going a little chicken crazy :-)

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psladky

psladky

Chirping
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international falls, mn
We moved to a new house in December that came with two silkies, a big white hen and duck (the big white hen and duck are best friends). We got a wide mix of chicks, 4 ducklings and a guinea keet in the beginning of May.
We built a brooder in the garage and have the chicks and keet in there still, but are moving them out this weekend. Our ducking went out last weekend, with their heat source still. We were using heat lamps but bought Brinsea EcoGlow Brooders, I was paranoid about fires or chicks flying up.

We also bought a mixed assortment of hatching eggs off if Meyer's. We have 8 in an incubator and 8 under one of the broody silkies. Today is day 19/20 and heard one of the incubator eggs chirping :-) :-) :-) :-)
Our duck was broody and we ordered some duck eggs and of course she stopped before they came, lesson learned on that one. So both of our silkies were in the same box brooding the 8 chicken eggs. I moved on of them (the one that had been broody the shortest amount of time) to the next box and put 6 of the duck eggs under her. So we will see how that turns out!

So we've gone a little chicken crazy but loving it all. The one bad thing is we have 3 Cornish chicks and I didn't know you have to butcher them due to all the health problems from them growing so fast. Have them separated and now that they are older I'm trying to control their food intake more. Not sure about the whole butchering process.
 
Hi :welcome

Glad you could join the flock! Certainly dies sound like you have gone a little bird crazy there :cd;)
Incubating and hatching is so much fun though and I can understand why you have so many eggs on the go. I hope it all turns out well for you and that you have some lovely little fuzzy butts soon.

I've never raised meat birds so can't offer you ant advice on butchering but please do drop by the meat bird section ~ https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/21/meat-birds-etc

Good luck with your eggs in the incubator, chirping is a good sign and means they have internally pipped into the air sac and should be in the next day or so.

Enjoy BYC :frow
 
Thank you :-) I was freaking myself out a little reading the forum that goes over hatching and when to help (with internal pipping). But I've taken from that to let them be and I will just have to watch over the next few days to see how everyone dues :-) never knew there was so much to learn!
 
No probs, try not to worry. Hatching takes a long time and is hard work for chicks. When they pip internally they can be upto 24 hours before externally pipping. Once the air starts running out in the air sac this kick starts the chick into externally pipping to let more oxygen into the egg. They can sit for another 24 hours externally pipped while they absorb yolk and blood vessels. They also rest and sleep a lot.

Good luck but I'm afraid it's time to sit on those hands!!
 

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