Mark, Mark, Mark! Skimmed really quick to sort of catch up. Just marking my spot and time trying not to candle until Sat. or Sun. night.

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Question?
Where do you post the pics of the incubators? I looked at the list of contests on page 1 and clicked on the incubator link and no entries. confused here, please help.
Post them on this thread (which I think you did) and also PM them to kellyn.
She'll get them added to that contest page from your PM.
I have a lovely pair of Silchins. They are really the cutest shape possible. I think this is the broodiest hen possible, as well. She lays 4 or 5 eggs then sits. She's done this twice and is all of 8 months old.
I don't intend to keep breeding this combo...I need to find someone to take them.
Sooooo cute!
I was out with the rabbits and I hear Rockette screaming. I have a little bantam Wellie roo out there and he had mounted. I tossed something that direction and he took off. She started to get up and my BBS AM roo got to her. Before I could get across the yard, my FBCM roo decided to get into with the AM roo and they fought on top of her. My poor girl isn't standing yet. She falls to one side, looks weak, but she eats and drinks and even sings the egg song when she hears the others. I'm sure she'll mend again, but I'm still upset.
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Sorry about Black Betty, SCG. That would be quite the shock for you. She's happy one minute, really sick the next.
ChooksChick, I am so not going to tell my 3 year old hatchery girls that their days are numbered. I think it would scare them. It has me scared ... I feel like they're an endangered species now. I've got between 7 and 9 hens (I'd have to check leg bands to know for sure) that turned three this spring. Well ... in a 3 weeks.
Nice. Is it actually a bumper sticker that we can buy?
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Drats! I got distracted by reading all the chicken posts and forgot what I wanted to say about this posting. But here it is in my "Multi" list.
I have a question about giving some eggs to a broody. I have a Salmon Favorelle that has gone broody. I am thinking about giving her some eggs out of the incubator on Monday. This will be the first time for "One eyed Jackie". Am I better off giving her a couple eggs on Monday or just putting chicks under her after they hatch?
I wish I knew. I have been grafting chicks for a while with broodies and the hens (so far) have been great with it. But as someone mentioned ... not all hens do well with the grafting. What I do like about putting chicks under the hens is that you have chick "in hand." You can put the full amount of chicks under the broddy that the broody can keep warm, which in my case is more chicks than she can hatch under her (by my estimation and experience).
With eggs, though, what if you put the full amount of eggs that she can hatch under her and then she only hatches 75% of them. That may not be a problem, unless you need more chicks brooded or if you have a limited amount of broodies. Logistics. Worst case scenario, she only hatches one and then I have a broody hen running around with only one chick. To me, that's a waste of a good broody. But ... I dunno. You pretty much just gotta play it by ear.
I think the chicks have always done well after a graft. Much better than if they are brooded by me. It's infinitely better for them to be brooded with a hen for a myriad of reasons, many of which I don't even know. But physiologically, it only makes sense that chicks that actually hatch under a mom will have that time to hear each other clucking and chirping when the chick is still in the shell. That will help a mom to the transition hormonally to her new job and the chicks will already be learning their mom's language and messages.
Plus, feed wise, to be very practical here ... chicks with their mother waste less feed. The chicks don't spend all day at the hanging feeder beaking out all sorts of feed onto the shavings. What else is there to do in the brooding area, but dig in the shavings and toss feed on the floor? With a hen, she gets them some standard mash in the morning, a drink, and off they go to hunt bugs and seeds, etc., all day (with possible trip back to their ark for a snack of feed or a dust bath). Coming back in the evening to fill up on feed and then go to bed. My point: The more chicks that end up under a broody hen, the less feed waste I'll have. Plus, I have much more foraging-aware chickens when they grow up because that is what the hen taught them to do almost all day long.
Nope. Still not caught up.
Is there a most multi-quotes contest that I don't know about?