Farming and Homesteading Heritage Poultry

[bnjrob]

Tired of being hot but the animals are all doing just fine with it. Gave up on the garden after half a year of nearly non-stop rain and chickens and donkeys trampling it. Haven't been able to hatch many chickens this year - all the rain caused too much mud and extra-filthy eggs. Turkey poults are growing like weeds and finally got the guinea keets to a pen in the pasture so they are much less annoying. Donkeys are trying to kill me with their prison breaks. Hoping they have gotten their fill of escaping the pasture for a while.

 

[NanaKat]

I had two broodies.  One hatched out two the other day and I hatched one the next day.  The other seems to have five so far.  We don't know for sure.

Sure hope you end up with a bunch of chicks for them to raise.

Well my six Dorking chicks are half grown and eating me out of house and home with their one token silkie that my broody hen didn't tell me about until it was half cooked....   The black silkies are now in the silkie pen and the girls are laying like mad.  Thankfully school started so I have access to share my bounty.  I have a ton of apples to can and of course the pears will be in soon.   Oh and school started so as a teacher I am very very busy.  

Are you going to make Applesauce? Our trees are loaded too. We canned 36 quarts of peaches last month. Wishing you a great school year! I don't miss it at all.

Tired of being hot but the animals are all doing just fine with it.  Gave up on the garden after half a year of nearly non-stop rain and chickens and donkeys trampling it.  Haven't been able to hatch many chickens this year - all the rain caused too much mud and extra-filthy eggs.  Turkey poults are growing like weeds and finally got the guinea keets to a pen in the pasture so they are much less annoying.  Donkeys are trying to kill me with their prison breaks.  Hoping they have gotten their fill of escaping the pasture for a while.

Wow, sounds like your critters are keeping you busy! Know what you mean about those extra filthy eggs from muddy footed hens. Our raised beds saved the garden this year. Nothing like getting two years of rain in one month.

 

[TeaChick]

Well my six Dorking chicks are half grown and eating me out of house and home with their one token silkie that my broody hen didn't tell me about until it was half cooked.... The black silkies are now in the silkie pen and the girls are laying like mad. Thankfully school started so I have access to share my bounty. I have a ton of apples to can and of course the pears will be in soon. Oh and school started so as a teacher I am very very busy.

Congrats on all that!
I don't envy you teaching. I taught 3YOs for a short while.
I saw a woman in the store the other day with a shirt on that said, "I teach K (in a Superman diamond shape); what's your superpower?" I tried to stop her and tell her that I agree that teaching is a superpower, but she didn't hear me say excuse me.
So, I'll tell you: I think teaching is something special and it takes a really special person to do it!!!!

and (just to keep on topic, sort of) maybe you could hatch eggs in the classroom; that'd be a good learning experience. =)

 

[TeaChick]

Tired of being hot but the animals are all doing just fine with it. Gave up on the garden after half a year of nearly non-stop rain and chickens and donkeys trampling it. Haven't been able to hatch many chickens this year - all the rain caused too much mud and extra-filthy eggs. Turkey poults are growing like weeds and finally got the guinea keets to a pen in the pasture so they are much less annoying. Donkeys are trying to kill me with their prison breaks. Hoping they have gotten their fill of escaping the pasture for a while.

I'm hating the heat too, but I hate the cold more, so I try not to complain too much (try being the key word there).
Sounds like you've had a hard time w/ the garden. I have a brown/black thumb, but DD takes care of the garden for me and her thumbs are both green.
I hope the donkeys give you a break! =)

Sure hope you end up with a bunch of chicks for them to raise.

Thank you! =)
The first broody (Sapphire) let one of her chicks get pecked to death. So I took the other and put her (

) with the one I had hatched.
The second (Green) hatched out a total of six as of this morning. I gave her the other two from Sapphire's brood last night and she's fostering them like they're her own. So, she's got 8 chicks and five eggs (one of which was laid in there within the past week

). But she's out and about in the coop w/ the chicks.

My plan is to take the eggs. I'll candle and see if there's anything I can do, but I doubt there's anything alive in any of them.

 

[Fentress]

I got off to a slow/bumpy start on my first year of breeding. It goes back to last winter, family health issues occupied all of my time and I started the spring behind the curve and just never caught up on both chicken and other projects. Thats life, thankfully everyone is now well. Working with only broodies I did manage to put 25 on the ground. It would have been more if I had had better/more facilities. I do have a chicken tractor design that I like and with a few modifications will be building more of those for next year. Getting better at judging chicks, which is important for me, because I don't have the room to let many males hang around for a long time. I am selecting for the basics of good physical conformation and not much more, so my decisions are not as complicated as some other folks. Had some new experiences this year. A black snake got 2 of my chicks, so the e-net is not infalluable!LOL And I had some instances of brood on brood violence that was rather serious. No chick was hurt, but they certainly could have been. It was limited to my game breed. My game breed is very broody and can also be difficult to work with. They refuse relocations about 50% of the time. One of the hens that had just refused, I had let her out of the tractor and she was back in the coop in the nest box. Another mother brought her brood into the coop and the hen literally went beserk and attacked the chicks, the fight moved out into the yard and then she attacked another brood of chicks. Fortunately, I was there and I put her down. I thought it was odd that a broody hen, without chicks would behave like that.

I have been looking at incubators. The slow growth of BR combined with late hatches is a problem. With a bator I could put 50 on the ground in early spring, that would be my core breed stock and large roasters and then put another 50 on the ground with the broodies which would be my fryers and maybe a breeder if one really sticks out. A cabinet incubator is more than what I need, but I like the ability to have staggered hatches in quick succession. Get it done and take down one of my breeding pens and leave the other up to feed the broodies.

Our summer has been pretty good. A little warm and dry, but not too bad. Lots of tomatoes, I am drying and freezing. Haven't gotten around to doing the canning thing, yet. I have lots of Romas and have been making sauce. Its no joke, really good. Do add the ladel of water from your pasta pot. It really does help to firm up the marinara sauce.

 

[bnjrob]

I got off to a slow/bumpy start on my first year of breeding. It goes back to last winter, family health issues occupied all of my time and I started the spring behind the curve and just never caught up on both chicken and other projects. Thats life, thankfully everyone is now well. Working with only broodies I did manage to put 25 on the ground. It would have been more if I had had better/more facilities. I do have a chicken tractor design that I like and with a few modifications will be building more of those for next year. Getting better at judging chicks, which is important for me, because I don't have the room to let many males hang around for a long time. I am selecting for the basics of good physical conformation and not much more, so my decisions are not as complicated as some other folks. Had some new experiences this year. A black snake got 2 of my chicks, so the e-net is not infalluable!LOL And I had some instances of brood on brood violence that was rather serious. No chick was hurt, but they certainly could have been. It was limited to my game breed. My game breed is very broody and can also be difficult to work with. They refuse relocations about 50% of the time. One of the hens that had just refused, I had let her out of the tractor and she was back in the coop in the nest box. Another mother brought her brood into the coop and the hen literally went beserk and attacked the chicks, the fight moved out into the yard and then she attacked another brood of chicks. Fortunately, I was there and I put her down. I thought it was odd that a broody hen, without chicks would behave like that.

I have been looking at incubators. The slow growth of BR combined with late hatches is a problem. With a bator I could put 50 on the ground in early spring, that would be my core breed stock and large roasters and then put another 50 on the ground with the broodies which would be my fryers and maybe a breeder if one really sticks out. A cabinet incubator is more than what I need, but I like the ability to have staggered hatches in quick succession. Get it done and take down one of my breeding pens and leave the other up to feed the broodies.

Our summer has been pretty good. A little warm and dry, but not too bad. Lots of tomatoes, I am drying and freezing. Haven't gotten around to doing the canning thing, yet. I have lots of Romas and have been making sauce. Its no joke, really good. Do add the ladel of water from your pasta pot. It really does help to firm up the marinara sauce.

Ugh, it is amazing how the birds can suddenly go crazy and start after somebody else in the flock. Really makes for a bad day.

 

[TeaChick]

I got off to a slow/bumpy start on my first year of breeding. It goes back to last winter, family health issues occupied all of my time and I started the spring behind the curve and just never caught up on both chicken and other projects. Thats life, thankfully everyone is now well. Working with only broodies I did manage to put 25 on the ground. It would have been more if I had had better/more facilities. I do have a chicken tractor design that I like and with a few modifications will be building more of those for next year. Getting better at judging chicks, which is important for me, because I don't have the room to let many males hang around for a long time. I am selecting for the basics of good physical conformation and not much more, so my decisions are not as complicated as some other folks. Had some new experiences this year. A black snake got 2 of my chicks, so the e-net is not infalluable!LOL And I had some instances of brood on brood violence that was rather serious. No chick was hurt, but they certainly could have been. It was limited to my game breed. My game breed is very broody and can also be difficult to work with. They refuse relocations about 50% of the time. One of the hens that had just refused, I had let her out of the tractor and she was back in the coop in the nest box. Another mother brought her brood into the coop and the hen literally went beserk and attacked the chicks, the fight moved out into the yard and then she attacked another brood of chicks. Fortunately, I was there and I put her down. I thought it was odd that a broody hen, without chicks would behave like that.

I have been looking at incubators. The slow growth of BR combined with late hatches is a problem. With a bator I could put 50 on the ground in early spring, that would be my core breed stock and large roasters and then put another 50 on the ground with the broodies which would be my fryers and maybe a breeder if one really sticks out. A cabinet incubator is more than what I need, but I like the ability to have staggered hatches in quick succession. Get it done and take down one of my breeding pens and leave the other up to feed the broodies.

Our summer has been pretty good. A little warm and dry, but not too bad. Lots of tomatoes, I am drying and freezing. Haven't gotten around to doing the canning thing, yet. I have lots of Romas and have been making sauce. Its no joke, really good. Do add the ladel of water from your pasta pot. It really does help to firm up the marinara sauce.

Yeah, I've had a late start b/c the chicks I bought late last summer only just started brooding seriously. Half a dozen rat snakes this year (no chick loses, just eggs, but that burns me too).
DD has a trio of game bantams; I'll pass along the information here. That's for sharing the experience!!! =)

I've been looking at incubators too. For my purposes, I'm looking at a forced air hovabator. I need the styrofoam and forced air, oh, and automatic turner. That's me. I wish I could turn them by hand like a broody, but I have too much going on. lol
My modest hatch looks like it's yielded 4 pullets (yay for eggs next year) and 3 cockerels (yay for dinner sometime this winter).

Our summer has been terrible. Wet at the wrong times, extremely humid and at least ten days over 100*. Just a few tomatoes and a few canteloupes; not enough of anything to can or freeze, but super yummy stuff!!!
Thanks for the tip on the marinara sauce!! =)

 

[NanaKat]

I have been looking at incubators. The slow growth of BR combined with late hatches is a problem. With a bator I could put 50 on the ground in early spring, that would be my core breed stock and large roasters and then put another 50 on the ground with the broodies which would be my fryers and maybe a breeder if one really sticks out. A cabinet incubator is more than what I need, but I like the ability to have staggered hatches in quick succession. Get it done and take down one of my breeding pens and leave the other up to feed the broodies.

[quote name=Tea Chick" url=/t/447684/farming-and-homesteading-heritage-poultry/3000#post_15716970"]
Yeah, I've had a late start b/c the chicks I bought late last summer only just started brooding seriously.  Half a dozen rat snakes this year (no chick loses, just eggs, but that burns me too).
DD has a trio of game bantams; I'll pass along the information here.  That's for sharing the experience!!! =)

I've been looking at incubators too.  For my purposes, I'm looking at a forced air hovabator.  I need the styrofoam and forced air, oh, and automatic turner.  That's me.  I wish I could turn them by hand like a broody, but I have too much going on. lol
My modest hatch looks like it's yielded 4 pullets (yay for eggs next year) and 3 cockerels (yay for dinner sometime this winter).
[/quote]

I have three Hovabators with forced air and three egg turners. One Hovabator is strictly for hatching. I use one egg turner for storing eggs to go into an incubator.
The second and third Hovabators each hold a set of eggs to incubate. I write #2 on one and #3 on the other.
I keep a notebook handy to record each set of eggs...and I use fine point Sharpie pens for marking the eggs. Marks like X, O, /, ~, & and different colors. Also I keep a big calendar on the wall. I like to keep records on breed pen, hatch rate, quitter rate, toe punch, etc.

I start #2 and mark those eggs with a code. I write the date set and the code in the notebook and the date for hatch.
Then a week later I start #3 and mark those eggs with another code. Record in the notebook.
At this time, I candle the eggs in # 2. I pull duds.
I candle eggs in #3 on day 7.
On day 18 the eggs in #2 get moved to the hatcher. A new set of eggs goes into #2, new code and record in the notebook.
Clean the hatcher after each hatch.
On day 18 the eggs from #3 go in the hatcher. A new set of eggs goes into #3, new code and record in the hatcher.

It requires diligent note taking to do this, but, During peak egg production, you could get another hatch in by filling the empty spaces in both #2 and #3 with a set of eggs when you candle #3. Use a new code and color for these eggs and record in the notebook. The different color coding helps identify which eggs stay in the incubator and which go to the hatcher.
By juggling the eggs I have been able to get hatches about every 4 to 5 days.....

 

[finnfur]

We built our Budget-bator out of a retired upright freezer - its great way to go if your handy and have limited funds.

 

[TeaChick]

We built our Budget-bator out of a retired upright freezer - its great way to go if your handy and have limited funds.

I've used cooler-bators (I didn't make), and box-u-bators (I made myself). The boxes worked best, oddly enough. I'd be willing to try building a freezer incubator with the right parts. This is very encouraging!