Heritage Large Fowl - Phase II

[RiddleMe]

Quote: Just curious, what is a "very small batch" for you?

 

[BGMatt]

Just curious, what is a "very small batch" for you?

Oh no, I'm dead serious when I say small batches. Between Leghorns and Langshans I'm extremely lucky to get 12 eggs a week right now. I just came back to poultry last spring after 2-3 years without birds, and those pullets are just coming into lay now, so...yeah extremely small batches for now. Once hens come back into lay and the younger pullets it will be 5-6 times that.

 

[RiddleMe]

Quote: Ok I was just wondering if you were a cabinet hatcher and a small hatch was say... 100 eggs.

 

[BGMatt]

Ok I was just wondering if you were a cabinet hatcher and a small hatch was say... 100 eggs.

Used to be, will be again soon. Just have to get established again. LOL

 

[Arielle]

Quote: As in gray? Ya, that looks old. lol Just kidding. I have 2 toms and they get to stay for now. One of my auburns was limping the other day so he was invited to dinner. Since meeting all of you here, I"m less likely to medicate or fix. It is rather a releif actually-- too much time taken up caring for the injured or sick.

Quote: I saw a number of this breed at the show. Not at all the type I expected. THey were lovely specimens.

When you grow out that number, what do you do with all the birds as they grow up?

 

[Vamvakas]

If you get NPIP/4H paperwork from the breeder you got chicks from can you use that for shows for proof they came from clean stock from NPIP? If you can do that it's 1 year without paying the state.

 

[Piet]

Starting to come together, much more work then I anticipated. We will keep on trucking! Obviously, we are still under construction, but you can see the beginning.
Thanks for looking. Piet
http://www.barnevelderbreeders.com/

 

[Zanna]

Anyone hatching their Heritage breeds with all this cold weather we are having? what kind of results are you getting?
I tried to collect eggs every hour or two but still had eggs that felt cold. If the eggs were under a hen, they were marked with a star.
Hatch rates are down because of the chill factor in both the Cochin and Columbian Wyandotte pens.
Those that have successfully made it to the hatcher and out of the eggs are really vigorous.

I had a hatch last week of 22 New Hampshires from 25 eggs set. All developed fully, one pipped early and died and two others never pipped. Some of my collecting was during an unusual cold spell here, got down to 8 deg. a couple of nights and never thawed during the day. I work full time so can only collect eggs early evening. None were frozen but when I brought them into the house they instantly went into a "sweat" then dried in an hour or so. Did not seem to affect the viability of the eggs in any way although I was worried it would.

 

[bnjrob]

Thought I would update on my experiment - there was discussion not too long ago about hatching eggs upright by putting them into egg cartons after taking them out of the egg turner.

Normally I had just been taking the eggs out of the turner and laying them back into the incubator. The hatch in Dec and the hatch going on now, I cut apart egg cartons into 4 egg squares and placed the eggs back into the incubator in the egg "holders". So far - very pleased with this compared to having the eggs rolling around inside the incubator. The chicks seem to be hatching faster since they have something solid to push against that holds their egg in place while they pop the top off of their egg. I did have one egg that they knocked out of the carton because they were getting so rowdy, but otherwise I am not having the eggs getting kicked all over the place by the hatchmates. Some of these eggs are going from no sign of any hatching to being out of the egg completely in just a few hours - compared to sometimes twelve hours or more from start of a hole to finish hatching when the eggs are left loose in the incubator. The chicks also seem less stressed with this method. Highly recommend using the egg cartons after removing the eggs from the turners to anybody that has not tried it yet.

 

[1TurkenLover]

Thought I would update on my experiment - there was discussion not too long ago about hatching eggs upright by putting them into egg cartons after taking them out of the egg turner.

Normally I had just been taking the eggs out of the turner and laying them back into the incubator. The hatch in Dec and the hatch going on now, I cut apart egg cartons into 4 egg squares and placed the eggs back into the incubator in the egg "holders". So far - very pleased with this compared to having the eggs rolling around inside the incubator. The chicks seem to be hatching faster since they have something solid to push against that holds their egg in place while they pop the top off of their egg. I did have one egg that they knocked out of the carton because they were getting so rowdy, but otherwise I am not having the eggs getting kicked all over the place by the hatchmates. Some of these eggs are going from no sign of any hatching to being out of the egg completely in just a few hours - compared to sometimes twelve hours or more from start of a hole to finish hatching when the eggs are left loose in the incubator. The chicks also seem less stressed with this method. Highly recommend using the egg cartons after removing the eggs from the turners to anybody that has not tried it yet.

Love this idea.

Can you explain in more detail please ? You cut egg carton into 4 egg sq sections. then put lockdown eggs in ? as many as needed, put everything back in incubator lockdown.
do you cut hole in bottom of Sq or leave intact ? add more water ? Thanks Just started 2nd run of bator hatching, day 19