Getting the flock out of here - a diary of a crazy chicken man

[ozexpat]

Anyway.. I have now learnt a heap of things that I would never have learnt and feel somewhat lost now that my bed time will have to be earlier. lol

Proud of you macksy

 

[Macksy]

The name is Maxine... but Max is fine.

huge kudos to you Oz. I wouldn't have the patience or heart. But what a grand adventure. Think I am going to have to make myself part of the furniture here. Lol

 

[ozexpat]

Hi Maxine.

I am Mark but have been known by Oz here for so long that I don't realise people are talking to me if I am addressed by Mark lol.

 

[ozexpat]

Here is a pic of our evening collection yesterday.

We have had a problem with our hatch lately. Just before Dodong left we had a zero hatch rate. The following week we had 6 hatch from over 200 eggs. On Sunday Syrel went to do th incubator log and the thermostat was at 51c!!!

It looks like we found the reason. I was really concerned as to Syrel being ok to exchange thermostat and then reprogram. I sent him a pic of the instructions and went through it step by step and it.worked

The net effect is 5 weeks of dead eggs. That's a lot of income.

The agrilink promo did really well. We managed to sell off most of our juveniles and point of lay birds. We still have income coming in from them.

We are running a promo starting next week on day old chicks and 3-4 week olds. The Philippines has a 13th month pay rule. The employee gets 1/12 of their actual income for the year as a lump sum in desperation or by December 20.

It will be a sale price for birds delivered in Jan and Feb.

Pig 17 is due in 3 weeks. She is looking good. Her offspring will be purebred Landrace. They will be third generation using what they call there GP (grand parent) quality semen. I will keep her best male piglet as a boar and the best two girls

The two recent AI performed by Syrel on first attempt gilts looks like they took. One is Landrace Sire and the second is large white sire - both gilts are Landrace. The first of those two is due in 85 days. The second in 90 days.

Pigs 18-20 are being prepped for insemination in late December. We gave ivermectin last week and parvo virus vaccine on Sunday. They will get PG600 PG600 next week. This will synch their 1st estrus and allow us to more easily predict second estrus so we can perform AI.

Our junior boar is doing well. He will have his 1st chance of producing when pigs 19 and 20 require rebreeding, if successful, we will start offering semen at $7 per dose. Currently the local farmer pays a piglet for getting his sows pregnant. It will take 6 doses a month to break even with him. When I first started breeding pigs, this was my motivation. I was aghast at paying $50 (the price of a weaned piglet) for a guy to come and service our sow.

Its easy for us to get semen because we have means. We can access the payment system, order the semen, have somebody pick it up in Bacolod, transfer it to a bus and then have somebody pick it up in Kabankalan and transport to the farm.

Some local farmer not only can't pull that off, they would not send the money off hoping they would get the product.

Even if they did, they would have to pay freight and time

 

[Sally Sunshine]

5 weeks is too much time to not know incubation errors my goodness! But with all those changes "in house" nothing you could have done, you must send them to my school now

they much catch those immediately!

 

[ozexpat]

It was actually just over 2 weeks but it effected all the eggs.

Syrel is very good at candling. He can also open an egg and tell when it failed.

I am pretty confident we have it solved.

I will add a second bator for incubation when I next get there.

 

[ozexpat]

My next incubator will definitely have an Auto turning system. The ideal system will turn tilt the eggs 90 degrees on the hour.

I amthinking of trying an actuator that is used in AC ducting. It powers the arm to raise it and then a spring lowers it when power is cut. A single timer is required. the key would be to balance the load so its not strained

 

[hippiestink]

As long as you don't fall in the river!

Oh hey another San Antonian! My folks still live there.

 

[ozexpat]

Oh hey another San Antonian! My folks still live there.

A head hunter just called me with a job in West Texas. They dont give away much info initially so you dont go around them but its probably in San Angelo.

 

[ozexpat]

San Angelo Texas is a long way from LAX though