Incubator loaded for First Time

[MDBird]

How's the hatch coming along?

 

[FloorCandy]

How's the hatch coming along?

I’ve got 13 so far! 7 in the brooder, 6 in the incubator, before I go to bed I’ll take the dry babies out and leave one to call for the others. I think I’ll have another 8 or so in the morning if I’m lucky. I have about 10 eggs that I set about 14 hours after the rest, so they should start popping tonight as well.

How about you, any more yet?

 

[FloorCandy]

No gingers yet though, a lot with BLACK feet and legs, so I think Aragorn was getting it on big time, and I guess the dark genes have culminated in some favoring Tibetan more than Rosetta.

 

[MDBird]

Sounds like your hatch is going great! It's awesome you know about the different colors and genetics, I haven't even begun that part. I haven't any more hatch but the one I helped out seems to be at about the same point as the others now so that is good news.
Thank you for the other post about your views on raising them for meat. I know at the end I'm probably going to be able to do it and not really think much more about it other then it's a chore. I totally agree with you about the head. I only did a handful of birds this way usaully I just cut without the wonk and was going to try again before asking the community. But Last time I held them and gave them a good wonk into a metal table edge before making the cut and it seemed to be much less blinking. They definitely seemed pretty stunned, not knocked out though because they weren't completely limp.
When it comes to the a number of great days with one bad day, that is the one I'm wrestling some with. Right now my main cage is basically battery style ( 3 2x6ft layers stacked) I do give them dust bathes and a hiding spot but wonder how far off of factory type farming I am. To add to that I recently purchased a used Wynola ranch cage. I'm not sure if I will use it the way they intend for breeding pens but right now I use it to seperate trouble males to culling time. These cages are super convenient for me but you can't even fit a very good dust bathe in each section. If I start using them as my breeding cages then I feel like I'm blurrying the factory farming line more but allowing me to take care of the birds easier. Wow that turned into a book, but basically what I have been thinking since starting to deal with the chicks for the first time.

 

[FloorCandy]

Sounds like your hatch is going great! It's awesome you know about the different colors and genetics, I haven't even begun that part. I haven't any more hatch but the one I helped out seems to be at about the same point as the others now so that is good news.
Thank you for the other post about your views on raising them for meat. I know at the end I'm probably going to be able to do it and not really think much more about it other then it's a chore. I totally agree with you about the head. I only did a handful of birds this way usaully I just cut without the wonk and was going to try again before asking the community. But Last time I held them and gave them a good wonk into a metal table edge before making the cut and it seemed to be much less blinking. They definitely seemed pretty stunned, not knocked out though because they weren't completely limp.
When it comes to the a number of great days with one bad day, that is the one I'm wrestling some with. Right now my main cage is basically battery style ( 3 2x6ft layers stacked) I do give them dust bathes and a hiding spot but wonder how far off of factory type farming I am. To add to that I recently purchased a used Wynola ranch cage. I'm not sure if I will use it the way they intend for breeding pens but right now I use it to seperate trouble males to culling time. These cages are super convenient for me but you can't even fit a very good dust bathe in each section. If I start using them as my breeding cages then I feel like I'm blurrying the factory farming line more but allowing me to take care of the birds easier. Wow that turned into a book, but basically what I have been thinking since starting to deal with the chicks for the first time.

It’s funny, my husband and I had discussed it before we started and we both felt really strongly they shouldn’t live on wire. We wanted them to experience the world as much as we could allow safely. However, I now have 3 pens and I’m running out of yard lol. I’m going to start breeding snowie colored quail with my celadons so we can produce snowy celadons. Of course they’ll need a pen and a grow out...

Maybe you could build a ground pen and rotate them in, so they all get a taste of ground exposure.

 

[FloorCandy]

I forgot to add that now that I have 25 adolescents in 24 sq ft I feel like the 1 sq ft per bird is a bit crowded. I think ideally they would do best in 1.5 per bird. That amount of space is a lot to ask for many people if you want enough birds for eggs for the family. Perhaps we all just do the best we can and offer as much enrichment as we can. I’m sure that whatever you provide for your birds is far better than any factory farm.

 

[FloorCandy]

I just had my first sign of the turner stopping. The first to start zipping only got 2/3 of the way and was trying to get out but hadn’t finished. I’d been watching it and the struggle was getting weaker. I snatched it out and broke the zipped flap off and it was really stuck to the the egg at the middle of its back. I broke off the egg and got the membrane off, he lost a few feathers since I was trying to be quick since he was weak and wet. But he seems fine now. It looked like he was burned to the egg

 

[MDBird]

I like your rotation idea and the PVC pens that you built seemed more then fair price plus within my carpentry skills lol. The only thing they I was a little fearful of was I know for fact I have fox and cats running around. Though with all the hardware cloth I would think they would be fine. I would like to possibly have some other poultry at some point so not a bad idea to figure out what works.
I hope that was the only chick that you see with problems from the turner issues. Sounds like your intervention really helped the little guy out.

 

[FloorCandy]

I like your rotation idea and the PVC pens that you built seemed more then fair price plus within my carpentry skills lol. The only thing they I was a little fearful of was I know for fact I have fox and cats running around. Though with all the hardware cloth I would think they would be fine. I would like to possibly have some other poultry at some point so not a bad idea to figure out what works.
I hope that was the only chick that you see with problems from the turner issues. Sounds like your intervention really helped the little guy out.

My pens hold up to the frenchies kind of aggressively investigating them, they pull on the wire with their paws, and I squirt them with the hose and they run away... for 5 seconds. Yesterday my neighbor said he saw 5 foxes in the woods, must have been a family, I haven’t seen any though. There’s a ton of stray cats in my area because people dump them in the like 1 acre of woods. But during the day at least they stay out of my yard, my dogs would definitely try to catch them some cat meat, and I have an unaltered male who marks the fence very diligently. I have never seen any damage to my pens suggesting anything tried to get in.

 

[MDBird]

My pens hold up to the frenchies kind of aggressively investigating them, they pull on the wire with their paws, and I squirt them with the hose and they run away... for 5 seconds. Yesterday my neighbor said he saw 5 foxes in the woods, must have been a family, I haven’t seen any though. There’s a ton of stray cats in my area because people dump them in the like 1 acre of woods. But during the day at least they stay out of my yard, my dogs would definitely try to catch them some cat meat, and I have an unaltered male who marks the fence very diligently. I have never seen any damage to my pens suggesting anything tried to get in.

Sounds like I need to check out your post about your PVC pens agains. When I get some time I will have to work on making one for them to try out.