Maine

[ashandvine]

I wish P a lot of luck on the interview. That is great!

About the dust-- I notice thet it isn't really the shavings that make the dust but the chicks themselves. They just shed all that baby down and it goes everywhere! I use flanel and towels at first when goslings are new or turkey poults but have given thought to using other things without much success for someone with asthma. What about using a fine screen or cloth, like cotton over the brooder? Make it like a fitted bed sheet with a little elastic in the corners to help hold the dust in maybe?

When are the eggs you got here due?? I am also glad for you that you are having a better hatch this time. Keep us posted on how many make it out!

 

[MustardTiger]

So, I was bored today and it is too cold to work outside so I took playing around in google sketchup way too far. Glad my husband has construction experience because some of the math here, especially for the rafters, is not my forte.

 

[lazy gardener]

Hatch day! Five new babies so far, four pure Salmon Faverolles and one that looks like I missed an egg from the Black Orpington hen that we were minding here for some friends...pure black with a yellow dot on top of its head, and a little splash of yellow under its chin. Super cute, even if it's not pure bred. Our NEXT hatch should be 100% Faverolles, now that all the non-Fav chickens are off the property.

Every egg I can see well has pipped, too! What a relief after that last fiasco... Ducklings hatching next week, I set 48 expecting a 50-60% success, but they're going into lockdown on Monday and it looks like I will have 45 ducklings next week!! Good thing we've got the greenhouse done and the Pekins are just about ready to go live in the outside proper.

Does anyone else have experience brooding on something other than pine shavings or sand? My husband has asthma, and while HE isn't terribly concerned about the dust affecting his breathing, I am experimenting with brooding on cut-down flannel sheets and towels from the thrift store. My hope is that I can amass several weeks' worth of towels/sheets, stash the dirty ones in a metal trashcan, and hit up the industrial washers at the laundramat once or twice a month - reusable brooder materials with a lot less dust! I hate having to buy in shavings just for them to crap on...its OK for now for the big chickens in the coop, since by the end of summer we'll probably break down and buy a chipper, there's just too much brush on this property to go without one for long, and then we'll be able to use our own chips in the coop, but I dont want to put the teeny tinies on big huge chips. Any thoughts?

Everyone cross your fingers for us - my husband is off for his final interview to take over as general manager at Borealis Breads!

I also have asthma. IMO, the dust is from chicken dander, not from the shavings. I'm using HDW cloth that was stored down stairs where the chicks were brooding, and when ever I handle it, my hands are covered with a white residue, definately not related to the pine shavings I was using. I had to use a dust mask when ever going any where near the chicks, and will have to when I go in to clean the basement. Congrats on your hatch. And I wish your husband the best with his interview. Do you have to brood the chicks in the house? In your living space, or basement? After this last experience, I swear I'll never brood in the house again.

 

[lazy gardener]

I have an other thought re: brooding chicks, and the resulting dust. Not sure how it would work, but if you took a large box fan and sandwiched it between a couple of furnace filters, then placed it over the brooder, it might catch the dust, the only question I would add to this thought is: would it create too much draft? This is not an origional idea, just my spin on other's thoughts.

 

[lazy gardener]

So, I was bored today and it is too cold to work outside so I took playing around in google sketchup way too far. Glad my husband has construction experience because some of the math here, especially for the rafters, is not my forte.

Nice drawing. Looks like it would get the job done with minimal fuss and expense.

 

[joanie_maine]

He's a happy boy!

 

[ashandvine]

What a handsome little guy! Where did he come from??

Falcon in the yard again. Apparently they remember where they got free snacks. Ironically we were putting netting over the runs at the time he flew in. We remember where they got those free snacks too.


Hatching eggs really is addicting...

 

[buckabucka]

"Everyone cross your fingers for us - my husband is off for his final interview to take over as general manager at Borealis Breads!"

That's great! Good luck to him! And glad to hear that things are hatching all over the place.

I agree with others that shavings are only part of the dust issue with the chickens. What I did this year is put the brooder in a smallish room with a door that I kept shut. Almost every day, I wiped down as many surfaces in the room as I had time for, including the floor, with a damp sponge and a bucket of water. It really helped in keeping the dust under control. Just 10 minutes a day of dust removal helped keep it from going airborne and spreading all over the house.

 

[hoppy]

hatching day here too. call ducks this time.
great looking bird Joanie

 

[echosrevenge]

Twenty-three babies so far! All purebred Salmon Faverolles except four, who came out black. Guess the Black Orpington we had for a bit snuck some small eggs into the incubator batches...ah well, they're cute as the dickens with their little black beaks and piebald feathery feet.

Ash - the eggs I got from you are due two weeks from this coming Monday, today was day 4 so I candled them just for giggles while I was shuffling around the duck eggs. One of the UoA eggs, both the "pretty sure they're Faverolles" eggs, and one of the meat cross eggs are definitely going, the others I can't tell yet. If you're coming to the swap in Augusta this weekend, I'd love to snag some more eggs if you have them. The more we talk about it, the more we want to just set up a large breeding flock of Faverolles rather than get more breeds. We love the Favs and so many of the people keeping them, especially the longtime breeders, seem to be paring down their flocks to really small gene pools. We got into the Favs to conserve an awesome breed, and we may as well be serious about it.

As for dust, we dont really have an option to brood the really tiny ones anywhere other than next to the wood stove in the living room - no electricity to spare from the solar system for heat lamps etc. We have an awesome brooder box that my husband built, mostly solid wood with hardware cloth bits for ventilation and doors, all inset with soapstone bricks to radiate the heat from the wood stove all night long. We dont have a basement (weird, right?) so can't brood them there. With four brooder compartments and up to 50 chicks living inside at a time, so far the flannel sheets have cut down the dust a LOT. There's still some dander dust, but there hasn't been the intense daily coating of thick sawdust that we've had in the past. Bonus, no dust-bathing-in-the-wrong place to kick sawdust out the mesh doors all over my floors! It seems to be working well so far, his asthma isn't terrible and we work pretty hard to keep the house aired, the dogs brushed, keep him away from cats, etc.