Nevadans?

[NevadaRon]

Sheryl, have your ducks given you any more eggs? How is an LG incubator rated? Sahara wants to hatch eggs, but I don't want to spend over $100 on something, when we don't have the capacity to keep multiple hatches. Maybe I'll hatch vicariously through other people's forum posts.

Sunny built the homemade incubator that she uses our of an old vanity. It is a very clever design! If you search through here you will see pics of it.

 

[NevadaRon]

That was a great story Kim! Thanks!

ETA: I apparently stopped getting notifications, too.

I just tried the Unsubscribe/Subscribe thing; hopefully it works!

 

[sherylreno]

Wow Kim. Fairfield isn't an easy place to stop really, we lived there for over 14 years before moving to Reno. I hear it's really, really bad now. I went by my old house a few years ago and I was so upset with the way things looked there. Cars sitting on cinder blocks, graffiti every where you look. People walking down the streets with their pants below their butts. I thought I was in the ghetto for sure. I saw it slowly come but to see it now just wants to make you cry.

I'll look through here to find her incubator but with almost 1,000 pages to go through it will take a bit. Perhaps I'll try the search tool on here.

 

[SunnyDawn]

I love that story Kim! Tell Bill that Sunny & Steve said "Hi".

Thank you everybody for the kind words and the hugs! They are much appreciated.

Missy I have the pics of the bator in my BYC uploads if anyone can tell me how to access it. They weren't on this computer so I can't do it from here. Ke-ben gave me a lot of the ideas for the bator. The only thing I would do differently is to put the radiant heat in the floor instead of at the back. Even with the fan it loses more heat than it should before cycling through the bator. I will still do it. Just need to get the time.

Works well though. Holds heat steadily. I didn't notice an increase in my utility bill but I can feel a warm spot at the top toward the back of the bator. I did find out that my thermometer was way off though. Worked perfectly at first but it may have contributed to the bad hatch I had the last time. I've got a new thermometer now though and it reads temps perfectly!

Congrats on the fertile eggs Sheryl.

Elizabeth the second the weather warms a tiny bit you'll have more eggs. I'm living through you all right now since I've got a couple more months (at least) to wait before I get eggs.

 

[americanvalkyrie]

Kim... wow. Amazing story. I don't know what else to say, but wow.

Regarding the incubator: Some dreams may just need to stay dreams. We mostly want to do it for the experience. I'm even considering buying one of those cheap 3-egg classroom incubators, just for the experience. But we have a whole list of necessary projects lining up, and my whole year is pretty much planned out between garden, chickens, license renewal, and doing some free maintenance on this property to keep my landlady in agreement with all the stuff I want to do. Maybe an incubator thing will work out next year.

 

[americanvalkyrie]

Does anyone know the best way to ventilate a coop without losing heat?

We're going to do the big build next Saturday, and I've redrawn the plans several times based on available materials. A friend just donated some industrial pallet racks, planks from a bunk bed, and a few more sheets of pressboard. So it's going to be a rectangular walk-in structure, 4 feet wide and 8-10 feet long, about 6 feet from floor to ceiling, with external nesting boxes. The roof is going to be flat, so I can put on some Global Buckets filled with a trailing morning glory, to hang down on the sides. The outside is going to be flat pressboard, which I'm going to either paint with a countryside mural, or paint it to look like an old fashioned stone-and-timber barn (Old World style, either Tuscan or Germanic.) I'll have to see the finished structure to decide which painting I'm going to do.

As far as ventilation, though, where's the best place to put the vents? In the bottom, to keep warm and moist air moving up? High on the walls by the ceiling to remove the moist air? I was also thinking of cutting a hole in the roof and putting in an old 3-gallon bucket as a cupola, then painting it to look like stonework.

I'd really like to avoid the necessity of putting in electrical heat. I'm going to have a fluorescent light up on the ceiling, but don't want anything that gets too warm. We have carpet that a client recently ripped out of her bedroom, and were planning to tack it on the walls and ceiling to insulate.

Any thoughts?

 

[chicharomirinda]

Does anyone know the best way to ventilate a coop without losing heat?

We're going to do the big build next Saturday, and I've redrawn the plans several times based on available materials. A friend just donated some industrial pallet racks, planks from a bunk bed, and a few more sheets of pressboard. So it's going to be a rectangular walk-in structure, 4 feet wide and 8-10 feet long, about 6 feet from floor to ceiling, with external nesting boxes. The roof is going to be flat, so I can put on some Global Buckets filled with a trailing morning glory, to hang down on the sides. The outside is going to be flat pressboard, which I'm going to either paint with a countryside mural, or paint it to look like an old fashioned stone-and-timber barn (Old World style, either Tuscan or Germanic.) I'll have to see the finished structure to decide which painting I'm going to do.

As far as ventilation, though, where's the best place to put the vents? In the bottom, to keep warm and moist air moving up? High on the walls by the ceiling to remove the moist air? I was also thinking of cutting a hole in the roof and putting in an old 3-gallon bucket as a cupola, then painting it to look like stonework.

I'd really like to avoid the necessity of putting in electrical heat. I'm going to have a fluorescent light up on the ceiling, but don't want anything that gets too warm. We have carpet that a client recently ripped out of her bedroom, and were planning to tack it on the walls and ceiling to insulate.

Any thoughts?

From my research on coop building and ventilation, high on the ceilings is best for vents. You don't want it on the floor and cupola is a cool idea but not adequate for all the ventilation you'll want. You really want quite a lot of vents and a window or two. there is a great page done by a chicken vet named Pat on ventilation. Here's the link to it.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/...-go-out-there-and-cut-more-holes-in-your-coop

can't wait to see photos of your new coop!

 

[chicharomirinda]

Got lots done on the run today. I finished putting the welded wire around the top half of the run. Jose started putting the screws&washers in to secure everything. I have been stapling just to hold everything in place. Then we go back with the screws and washers in the hardware cloth. I just bought poultry nails ( U shaped) to fasten the welded wire securely. I"m sure that'll be a real pain to do. I made the human door to the run. I will add some diagonal supports to that tomorrow and then it'll be ready to hang.

I cracked open the 2 duck eggs that were laid today and they were FERTILE! Donuts were there!

Now to open the incubator boxes and get that going as I collect my eggs for it.

Aubrey, may I borrow your incubator for the hatching of the ducklings? I want to be ready if I need another one.

yay!!

OK time to go back and retrace those steps. LOL Taking Bills some flowers, a birthday balloon and peanut butter cups! Then I'm going out on the base and look at the planes. I'm weird that way and so was he, so Dakotah and I are doing it today.

Kim, Hope your day was what you needed it to be. I'm sure it's hard.

You didn't say how many times a day you have been checking!

Too many times, Ron!

 

[Mahonri]

GREAT JOB AT THE CAUCUS' TODAY!

 

[SunnyDawn]

Mahonri behave yourself! We try very hard to avoid political discussions on this thread and so far so good. I had no idea you were a pot stirrer!