INCUBATING w/FRIENDS! w/Sally Sunshine Shipped Eggs No problem!

[casportpony]

Quote: Has it pooped?

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Quote: Today's pictures:






-Kathy

 

[ChickenCanoe]

My birds are divided into separate runs. I I free range them, alternating runs between days.
I'd like to turn them all out together. My concern is whether each group will return to their "home" coop at night. Neither coop is large enough to acomodate all 15 of them.
Whatcha all think?

As creatures of habit, they will return to where they've safely slept for some time.
Occasionally I get some drift but it is rare. I have 3 flocks that have been free ranging for several months and they keep to their own parts of the property though they occasionally merge and will always go back to their own buildings at night. I'm about to add another flock of about 20 younger birds to the mix. I'm sure they will all still go back to their own buildings at night. My only concern is that the rooster in an adjacent building has been trying to get at the younger birds so that is the only unknown now.
I did have birds in different buildings this summer and every couple days, a hen would leave the flock to join another till there was only a pair left in the other building. This is the first time I've seen that happen on such a grand scale.
My biggest challenge has always been to get birds to take to a new building after being moved. They'll pace constantly to try to get to their original home at night.

I'm letting them all run together for a bit to help control vegetation and cut feed costs since I'm not setting eggs again till probably December.
I'll separate flocks a month before then.

This is true. It was an unfortunate time in history.
...

It's still going on. Ethnic cleansing seems to be a primal human trait.

hahahha!


Decisions, Decisions. The one advantage, to house chickens, is we have a very old, drafty house, so a lot of bugs get inside our house.

Maybe, with house chickens, we won't have as many (or any?) bugs in our house anymore? We get fire flies, nothing like going to sleep at night, and seeing them light up all over your room in the middle of the night.

And spiders, and the occasional ant, but it's really the moths, and itty bitty gnat-style bugs that get in, that drive me crazy.

I don't even know how they do it. We've sealed off all the windows that have AC units, to try to plug up any holes, and they STILL get it.

We have also had lizards, and scorpions get in, too. I don't think a chicken would eat those though, or I could be wrong.

They could be fruit flies coming in with fruit. Once they get in they stay till the dead of winter.
Chickens will eat lizards and probably scorpions too. Luckily we have almost none of the latter.

Yikes, my new incubator is running at 130!!! LOL


trying to get it down to 100ish. The humidity's running around 18-21% so I'll need to try to bump it up to 30-40% but i'm trying to stabilize the temp first, then play with humidity.

I hope there aren't eggs in it yet.
Don't worry about humidity till you can get the temp steady at 99.5-100.

 

[kwhites634]

Quote: Did you plant a larger garden for her?

 

[Pensmaster]

Did you plant a larger garden for her?    

Funny now not so funny then.

 

[Pensmaster]

Today's pictures: -Kathy

White seems to be holding.

 

[Lucky Lemon]

Morning heather. Probably.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Morning all. I was so busy this weekend I didn't even have a chance to get on here. I'm 100 pages behind, not gonna try to catch up. Did I miss anything exciting?

mornin Heather!

Yikes, my new incubator is running at 130!!! LOL


trying to get it down to 100ish. The humidity's running around 18-21% so I'll need to try to bump it up to 30-40% but i'm trying to stabilize the temp first, then play with humidity.

omg breakfast anyone?

 

[kwhites634]

Quote: I threatened to fire up the wood stove the other night; now DW knows I've lost it. What she doesn't is that I never had it.

 

[Chaos18]

I threatened to fire up the wood stove the other night; now DW knows I've lost it. What she doesn't is that I never had it.

Hard to lose what ya never had