Kelly&Co
Chirping
- Sep 24, 2017
- 63
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Okay, this is going to be a bit long, I'm afraid.
Last year my homeschooling family participated in a 4-H Classroom chick hatching program. I was willing to give them back to the extension office for adoption, but my husband suggested building a coop and keeping them, so here we are... In May, we hatched 20 chicks, ending up with 10 pullets, 10 cockerels. By late fall we had that down to 3 cockerels. As you can guess, three was still too many so our girls are a bit beaten up since it turned cold before we finished reducing. Took care of that yesterday.
In October, I spent some of my birthday money on four new 5-8 week pullets from a small breeder shutting down. A week later picked up another pullet and a slightly older cockerel. Swedish Flower Hens and one of another breed. Well, Thanksgiving, 4 weeks after getting the first ones home, the smallest, which I'd picked out of their brooder but was fully feathered, started limping. (I'd think she'd have been the least likely of all of them to have been the first sick if a disease had been going around at the breeder?) A week or two later, she died. At Christmas, another is limping and one has a couple large tumors. We cull those. Face the fact we've got something contagious, presumably Marek's. This younger group is isolated from our main flock but let's face it, we've probably spread it. A few weeks ago one of the remaining pullets started laying. Last week, I found the remaining pullet ill and she passed that night. Complications at point of lay??? Possibly from whatever disease she was exposed to?
Well, that's where we are now. I would like start incubating some eggs soon. I'd like to hatch a batch of the Swedish Flower Hens to recoop/protect my investment in the event that the remaining two get sick. But I'd be hatching from the survivors, so maybe offspring would be more resistant? I'd also kind of like to set a few eggs from the main flock to preserve some of the genetic diversity of the cockerels we took out yesterday. One had really neat coloring, but was starting to attack me, so don't want to keep boys from his line.
So, how many eggs to start. Main coop is 8x8 with a 16x16 run. Free range some when weather is nice. Considering that I lost 2/3 of that second flock
I'm expecting chick losses. Not looking forward to the heartache, but I know it's likely. Will probably brood in the main coop, sectioned off. I figure that will give me a chance to see if the main flock is infected. They were 20+ weeks old when I brought the new batch in. We will not be keeping any cockerels unless maybe our current nice guy lets his hormones get the better of him. Set 24, expect about 20 hatch, 10 pullets, lose 5-6 to whatever we've got and then have four or so to keep?
Any experienced thoughts/advice? Thanks!
Last year my homeschooling family participated in a 4-H Classroom chick hatching program. I was willing to give them back to the extension office for adoption, but my husband suggested building a coop and keeping them, so here we are... In May, we hatched 20 chicks, ending up with 10 pullets, 10 cockerels. By late fall we had that down to 3 cockerels. As you can guess, three was still too many so our girls are a bit beaten up since it turned cold before we finished reducing. Took care of that yesterday.
In October, I spent some of my birthday money on four new 5-8 week pullets from a small breeder shutting down. A week later picked up another pullet and a slightly older cockerel. Swedish Flower Hens and one of another breed. Well, Thanksgiving, 4 weeks after getting the first ones home, the smallest, which I'd picked out of their brooder but was fully feathered, started limping. (I'd think she'd have been the least likely of all of them to have been the first sick if a disease had been going around at the breeder?) A week or two later, she died. At Christmas, another is limping and one has a couple large tumors. We cull those. Face the fact we've got something contagious, presumably Marek's. This younger group is isolated from our main flock but let's face it, we've probably spread it. A few weeks ago one of the remaining pullets started laying. Last week, I found the remaining pullet ill and she passed that night. Complications at point of lay??? Possibly from whatever disease she was exposed to?
Well, that's where we are now. I would like start incubating some eggs soon. I'd like to hatch a batch of the Swedish Flower Hens to recoop/protect my investment in the event that the remaining two get sick. But I'd be hatching from the survivors, so maybe offspring would be more resistant? I'd also kind of like to set a few eggs from the main flock to preserve some of the genetic diversity of the cockerels we took out yesterday. One had really neat coloring, but was starting to attack me, so don't want to keep boys from his line.
So, how many eggs to start. Main coop is 8x8 with a 16x16 run. Free range some when weather is nice. Considering that I lost 2/3 of that second flock
I'm expecting chick losses. Not looking forward to the heartache, but I know it's likely. Will probably brood in the main coop, sectioned off. I figure that will give me a chance to see if the main flock is infected. They were 20+ weeks old when I brought the new batch in. We will not be keeping any cockerels unless maybe our current nice guy lets his hormones get the better of him. Set 24, expect about 20 hatch, 10 pullets, lose 5-6 to whatever we've got and then have four or so to keep?Any experienced thoughts/advice? Thanks!
