FoodKiller's chicken journal!

[FoodKillah]

Few days ago, i was searching through all that stuff i buy from eBay and then leave them in their boxes because i dont need them. All that stuff belong to some shelf in a storage closet. I found that digital thermostat i bought few months back when i was planning to make an incubator some day.

That thermostat is so cool, it can cool or it can heat up, it depends what temperature you want it to go to. I was trying to make it work, but i couldnt.. lol. I connected its thermometer wire, then the power wire for the plug, and then i had the option to connect 4 more wires, 2 of them was heat and 2 was cool. I knew which was the heat, and i connected both wires of the lamp there, that was my mistake. My father was an electrician so i asked him and he told me that it acts as a switch so i connected one wire from the lamp to the power and the other to one of the heat outputs, then i bridged the other heat output to the power. I dont know if all that makes sense to anyone but it doesnt really matter. The box i used for the thermostat is pathetic, its its own box that it was shipped with, covered with tape.

I found a cardboard box and a small old window to cover it and i placed the lamp in there and made me a quick incubator. I use 2 digital thermometers one of them has humidity meter as well, i use a small cup with water for humidity and i have the egg placed in a square piece of plastic that is connected to a metal wire and goes out of the box so you can turn the egg from the outside.

I used a 60w regular cheap lamp i bought for 1$. It does the job with the heat. It works i made and tested the incubator 2 days ago and today i was gathering the eggs and found a warm one and thought why not try it out. I wanted to hatch the eggs from The Baker and this is not, i think its wooses egg, brown egglayer. I turned it an hour ago for the second time.

I believe i will not be the best egg turner around for the next 21 days but weeeeeeell..... lets see

I might upload a couple of photos next time

 

[BigDaddy'sGurl]

I am so happy for you! I think incubating is sooo much fun. Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[FoodKillah]

Bugs
I was free ranging the chicks today and i thought the "Dinosaur" looked even more weird than what he does anyway. One of her wings misses alot of feathers on the top, at the spot or near the spot the rooster grabs her to.. tell her secrets. But it didnt look really good too, the skin looked red, and lately i think she misses more feathers on the neck as well.

She had mites or lice or whatever you call them. I turned her around on the grass and took a look under her wings, i think its in this forum where i was reading about it, those little bugs where there! Not good. Poor dinosaur. "Afterpee" my favorite hen that died, had those little bugs. Now "Dinosaur"?

Then i checked all the other hens and the rooster, but they looked clean, the rooster didnt love the idea of me catching him either turning him around.

I went inside and brought a spray that i bought from the petshop the other day. It says it repells evil bugs like mites or lice or whatever, from birds. Chickens are also birds so i bought it because i use nothing else so far for pests, and i thought i better have that, than nothing, incase i need it. That was todays case.

I sprayed the poor "Dinosaur" under the wings, on the neck, on the head, back, belly, butt, all. She looked like she came out of a rainy day.

The funny thing was that when she went under a tree and started pecking herself (she was all wet and propably felt weird) the rooster joined her, he went next to her and started doing the same thing, then all the other hens joined as well. Oh check this out, a chicken event!

The incubator is still running and i am turning the eggs every now and then, i think yesterday i only turned them twice. I expect about 0% hatch rate anyway, i am just testing. Today i put another egg into it. Now 2 eggs are incubating with 3 days difference.

Thats my news goodbye journal!

 

[FoodKillah]

The incubator got at veeery low humidity yesterday. The cup i used to have the water in, was totaly dry and the digital meter showed LL which means too low to count

i dont know how long it was that way, maybe a day. I will keep an eye on that cup so that never happens again. I also placed an egg from "The Baker" in it today. Now i got 3 eggs in it.

Weeding the garden is fun. All the flock was scratching around where i digged and ate bugs, worms, stones, dirt, pieces of weeds and my shoe. My new compost pile is getting huge and i am not sure if i will keep those weeds to compost them or burn them when they dry, but i throw in it all the kitchen waste except meat and cooked food.

"The Baker" got stuck between a water pump and some huge metal pipes in my storage room, i was looking for her in the yard and she was nowhere to be seen, then i went in the storage room and looked around, nothing. I look around again, nothing. I heard a sound like hard breathing and i kept looking and looking, then i saw a little black head staring at me. There she was stuck in there and could hardly breath, i carefully moved away the metal pipes and released her, and there was the warm egg that i placed in the incubator. I will try to close the new door i got in that room from now on..

My feed is gone, the bottom of the bag was rotten and i dont give it to them. For the last 5 days they eat our left overs and tons of weeds and dirt. They seem to be doing fine. I also give them the eggs i find in secret nests they make here and there. I also gave them a handful of rabbit feed today and bread, they seem to be doing ok.

Thats it for now journal!

 

[Baymule]

I wish you luck with the incubating. I haven't tried that yet, I hope you get some to hatch. Sorry your feed bag got ruined, but it's ok, chickens LOVE leftovers!!!!

 

[FoodKillah]

I should put more water in the incubator, the small cup i use dries up quickly and as i was trying to check on the humidity i noticed that no matter what, the counter always shows "LL" meaning very low. I will try a big jar of water tomorrow to see if that works. I dont know if the eggs are dead by now tho, i will keep incubating them.

Today i let the hens free range and very soon after i had to go so i wanted to lock them back in. -Well lately i gave them tons of treats and they were used to me=treats- Sooo i went back out and made my treat-call and all my little flock was flying over the yard to come to me as quickly and as cute as possible. They came to me but i was just standing there, with empty hands, and yelled at them with evil voice "INSIDE". The poor birds made some quite noises as they followed one another inside the coop before i close the door. Thats how bad i am.

 

[BigDaddy'sGurl]

Love your latest update!

About the humidity in the incubator: it doesn't matter how deep your water container is, it's surface area that matters. Try putting a larger shallow dish with a good amount of surface area in the incubator: that should increase the humidity. Have you candled yet? There are pics on this site that shows how much air should be in the eggs at certain stages of incubation...try searching "egg candling pics"...

Good luck and keep us updated!!

 

[FoodKillah]

BigDaddy'sGurl :

Love your latest update!

About the humidity in the incubator: it doesn't matter how deep your water container is, it's surface area that matters. Try putting a larger shallow dish with a good amount of surface area in the incubator: that should increase the humidity. Have you candled yet? There are pics on this site that shows how much air should be in the eggs at certain stages of incubation...try searching "egg candling pics"...

Good luck and keep us updated!!

I took a quick look on the sticky topic in the incubating section about the candling. I am not sure if i understand what i will be looking for exactly but i will candle them soon, maybe after day 14 as suggested here in BYC. However i dont feel like my eggs are going to make it, especially after i realized that the humidity was so low (i dont even know how low, LL, lol) for so many days, then i forget about them too, i am not sure how many times i turn them a day, somedays 3-4 at random hours, others 1-2, i could have forgotten them too someday, i dont remember. I dont care that much, i wanted the thermostat to get to work more than i want those chicks right now, lol. If anything comes out of those eggs will get names like "hope" "holy" or a rooster "the priest" "saint" or something because i think they need help from above to make it, hehe. I replaced the little cup of water with a big jar that does have a bigger surface, i will check it later to see how the humidity is, also the temperature, because that jar of water is a big cold object and thought it might affect the temperature too, i will see. See i use a very small cardboard box as an incubator and the area i have available in there is VERY limited.

edit: Editing to say that i might have said that i dont care about hatching those eggs, but that is not true, deep in there i really hope to get a rooster out of the egg that belongs to the baker. A hen would do too. I love how the baker behaves and i really want more of that gene in my flock.​

 

[FoodKillah]

OMG i am so stupid. I did the calculation wrong in my mind thinking that 100fn is 39.8 celcius instead of 37.8. That was when i was setting up the thermostat of the incubator 15 days ago. I wonder if there is any chance left for my eggs to hatch. They might be ready to eat too, cooked at low temperature for all these days!

I changed the temperature now and also got a wet sponge in there because the jar doesnt really work. The humidity is higher now, not even more than 50% yet tho.

I was working on the new runs ground level for a couple of days that the weather was sunny. I am trying to make something like a hill so the water drains out of there when it rains. I hope it rains today for the soil to "sit" so i can see what i have done so far. I also gathered tons of big stones with the wheel barrow from the fields around here and placed them all around the coop from the inside of the fence and from the outside as well. Then i gathered more and build some sort of plant patios with 1 layer of stone nothing fancy there but it looks much better. It will look even better when i plant it. I hope when my garden is complete there will be enough flowers and plants for my chickens to peck and my garden to exist, right now, the weeds keep them busy and they dont pay much attention when i plant something, especially if i water it and they cant dig around it.


agrh i had to bring photos, next time.

 

[cabincrazyone]

Hello Foodkillah, I found this thread today ... this morning, and just finished reading the whole thing. It was a pleasure to follow you through your first few months of keeping chickens.
I presume that's the Mediterranean Sea in the background of your pictures? What a fantastic view!!! Also, your chickens are all beautiful.
I don't have my chickens yet. I hope to get some this spring. I live in Minnesota, at the western point of Lake Superior. We have very harsh winters here. It was 15 below zero (f) last night. It's 9:00am right now and the temperature has warmed up to 4 below.

I'm reading a lot here at BYC and soaking up a lot of information. What a great site!!
Keep up the great work .... on your chickens and on your journal. Isn't it a wonder ... how we can communicate like this half way around the world?!!!