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

[kwhites634]

Quote: It probably wouldn't have changed anything if you had. I've got one for you: I've had something burrowing under the apron of the run for a while, stealing whatever feed the birds scattered on the ground. I put a cap on the feed opening at night, so I knew whatever was getting in couldn't get into the feeder. From the size & shape of the hole, I was thinking rat, but wasn't positive. More than once, I'd seen fresh excavation work at the hole that had been done during the day, so I started wondering if the chickens were doing it from inside the run, which didn't make a lot of sense, so I set up my trail camera. At first, I just used it at night, but I wasn't getting anything. Finally, I left it on round the clock for 2 days. 350+ images later..... Fortunately, after I uploaded the SD card to the laptop, I was able to scroll through them with the slideshow feature. After a while, among 11 constantly moving chickens, I spotted something out of place at the mouth of the feeder...my friendly rat. He doesn't come out at night; at least I don't have any nighttime images. He'll appear in the middle of the day, with chickens all around him, pull himself up into the feed chute, and help himself. What blows my mind is that he pays no attention to the chickens, nor they to him. Never would've believed it had I not seen it. The ramp's set up during the day so the birds came come & go w/o having to fly the 3' to the pop door from the ground, but I've seen no footage of Mr. Rat climbing it to get into the coop.

DW mentioned setting rat poison out, but there's too much chance of the birds getting to it Your ordeal earlier today gave me a possible solution, though. While the birds are out foraging tomorrow I'll lock them out of the run & pour boiling water down the hole & stand by with a shotgun. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[BantyChooks]

It probably wouldn't have changed anything if you had. I've got one for you: I've had something burrowing under the apron of the run for a while, stealing whatever feed the birds scattered on the ground. I put a cap on the feed opening at night, so I knew whatever was getting in couldn't get into the feeder. From the size & shape of the hole, I was thinking rat, but wasn't positive. More than once, I'd seen fresh excavation work at the hole that had been done during the day, so I started wondering if the chickens were doing it from inside the run, which didn't make a lot of sense, so I set up my trail camera. At first, I just used it at night, but I wasn't getting anything. Finally, I left it on round the clock for 2 days. 350+ images later..... Fortunately, after I uploaded the SD card to the laptop, I was able to scroll through them with the slideshow feature. After a while, among 11 constantly moving chickens, I spotted something out of place at the mouth of the feeder...my friendly rat. He doesn't come out at night; at least I don't have any nighttime images. He'll appear in the middle of the day, with chickens all around him, pull himself up into the feed chute, and help himself. What blows my mind is that he pays no attention to the chickens, nor they to him. Never would've believed it had I not seen it. The ramp's set up during the day so the birds came come & g o w/o having to fly the 3' to the pop door from the ground, but I've seen no footage of Mr. Rat climbing it to get into the coop.

DW mentioned setting rat poison out, but there's too much chance of the birds getting to it Your ordeal earlier today gave me a possible solution, though. While the birds are out foraging tomorrow I'll lock them out of the run & pour boiling water down the hole & stand by with a shotgun. I'll let you know how it goes.  

Coulda gone out and stomped it....

hope ya get it. The pallet was frozen to the ground, so there weren't much else I could think of....

 

[mlm Mike]

Quote: It probably wouldn't have changed anything if you had. I've got one for you: I've had something burrowing under the apron of the run for a while, stealing whatever feed the birds scattered on the ground. I put a cap on the feed opening at night, so I knew whatever was getting in couldn't get into the feeder. From the size & shape of the hole, I was thinking rat, but wasn't positive. More than once, I'd seen fresh excavation work at the hole that had been done during the day, so I started wondering if the chickens were doing it from inside the run, which didn't make a lot of sense, so I set up my trail camera. At first, I just used it at night, but I wasn't getting anything. Finally, I left it on round the clock for 2 days. 350+ images later..... Fortunately, after I uploaded the SD card to the laptop, I was able to scroll through them with the slideshow feature. After a while, among 11 constantly moving chickens, I spotted something out of place at the mouth of the feeder...my friendly rat. He doesn't come out at night; at least I don't have any nighttime images. He'll appear in the middle of the day, with chickens all around him, pull himself up into the feed chute, and help himself. What blows my mind is that he pays no attention to the chickens, nor they to him. Never would've believed it had I not seen it. The ramp's set up during the day so the birds came come & go w/o having to fly the 3' to the pop door from the ground, but I've seen no footage of Mr. Rat climbing it to get into the coop.

DW mentioned setting rat poison out, but there's too much chance of the birds getting to it Your ordeal earlier today gave me a possible solution, though. While the birds are out foraging tomorrow I'll lock them out of the run & pour boiling water down the hole & stand by with a shotgun. I'll let you know how it goes.

Last spring I saw a rat on the barn cam setup to watch the goats during kidding season. I took a pallet stacked hay on it and put the poison in the gap in the pallet. Figured the chickens couldn't get to it there. It worked.

 

[kwhites634]

Quote: Whatever works! After I remembered (with help) that starting fluid is nothing but ether, I may add it to the arsenal tomorrow.

 

[mlm Mike]

Quote: Whatever works! After I remembered (with help) that starting fluid is nothing but ether, I may add it to the arsenal tomorrow.

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

Hey guys update! 7 out of the 8 jap quail's hatched successfully

They're doing very well and are so cute and little. Moved my other quail round so now they can stay in the big brooder box that I built last week

Awwwwwww.... Congratulations - so glad you had a good hatch!

@Fire Ant Farm I hope you have a great day today since yesterday was rough.

Thank you, Dax - your good thoughts must have worked, today was better!

No, no, no, no, no. This isn't real. It CAN'T be.

I went out to check on my chickens and Tucson and Heather were dead. They had their throats cut and mangled. Chrissy is badly hurt but alive. One BSL hen dead, and Emma has injured toes.

Just.... Dead. My babies.

I can't take this.

I flushed that beast out of his lair with boiling water and ether before removing his head with a shovel. Call me cruel if you wish, but I don't regret it.

OMG, I stumbled upon this when reading back - I'm just sick to hear it, made me cry for them and you.

Did this happen overnight or during the day? I'm glad you got the culprit, I hear minks are pure evil.

​

Chrissy is doing a bit better. Washing the wounds revealed they were not quite as terrible.... She has quite a bit of swelling on her neck, so she has a hard time turning her head, but she doesn't have large chunks taken out. She does have puncture wounds tho so I'm going to make extra sure those get triple antibiotic ointment in them daily. I think what happened to her leg is the same thing that my last trio had happen to em.... Some tendon nicked, maybe. Whatever it was it healed after keeping them confined for a while.

Very good sign that she's drinking. I am hopeful that she will heal with time and care. With all that blood around the leg - is there a wound that we're not seeing? Pain and then swelling could keep her from using the leg for a while even if it's functionally fine, so have hope...

- Ant Farm

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

The eggs are in, test run here we come!

I just set mine - 12 NN x GNH and another 4 "why not" Ameraucana x Marans.

@ChickenCanoe , I lost the quote, but excellent point about weighing - and, indeed I do that as well. Indeed, I could not see into the marans eggs so I'll be going solely on weight for them. (I also traced the air cell for the lighter eggs - except one that was hard to see.)




I'm excited (though that's tempered by being so sad about Banti's ducks).

- Ant Farm

 

[BantyChooks]

Whatever works!   After I remembered (with help) that starting fluid is nothing but ether, I may add it to the arsenal tomorrow.

Yep. It's what I used to put the chick down this past spring.... It was probably the reason I was able to kill it, as it made its reaction time noticeably slower.

Awwwwwww.... Congratulations - so glad you had a good hatch! 
Thank you, Dax - your good thoughts must have worked, today was better! 
OMG, I stumbled upon this when reading back - I'm just sick to hear it, made me cry for them and you.   Did this happen overnight or during the day? I'm glad you got the culprit, I hear minks are pure evil. 


Very good sign that she's drinking. I am hopeful that she will heal with time and care. With all that blood around the leg - is there a wound that we're not seeing? Pain and then swelling could keep her from using the leg for a while even if it's functionally fine, so have hope...   

- Ant Farm 

Overnight, I think. They were cold when I found them.

I can't erase the image in my head of my beautiful ducks sprawled on the floor with dead, panicked eyes....

Yes, the skin was stripped from the thigh in about a 1 inch circle. What worries me is that leg is cold, while the functional one is warm.... Am I gonna end up with a 1 legged duck? :/

 

[Chaos18]

I just set mine - 12 NN x GNH and another 4 "why not" Ameraucana x Marans. @ChickenCanoe , I lost the quote, but excellent point about weighing - and, indeed I do that as well. Indeed, I could not see into the marans eggs so I'll be going solely on weight for them. (I also traced the air cell for the lighter eggs - except one that was hard to see.) I'm excited (though that's tempered by being so sad about Banti's ducks). - Ant Farm

Good luck with your eggs.

 

[BantyChooks]

Miss Chrissy is holding her head up a teeny smidgen more and made soft quack noises when I came into the room

It's a sick bay in here... Georgia upstairs, Chrissy downstairs...