Nevadans?

[aubreynoramarie]

echetino I AM SO SORRY TO HEAR ABOUT OPAL. in fact i am going to pick up a white silkie in the next week and was thinking about naming her opal

if you are interested in silkies, i am splitting an order with the woman who is selling me the white silkie. we are getting two dozen blue, lavender and splash silkies. they will arrive in two weeks as eggs and once they hatch i will pick them up from auburn and raise them for a few weeks. after that i have to sell all but one of them because of the space i have in my home.

but once again, i am so sorry for your loss. how awfull it is for your first chicken experience. if youd like i can give you the e-mail address to the woman who was running the swap (her name was julie, idk if you met her) and you can inform her that one of her swappers is selling sick babies. i think it would probobly be a good idea. let me know,

aubrey

 

[aubreynoramarie]

btw if you really want a white, i can pick up two white silkies from auburn when i go and you can just pay me back (or not). they are three months old and pretty cute

 

[Penturner]

Echetino, So sorry. And I also think the warning the organizer is a good idea. It allows them to inform others that they may have a problem.

Bloomie, be careful about having the hen set to long. it is hard on them. Humidity is most important in the last week of incubating. I also go with the same setting as horsefeatherz and they work pretty good. If I am not able to get that 55% in the last three days it really shows in how many chicks get stuck. The 55% can be a little stubborn in our dry climate. I am usually at 20 to 30% here in Reno.

 

[NevadaRon]

Hey everyone someone on here was looking for barred rocks (aubrey?). Anyway, I saw this post on Craigslist for 10 week old BR's, BO's and EE's for $10!

http://reno.craigslist.org/grd/1823860131.html

 

[Echetino]

I just read on this site that Avocados are not recommended because of their toxicity. I fed them a very small amount of avocado. darn, I hope I didn't kill Opal with what I thought was a treat. But, I would rather that than having my entire flock infected with a parasite. Learning curve.

 

[Knemeyer]

Echetino, so sorry about losing your first chick. I've got one a little on the tired side and have been monitoring, especially with what happened to yours. I've been giving her sugar water from a dropper and this last time it seems a little perkier. Her poops are fine, I should know since she pooped on my finger!

Here are some pics of them today. It's amazing how they change daily! Two of them fly to the top of the brooder when I come in. Maybe they're becoming more people friendly.

I think she's going to be the alpha. She doesn't like anyone of them being as close to me as she is!

The silver laced polish was one of the more skittish, but she was perking up and looking at the camera for every pic!

Their tail feathers are really starting to come in.

 

[ke_ben]

Hi everybody, congrats on all the new additions. I hope that everyone has a great Independence Day, enjoys the freedoms that we have, and is thankful to those that fight/have fought for our great nation. I promised some pics but the older birds weren't real cooperative so I really did poorly on them.

Seramas with a Delaware, an olive egger, and a Maran.

Lt Brahmas (10 wks) and blue/blue wheaton Ameraucanas (14 wks), a group shot of the different color, and

the friendliest cockerel of the bunch.

 

[evonne]

Quote:
hun, do NOT be so hard on yourself..... humiditiy is important, but not THAT important.. and the whole "lockdown" thing...

i have no humidity gauge, i almost never remember to check the water lvls... and 2 hatches ago, i went to do a last turn and check the water, and one had pipped and was zipping 3 days early with no change in humidity at all...

sometimes nature is just nature and no matter what we do we get some goods and bads....

there's people who have everything "perfect" the whole time, and still get chicks that don't make it....
there's people like me who A.D.D their way through it, i forget to turn half the time and when i do remember it's twice a dayand see the humidity issues above... and i get results the same as those "perfect" people.....
oh, did i mention that once they start pipping i open the bator ALOT because i'm like that and hate waiting and i want to see how far they're zipped etc... and i don't spray with warm water to raise the humidity again....

every one has their own methods to this madness, and you will find what works best for you... and always remeber that if you did the best you could, that's all you can do, the rest was momma chickens fault.. lol..

 

[Penturner]

Quote:
Evonne, you are so right. I think we talk way to much 99.5 degrees rather than "Something close to 100 degrees" It sets up an anxiety level that is through the roof when you are trying to get an exact one tenth of a degree temperature and an exact humidity level. then you see a hen jump up and go eat when it is only 70 degrees and leave the eggs to cool down for 20 minutes. No way did those eggs remain 99.5 degrees. I had my hen get up off the nest daily during "The Lockdown Period" read that with a godlike voice speaking through a pipe. Truth is some are going to make it and some are not. It is also very true that incubation is a process that works for you and requires you learn a lot about what does not work for you. I also am constantly in the incubator when they pip. I have lost more chicks by messing with them before they pip. only lost one after it pipped and that was cause we did leave it alone. I long ago decided lockdown is not important.

 

[evonne]

Quote:
rofl... oh i totally forgot to mention temps didn't i????

yeah, in the bathroom the incubator is in it gets non of the airflow from the swamp cooler on this half of the house (yes half, that's a whole different story.. lol).... the room fluctuates between day and night temps, and so does the incubator.... i have the LG still air, and it goes between 103 and 95... and not just for a minute.. it's closer to the 95 range all night and the 102 range most of the late morning afternoon.... i quit trying to adjust it because then i was messing with it like 20 times a day/// and if i adjusted for night and forgot to look at it again it would get up even higher during the day etc....

with those fluctuations, on my own eggs i still have over an 85% hatch rate... i don't know for sure because i don't count.. but i don't help other than making sure once they pip that they did indeed break the membrane and can breath... if the pip is more centra or closer to the thin end that's when i do it, if it's obviously above the air cell, of i can see a rip in the membrane i don't mess with it.. if i have to mess with it it's just a little flip of a pair of tweezers to lift a chip away from the pip and make sure they can get air....

i had one a few rounds ago that externally pipped instead of internally into the air cell but didn't get it hard enough to pop the membrane and he didn't make it, i'm assuming because he had no air....

so, does anyone want bantam barred cochins???? rofl.... i have WAY too many now.... and some of them may be mixed with cuckoo marans..

lol.. i have them all running loose still... i need to make some pens...