.

What’s the name brand of automatic door you like? It’s getting real old closing them up at night.

 

[Pensmaster]

Your weather will be here Tuesday evening into Wednesday.
Hopefully your animals won't starve with the delivery delay. Is that for cattle?
We still have a lot of nights coming well below freezing but at least, after today, days will be warm enough to keep liquid water on the birds.

Our water froze for the first time in years. Ok well it was just a crust. We actually got 1/4 inch of snow as well. 4” of rain in the past week and half.

 

[Pensmaster]

Today’s special is virtual coffee.
View attachment 1676132 View attachment 1676133 View attachment 1676134 View attachment 1676135 View attachment 1676136

Missed it yesterday. Thanks

 

[Pensmaster]

Does anyone else have a story about the recent rise in postage rates?

I went to the USPS website to get a price on shipping a couple cockerels. I entered the weight of 7 lbs. per box, entered the box dimensions, selected express mail for adult fowl shipped from Missouri zip to a Florida zip and the price was $71.05 per bird.
Add to that the $52 I paid for the two shipping boxes. =
That means $194.10 to ship, exclusive of the cost of the two birds.

Wow

 

[Pensmaster]

A funny side note to that event is that it was the same weekend as the cub scouts pinewood derby car race. We started putting his car together before we went fishing and couldn't get home in time to finish it. Our plan was to make it a 1962 Cadillac Fleetwood. It was already boxy shaped. We had just sketched the outlines of the car on the block of wood to be carved and painted when we left on the fishing trip.
Anyway, all we had was the oblong piece of wood with axles and wheels. While we were snowed in, one of his friends' mother came to our house to get his partially finished car. She entered the car in our absence and it took second place.
There were all these other finely built, fancy and highly polished cars that we beat with a block of wood - in absentia.

That would have been fun to watch the faces of the fancy cars owners. Back when we raced my son entered a car that didn’t do well at all. My daughter took the top cut off part of his car put axels on it painted it and darn if the silly little thing didn’t win several divisions. She’d drop it, play with it while others were racing and anything imaginable happened to that poor thing. One wheel didn’t even hit the track. Others were bringing theirs in a locked padded box and hers would beat them by a car length. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. Sometimes pinewood derby gets far too serious.

 

[Pensmaster]

Just got an email back from the brewery! We're setting up a date for me to go pick up a bunch of spent grain! Now these pigs won't be so dang expensive to feed. I'm going to be drying a bunch of grain soon.

How much grain will you get at a time? I usually collect mine in 5 gallon buckets. I feed it wet. Too much hassle to dry. There’s a trick I’ve learned to keep it from molding. Stack 3 five gallon containers together and then put an empty five gallon on top of that. Fill the empty with water and it will compress the other 3 so that air doesn’t get to the grain. After compressing put water, while still stacked, into the other buckets. They last a very long time this way. And it keeps the deer from eating the grain.

Stacking any other than 3 usually results in them falling over.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

That would have been fun to watch the faces of the fancy cars owners. Back when we raced my son entered a car that didn’t do well at all. My daughter took the top cut off part of his car put axels on it painted it and darn if the silly little thing didn’t win several divisions. She’d drop it, play with it while others were racing and anything imaginable happened to that poor thing. One wheel didn’t even hit the track. Others were bringing theirs in a locked padded box and hers would beat them by a car length. It was all I could do to keep from laughing. Sometimes pinewood derby gets far too serious.

Ha ha ha!
Far too serious for what it is. I heard of fathers with multiple sons, doing all the work for their kids and using the same cars for all the sons - locked padded box and all.
We had no idea what had happened till we got back in town a couple days later.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Nah, don’t ever run the bulk tanks that low. Winter time we feed a lot of grain rations, cubes, sileage and round bales. Usually we’d put cattle out on wheat pasture and corn stalks but not this year. Way too wet for that. Load coming in is 3 different rations of hog feed and 2.5 tons of poultry. A little over 17 tons.

That's a big operation. How many and what kinds of poultry do you usually have?
When I was young, we had hogs, cattle, horses and pheasant on one farm south of St. Louis and another fruit and vegetable truck farm with 100 leghorns for egg sales on the north side of town.

 

[Razadia]

Our water froze for the first time in years. Ok well it was just a crust. We actually got 1/4 inch of snow as well. 4” of rain in the past week and half.

Mine froze a few weeks ago and I was sure the fish in my plastic pond would have died. I'll be darned if the little sucker didn't go pinging off the side in panic as I broke the ice. Bluegill are weird.

How much grain will you get at a time? I usually collect mine in 5 gallon buckets. I feed it wet. Too much hassle to dry. There’s a trick I’ve learned to keep it from molding. Stack 3 five gallon containers together and then put an empty five gallon on top of that. Fill the empty with water and it will compress the other 3 so that air doesn’t get to the grain. After compressing put water, while still stacked, into the other buckets. They last a very long time this way. And it keeps the deer from eating the grain.
View attachment 1677992
Stacking any other than 3 usually results in them falling over.

I may have to do that when I get frustrated with drying it. I don't know how much I'll be getting yet.

 

[Razadia]

Junebug is sick and staying home today. I had to convince him that he can't go to school while running a fever.