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

[ozexpat]

Bernie and I have had a multi text day.

After we gave some immigrant birds to the father of Mrs Oz, We were left with 16 hens and 11 roosters. We also had 5 prs of local chickens in there as they were abandoned by their mom to sit on another nest of eggs.

One of the RIR hens was found dead today. No contagious symptoms. Just dead as happens every now and then.

The roosters have been causing a bit of a stir harassing the smaller younger local roosters. The younger guys, coming from the background they do, wont back down.

Time to do something about the roos.

My father in law insists on taking them and swapping them for dressed birds. We will give him 7. Keeping the wyandotte marans and australorp.

Tomorrow Bernie will sell the 5 local roos in the market. I am hoping to turn the 5 local hens into broody machines.

 

[ozexpat]

yes, i have made enough from "CL" to pay for my 2 incubators plus my hatcher that i got this year
next year i'll need something bigger because i'll also have duck & turkey eggs to set

might just go with a sportsman & be done with it

the lady next to me at the swap yesterday had turkey babies, they went for $10 each

silkies were also $10 each unsexed
i was getting $8 each for my 8 week old buff pullets
i even sold off a black english cockerel that i didn't need



after the swap Marily & i went through the 4 deck brooder
we counted 40 young unsexed chicks
plus we have 3 dozen pullets left that need to go
plus our broody silkie has some youngsters in with her
plus there are still a few buff american orps in the bators
so it's looking like we will hatch out what we have in the bators
then we are done for the year
i'm not looking to have 50 extra unsold birds come cold weather that i have to feed

OZ what day do you leave for your next trip ?
you can now have all the eggs you wish


piglett

I leave July 3 late evening. your other shipments came in 2 days so if you ship early monday, it will work. I will set Friday evening our time so no eggs older than Friday - they just wont make it.

Still looking for whatever you have pig. I will email shipping label.

 

[Sweetpea3829]

Oz, if you guys have naturally high humidity there...how will your broody hens do with hatching in an uncontrolled environment? What will keep the humidity down for the eggs underneath the hen?

Also...on older eggs not hatching for you...is that because of the travel involved as well? Because the eggs we hatched were given to us from our neighbor. But they were 2-3 weeks old when we finally set them. They had sat at our neighbors house for a good week...and then they sat at our house for another good week while we waited for our neighbor to find his spare hovabator. Of 17 eggs, we had three clears, a few blood rings, a quitter at 10 days, and one who never pipped and died in egg. We ended up with 8 live chicks...which isn't a fantastic hatch rate, I know....but they were pretty old eggs and it was our first time (sort of...but that's a long story anyways).

But you typically don't have any luck if they're older than a week or so?

 

[Bens-Hens]

I think those questions are a large part of what Oz is trying to solve.

I am certain he has done replica hatches in SoCal, and had much better results. The travel and time from fertilisation seem to have great bearing on the result at hatch time. Oz has some great detail on air cell condition and how many miles some of those eggs have traveled, probably even knows the mail men's kids names!

Would love to see his spread sheets breaking down the results from the three hatches vs his Cal ones. It would give a better overall picture, although I am sure he has developed an early theory.

When he gets time, I am sure he will be happy to give greater detail. He also has the answer to the miracle of nature, and how the birds manage the eggs humidity conditions themselves.

 

[piglett]

I leave July 3 late evening. your other shipments came in 2 days so if you ship early monday, it will work. I will set Friday evening our time so no eggs older than Friday - they just wont make it.

Still looking for whatever you have pig. I will email shipping label.

the mail truck leaves town at 4pm every monday
i'll round up eggs starting the fri. before so they are only 7 days old when you set them in the PI.

we checked out the french eggs last night most look really good
same for the muscovy ducks
we only have 1 lemon britt left in the bator but 5 more under a broody out in the coop
we will see. we pitched out 3 clears last night
2 were pullet eggs (i was a little shocked that they sent those)
if we can get a couple pullets out of this batch we will be in good shape
we already have a great looking lemon cuckoo britt roo who junps every hen in the county

 

[ozexpat]

I think those questions are a large part of what Oz is trying to solve.

I am certain he has done replica hatches in SoCal, and had much better results. The travel and time from fertilisation seem to have great bearing on the result at hatch time. Oz has some great detail on air cell condition and how many miles some of those eggs have traveled, probably even knows the mail men's kids names!

Would love to see his spread sheets breaking down the results from the three hatches vs his Cal ones. It would give a better overall picture, although I am sure he has developed an early theory.

When he gets time, I am sure he will be happy to give greater detail. He also has the answer to the miracle of nature, and how the birds manage the eggs humidity conditions themselves.

I will post spreadsheets after hatch 5 in the Phils. I am planning to post a "White Paper" that will have a lot of statistical analysis.

The age of the eggs seems more critical than with local eggs. While we all have stories of eggs as old as 3 weeks hatching - I even hatched 24 day old refrigerated fertile eggs from Trader Joes Supermarket - there is no doubt that viability diminishes after day 7 on most poultry eggs. On shipped eggs it seems we also have the compounding effects of air cell size and the pressure damage caused by low cabin pressure. Basically the bigger the air cell, the more it will want to expand when the cabin is at 8-10000 feet. This build up of pressure does something to the eggs.

How a broody can do it is beyond me and why I am in awe of mother nature. My incubators dont have feathers.

There are several factors that go into a successful hatch. My goals are to remove or stabilize as many of these variables as possible, including:

Egg condition
Temp
Humidity
Oxygen and CO2 levels

 

[Sweetpea3829]

Not having caught up completely, I apologize if this this was answered, but have you had a successful hatch under a broody out in the Phils? Are your pullets from the first wave even old enough yet? Clearly I know nothing about chickens, lol. Still learning.

 

[Sweetpea3829]

I did it! All caught up! Now what am I going to read under the covers after hubby goes to bed?

 

[ozexpat]

Not having caught up completely, I apologize if this this was answered, but have you had a successful hatch under a broody out in the Phils? Are your pullets from the first wave even old enough yet? Clearly I know nothing about chickens, lol. Still learning.

I have had successful hatches from local chickens with local eggs. In fact, Bernie sold 5 12 week old roosters at the market today for 25 dollars!! Our first income from the chicken coop!! I get 7 dressed birds in exchange for the roos from imported eggs next week. Thats money in the bank. We are rolling in it,

 

[kacklinkelly]

I continue to LOVE this thread!!
I almost always walk away with a huge smile on my face.