hatchers hatcherers..... who's expecting peeps on septembre 24th or so... :)

[AmericanMom]

Sorry its taken me so long to update, things got crazy, My mother in law moved in with us for a couple weeks before moving into a full time care facility, her dementia has progressed to the point that she doesnt even know she isnt at home anymore

Out of the 20 chicks that hatched we have 17 left, they just turned 8 weeks yesterday. We lost both the ones who hatched with splayed legs, one early on and the other last week, husband put her down as the bigger she got her leg went backwards, it was a learning experiance as we had taped her legs and had thought her legs were normal.. We lost another chick to either a hawk or the adult Rooster we have, not sure as the chicks had decided to get out of their enclosure and I found the chick I believe moments after it was attacked, it was still warm...
So out of 17 chicks I can tell we have 7 males, I was hoping for a large hen to roo ratio and hope no more males emerge They are doing great in their enclosure and are fully feathered with no heat lamp, they love what my other chickens dont, lettuce, which is funny to me, they demolished a pumpkin I threw to them last week while the adult chickens left theirs alone..
All in all it has been a great experiance for me.
Winter has settled in, my adult hens have pretty much quit laying, I get one or two eggs a day out of 9 hens, I decided not to do a light in their house as I know many of them are moulting and figured the girls needed a break, bought eggs for the first time in two years the other day and I must say, they are bland!! LOL... Cant wait for spring, going to try my hand at Turkey raising too.
Hope all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, we got an early Chirstmas present before my son and his wife left for Sacramento, they are expecting their third child, along around the middle of May I'm going to be a Nanny again

 

[rachmickmurphy]

Think everyone hectic atm. Full time with your mil must have kept you on your toes. Sad bout your chicks splayed legs never good and accidents happen my bator is neary full again it will be full tomorrow new blue australorp and speckled suss arrive tonight.

 

[AmericanMom]

Think everyone hectic atm. Full time with your mil must have kept you on your toes. Sad bout your chicks splayed legs never good and accidents happen my bator is neary full again it will be full tomorrow new blue australorp and speckled suss arrive tonight.

LOL... I went into our spare room the other day and saw the bator, all boxed up sitting lonely on the shelf and thought hmmmmm...maybe I will incubate a few more eggs, then decided to wait til Febuary, by then our chicks will be completely in with the other chickens and I'll be able to maybe place an ad for fertile eggs on craigs list..would like to get some RR's and a few other differant breeds, and like I mentioned earlier, I want to raise Turkeys... were going to be culling out our rabbits this weekend, its been fun raising them but since winter has hit and they are comletely enclosed I have found I cannot be in there for long, The urine smell upsets some respitory problems I have and I am unable to even clean out there stalls. another chore hubby had to take on to add to his thousands of others, so I made the decission that we wont be raising them anymore, Our son is going to come help, we have 20
Time to settle in and take stock, Mom is settled, we were able to sell her place and the papers were signed last night, we have spent the last month cleaning the pace out 39+ years of accumilation mostly in My husbands dads shop, it all ended up here as he cannot bear to toss anything without going through it, dad was a welder as is Jeff so lots of tools and equipment he will use. Our place looks horrible, but we should be able to organize it all over the winter...He most certianly will need to add on to his shop
Got a pretty good cold snap, 15 F outside as I write this and they are predicting snow tomorrow, not all completely unheard of in our area but it will be nice all the same.
Good luck on your hatch, how exiting!!!

 

[rachmickmurphy]

oh a white xmas so lucky its been steadily heating up here all the birds are starting to feel it and I emptied the duck pond at the house so my bees don't claim it as their drink one quick way of losing ducklings they love catching flying insects. congrads on the sale yes that long in one place would be a lot of stuff to sort but I am with your hubby go through everything there might be a lot of treasures to find. a few of my friends are trying to breed bunnys the pet market here is good $45 each. they not having much luck both lost their 1st litters. I had some success with the broodies the silkie hatched 9 lost 2. 1 pekin has 5 the other 8. 2 seabrights have 5 between them and the andy has 5. theres four more girls broody at the moment but I kickin them off because the heat will kill them.