Quote: Sounds like you had a fantastic day! Get a hot bath and some rest
Excited to hear all your flock plans, BCM are just the sweetest birds, you will love them.
raisinemright - how well does your Styrofoam 'bator do? Is it a still air? I'm dusting off my old one. How warm does yours get? I have to try and download instructions for it because mine is long gone.
Mother2Hens - I'm thinking of writing Einstein's story. It just keeps getting better! I wrote in college, so it's time to break out my creativeness soon! You asked where the rooster is from - he is the next door neighbor's. They used to have several chickens but when we lost several to coons last year, I think they lost all theirs but him. I believe he is a Black Copper Marans. We've pretty much adopted him.
jchny2000 - Thank you for the incubating / quail info. I'm anxious to get started, just need to make sure my LG works right and I read up on incubating a little bit. All the technical stuff makes me apprehensive!
I am so wanting warm weather! These few days of sunshine and higher than freezing temps are messing with my sinuses! And I really would like to get my pullets outside. They're getting a little crowded.
I have 28 pullet chicks I keep subdividing into more brooding boxes.Once I get electric run to my office trailer, we will have a "broody room" with linoleum floor installed. No more concerns for crowding, just keeping certain species apart. Waterfowl
won't go in there, too MESSY!
And.......suddenly I have quail! Sally hatched 4 of them out, but decided too much was going on and asked if I wanted them.......so being neighborly, I said sure!!! I whipped up a fish tank brooder with feeder and waterer. But I didn't have a heat source.
I've been reading on some other threads about using heating pads. So off to Wally World I went, and now the babies are curled up under their own little cozy heating pad broody. Seems to be working well. One of the littles is smaller than the others and not as stable. I'm hoping it was a late hatch and just needs to catch up.
Thank you Sally for getting me off my butt and getting going with them!
If you need more holler, I am BURIED right now! You should see the black speckles on the hens chests around 2-3 weeks.
Roos get a reddish chest, no speckles. Usually my hen rate runs much higher than the roos, but I have hen luck too
Eggs in 6-8 weeks. The higher protein you give them, more eggs and bigger birds you get.
I have 2 trays set, about 70 eggs and won't be setting any more til these are grown/processed etc.
When Sally is ready I have more eggs for her too. I love my lil RIR roo, named him Roscoe.
He is just a doll
Penelope is quite the man of the house, the girls stick to him like glue. Adorable seeing them together.
My silver laced is especially drawn to him, gold laced follows too but will wander away.
I may keep looking for a Tolbunt roo for her.
Quote: LOL, there is pellets and powder, so be sure and read close...
I was going to get the 20lb powder tonite for the goats, and realized it was pellet.
I am sure its fine too, but I add it to the chickens feed also about 1x or so a week.