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

[daxigait]

@Fire Ant Farm@ChickenCanoeWell, as to the weather here it is a colder mirror of yours Kristen. I said I was battling down test too. We had the same type of temperature drop. It warmed up weird Friday night to 55. At five AM Saturday morning it was 55° , by 6 it was 32. By eleven it was raining ice. By dark we were getting a light snow on top in the single digits. This morning it is 0° with a wind chill of -15°. The goats are shivering. The chickens and cows seem fine (CC ,Pen is in the dog cage in the main coop and much happier. I have a frozen waterer in between the goats and cows, and two chickens in the main coop spent the night outside in the run but seem fine.

@BantyChooks I have seen water freeze like that as a kid. I moved south because I did my share of winters like that. Here it just starts to ice over as soon as you set a bucket out.


I hope everyone is well.

 

[mlm Mike]

@Fire Ant Farm @ChickenCanoe Well, as to the weather here it is a colder mirror of yours Kristen. I said I was battling down test too. We had the same type of temperature drop. It warmed up weird Friday night to 55. At five AM Saturday morning it was 55° , by 6 it was 32. By eleven it was raining ice. By dark we were getting a light snow on top in the single digits. This morning it is 0° with a wind chill of -15°. The goats are shivering. The chickens and cows seem fine (CC ,Pen is in the dog cage in the main coop and much happier. I have a frozen waterer in between the goats and cows, and two chickens in the main coop spent the night outside in the run but seem fine.

@BantyChooks I have seen water freeze like that as a kid. I moved south because I did my share of winters like that. Here it just starts to ice over as soon as you set a bucket out.


I hope everyone is well.

Hi Dax!

 

[meltel]

So for once I have a chicken question!!! Against my better judgement, I bought more seramas. 2 adult, 1 older cockerel and 2 younger cockerels (3 months). The person i got them from lives in a warmer climate-South Carolina where it has been between 50-75 degrees. We here in Michigan are lucky if we hit 30. I'm not planning on having her ship this week because of the holiday madness & chance of them getting lost but I don't see a break in our temps any time soon. Hopefully it will be 2 days-3 max travel time. Does anybody know if the birds can stand 30 degree temps or how or where they are stored at night? I always have them hold them at my post office and they give them food and water immediately when they arrive there. Or is there something the shipper can do to help keep them warmer? any advice would be appreciated!

 

[daxigait]

Would you post a picture of him? The avatar images on mobile are too small to see much. Congratulations!

 

[daxigait]

@ChickenCanoeTalk about predators.

HUNGRY and COLD can you guys see the three CYOTES that just skirted my property? The Llama and I did.

 

[Honora]

My feeling is that if a raccoon can find meat on it, so can we. Make sure you let the meat rest. bone in. for at least 3 days.
For a 3 month old bird, if you don't part it out, brown it breast up at about 375 for about 15-20 minutes. Then drop the heat to about 220, breast down in a broth till the meat starts to fall off the bone. Sea salt, fresh ground pepper and perhaps some rosemary. That's how I usually do it.

Funny you should mention raccoons....:-( The other night I forgot to lock up the coop & something got in and ate half a chicken. I guess it was a raccoon. It was one of my Orpington pullets.

I am thinking that chicken soup sounds really good this time of year so I am planning to go with the whole chicken in the soup thing. I also have a new slow cooker so I am going to try it out with the soup.

I have heard of waiting three days, and that is what I have done in the past, but my husband says that you can also eat a chicken right away after it is butchered. What is the reason for the three days, just wondering?

 

[Honora]

@ChickenCanoe Talk about predators.

HUNGRY and COLD can you guys see the three cyotes that just skirted my property? The Llama and I did.

Wow, in the middle of the day? They must be very hungry.

 

[BullChick]

So for once I have a chicken question!!! Against my better judgement, I bought more seramas. 2 adult, 1 older cockerel and 2 younger cockerels (3 months). The person i got them from lives in a warmer climate-South Carolina where it has been between 50-75 degrees. We here in Michigan are lucky if we hit 30. I'm not planning on having her ship this week because of the holiday madness & chance of them getting lost but I don't see a break in our temps any time soon. Hopefully it will be 2 days-3 max travel time. Does anybody know if the birds can stand 30 degree temps or how or where they are stored at night? I always have them hold them at my post office and they give them food and water immediately when they arrive there. Or is there something the shipper can do to help keep them warmer? any advice would be appreciated! 

They should be fine. They will keep each other warm, and 30° is actually quite warm for a chicken.

Funny you should mention raccoons....:-( The other night I forgot to lock up the coop & something got in and ate half a chicken. I guess it was a raccoon. It was one of my Orpington pullets. 

I am thinking that chicken soup sounds really good this time of year so I am planning to go with the whole chicken in the soup thing. I also have a new slow cooker so I am going to try it out with the soup. 

I have heard of waiting three days, and that is what I have done in the past, but my husband says that you can also eat a chicken right away after it is butchered. What is the reason for the three days, just wondering?

Yes, you can eat a bird right away. Before rigor mortis sets in. After a few hours, the rigor mortis begins to set in and you need to wait three days for it to release.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Which is why I was asking about the Brinsea. Mine varies also. Still manage to hatch some chicks but not all. Good for chicken math I suppose.

It became more worrisome for a bit when I went to instant read thermometers. The temperature would go from 99 - 112 or some variation of that depending on where I was reading. It was a big cabinet and when the heat element turned on, the fan would blow the heat down across the thermometer and it would heat up the air in the incubator, but internal egg temp didn't vary that much.

IMHO, one has to figure how often the thermometer is sampling temperature and if the thermostat is on/off or proportional.

I s'pose. I'd still like to have a better average hatch rate than 37%....
(That is, however, counting shipped eggs)

That would be good.
Nutrition, storage, turning and temp is what I focus on.

Then don't. I didn't!

I looked out, and discovered that the snow is almost all gone.

Don't worry, we're sending you more.

@Fire Ant Farm @ChickenCanoe Well, as to the weather here it is a colder mirror of yours Kristen. I said I was battling down test too. We had the same type of temperature drop. It warmed up weird Friday night to 55. At five AM Saturday morning it was 55° , by 6 it was 32. By eleven it was raining ice. By dark we were getting a light snow on top in the single digits. This morning it is 0° with a wind chill of -15°. The goats are shivering. The chickens and cows seem fine (CC ,Pen is in the dog cage in the main coop and much happier. I have a frozen waterer in between the goats and cows, and two chickens in the main coop spent the night outside in the run but seem fine.

@BantyChooks I have seen water freeze like that as a kid. I moved south because I did my share of winters like that. Here it just starts to ice over as soon as you set a bucket out.

Sounds good. We never got out of the thirties Friday and Saturday.
The chickens are all good today. Especially the ones that have seen snow before.
I saw a rooster with a little comb and wattle damage yesterday. It sometimes takes a couple days to show up.
I'm sure he'll be much happier when he can move about with friends and do rooster stuff.
One more dangerously cold day and night and then a bit of a warm up. Long range forecast looks like this may be the coldest weather of the season.

So for once I have a chicken question!!! Against my better judgement, I bought more seramas. 2 adult, 1 older cockerel and 2 younger cockerels (3 months). The person i got them from lives in a warmer climate-South Carolina where it has been between 50-75 degrees. We here in Michigan are lucky if we hit 30. I'm not planning on having her ship this week because of the holiday madness & chance of them getting lost but I don't see a break in our temps any time soon. Hopefully it will be 2 days-3 max travel time. Does anybody know if the birds can stand 30 degree temps or how or where they are stored at night? I always have them hold them at my post office and they give them food and water immediately when they arrive there. Or is there something the shipper can do to help keep them warmer? any advice would be appreciated!

There are heat packs that come in everything from 8 hour to 72 hour that they could include. Probably need to isolate the heat pack from the birds though.
Shipping in milder weather would be wiser.

One never knows where the birds will be sitting in transit. They could be in the back of a truck, on a tarmack, in the plane cargo hold, etc., however they are usually in buildings or in transit.

I only have one question. Why would someone living in a climate like that raise seramas? Do you have temperature controlled housing for your birds.

@ChickenCanoe Talk about predators.

HUNGRY and COLD can you guys see the three CYOTES that just skirted my property? The Llama and I did.

I saw tracks in the new snow this morning of deer, coyote, a bunch of rabbits and a possum.

Funny you should mention raccoons....:-( The other night I forgot to lock up the coop & something got in and ate half a chicken. I guess it was a raccoon. It was one of my Orpington pullets.

I am thinking that chicken soup sounds really good this time of year so I am planning to go with the whole chicken in the soup thing. I also have a new slow cooker so I am going to try it out with the soup.

I have heard of waiting three days, and that is what I have done in the past, but my husband says that you can also eat a chicken right away after it is butchered. What is the reason for the three days, just wondering?

All meat needs to rest to get rid of rigor mortis.
After slaughter muscle glycogen is converted to lactic acid and a drop in pH occurs causing a tightening of the muscle.
Perhaps if you threw it right into the pot upon slaughter you may beat the muscles to the task of stiffening.
In the old days they would catch an old hen for Sunday dinner. I'm sure they had the pot or oven already heated up.


http://meat.tamu.edu/ansc-307-honors/conversion-muscle-to-meat/

Rigor mortis

Literal translation is “death stiffening.” Rigor has four phases:
Delay phase — while there is plenty of ATP in the muscle (complexed with Mg++), the muscle will remain in the relaxed state and no crossbridges between the thick and thin myofilaments will occur.
Onset phase — As stores of ATP and Creatine Phosphate (CP is used to rephosphoryate ADP to ATP) are used up, rigor bonds between the thick and thin myofilaments are formed. As more bonds are formed, the muscle loses extensibility.
Completion — When all of the CP is gone, the muscle has no way of regenerating ATP. Thus, full rigor mortis will set in.
Resolution — The action of proteolytic enzymes will cause the muscle to soften through protein degradation during postmortem aging.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/t0562e/T0562E02.htm

Wow, in the middle of the day? They must be very hungry.

I've had a couple pass right through the front yard at 9 AM with traffic going by. Very bold.
A couple times I've had them pass through the chicken yard at 2 and 4 in the afternoon. On one occasion they took a chick and a rooster but all the hens were safe. Rooster did his job one last time. Took one for the team.

 

[Pensmaster]

Funny you should mention raccoons....:-( The other night I forgot to lock up the coop & something got in and ate half a chicken. I guess it was a raccoon. It was one of my Orpington pullets. 

I am thinking that chicken soup sounds really good this time of year so I am planning to go with the whole chicken in the soup thing. I also have a new slow cooker so I am going to try it out with the soup. 

I have heard of waiting three days, and that is what I have done in the past, but my husband says that you can also eat a chicken right away after it is butchered. What is the reason for the three days, just wondering?

Sorry about the loss of pullet

Resting meat in fridge gets it past rigamortis breaks the proteins down and relaxes the meat. I also salt the meat dry when it goes in fridge. Stored in a large baggie. I usually go longer than three days. The amount of salt is only what you would usually use while eating perhaps less.

Having said that I agree with your husband there has to be away to cook the bird without this resting process. I doubt our ancestors waited any length of time at all.