JUNE - JULY HATCH-ALONG!!!!!!!

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Speaking of snakes.. I had a snake in the duck coop yesterday. Luckily it was just a rat snake, so I encouraged him( with a water hose) to enter a trashbin and released him across the street from me, into a large field going the opposite direction of my house. I'm really quite shocked that the snake could climb that high to get into the coop!

Yes they are very competent egg and chick thieves! They also eat rodents and possibly copperheads though so I leave most of ours alone, except for the one that got into our coop. Since he then knew where this great source of eggs was located, we stuck him in a pillowcase and drove him to a cattle pasture two miles away, where he could be a help instead of a pest.

Did your get in through those gaps between the metal roof and supports? I use metal roofing too, but put those filler pieces in so there aren’t gaps... I try for no more than 1/2” gaps. You have a lovely setup, by the way!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Speaking of snakes.. I had a snake in the duck coop yesterday. Luckily it was just a rat snake, so I encouraged him( with a water hose) to enter a trashbin and released him across the street from me, into a large field going the opposite direction of my house. I'm really quite shocked that the snake could climb that high to get into the coop!

I don't enjoy dealing with snakes either! I had my first snake in the chicken run but it was while I was free ranging and it just went right in the front door. Lol

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Hmm, mine doesn't appear to be so I guess I still needed to buy the bottle at least, lol. Maybe it's because I have original Listerine?
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Yah, I didn’t think that listerine was chlorhexadine... Before dipping eggs in bleach or peroxide last year, I looked up several research articles about percent live hatches from different disinfectant dips, since this is standard practice in the industry. There is a fair amount of work done in this area, but it was weird fully immersing the eggs for several minutes!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I'm in love all over again! How can turkeys start off so adorable?!
And we can't forget the super fluffy early Olive Egger!

Turkey hatch 7/11/19: 86% (started with 7, 0 infertile, 1 quitter, 6 live turkey poults)

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

I'm in love all over again! How can turkeys start off so adorable?!
And we can't forget the super fluffy early Olive Egger!

Turkey hatch 7/11/19: 86% (started with 7, 0 infertile, 1 quitter, 6 live turkey poults)

View attachment 1843012 View attachment 1843013

What a beautiful group of poults, and an amazing hatch rate! Congratulations!!! What is your OE a mix of? Nice low posture... Did you go with Stir Fry???

 

[CluckNDoodle]

What a beautiful group of poults, and an amazing hatch rate! Congratulations!!! What is your OE a mix of? Nice low posture... Did you go with Stir Fry???

Yes! I'm super pleased with the hatch rate and the health of these poults! I needed a positive hatch after the last one! It was pouring for days before I got these eggs and they actually had some wet sand on them from dirt splashing into their nest boxes so I was really prepared for a rough hatch and decided to not even try wiping the dirt off. I guess crazy stormy weather still provides a better hatch rate than blazing heat! So far my chicken eggs have had plenty of early quitters and it was in the mid to high 90s before I picked them up, which explains my early Olive Egger as well, but I started with 28 chicken eggs, 1 infertile, 9 quitters, so I'm putting 18 on lockdown tomorrow...well 17 now because little one hatched yesterday on day 16! lol! I'm most bummed that both of the Rumpless Tufted Araucana eggs were quitters. She mentioned that her hen wasn't doing well but I thought she just meant she wasn't laying much, now I'm not so sure she didn't mean something else? I'll have to ask her. I really wanted one of those silly looking chickens, lol.

The Olive Egger was a 2nd or 3rd generation Olive Egger so I'm not positive what is mixed in there but I'm fairly confident one of her first pens was Easter Egger hens under a Black Copper Marans rooster. Now she has a GORGEOUS Olive Egger rooster over Olive Egger hens and a new pen with Marans rooster over True Blues but it didn't occur to me until I set the eggs that I didn't get any from her new pen. She was probably trying to be nice by giving me eggs that would be similar to what is actually laid by the pullets but I would have loved one from her experimental pen. Maybe NEXT TIME!

 

[Cerise1924]

Love those names!! I'll have to run them by my daughter and let her pick one of those names! She's a teenager and therefore never second guesses her choices, lol! I somehow feel like it's more likely to be a pullet if she picks the name as well.

My teenager named all my latest hatching eggs for me, so they are all named after anime characters!

 

[Cerise1924]

I'm in love all over again! How can turkeys start off so adorable?!
And we can't forget the super fluffy early Olive Egger!

Turkey hatch 7/11/19: 86% (started with 7, 0 infertile, 1 quitter, 6 live turkey poults)

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Lovely!!

 

[two j farm]

Oh no! I'm so sorry! How bad is it? Could you possibly put it in an Incubator and seal the crack or is it too bad?

Its was

to bad.

 

[two j farm]

Y'all say a pray for us in Louisiana. Hurricane Barry will make landfall tomorrow. My chicks should be hatching this weekend too.