North Carolina

[skitzkle]

My new babies. 9 out 15 eggs hatched. They were shipped from PA to here. They are black, blue, & splash marans.

 

[Tikkijane]

Good Morning everyone!

Southpawtech - I had issues with hatching until I tried the dry hatch method.  Thanks to BHep for the instructions.  Don't add any water to the incubator for the first 18 days, your humidity will be whatever the ambient humidity is, mine ran between 40 and 50%, I have read not to let the humidity drop below 20%.  On day 19, increase the humidity to 70% and don't open the incubator until either all of the eggs are hatched or until day 23.  Newly hatched chicks can live just fine for 3 days without food or water.  If you open the incubator, the humidity will drop and even if you raise it right back up, the chicks get sticky inside the eggs.  The test hatch I did with my first and so far only dry incubation was very successful.  I hatched 7/8 that went into lockdown.  All of them hatched within 24 hours from the first pip.

Quirkybeeper - water with a little dish soap and a splash of bleach works great.  Wash the incubator well with this mixture then dry well before re-using or storing.  Ideally, I put it on the porch in the sun to dry.

CSB - Since my Lavender Ams are from you I know you are familiar with them.  They are 3 1/2 months old now.  While free ranging most of my layers decided to move into the "youngins" coop so now I am deciding if I feed the layers starter or the "youngins" layer feed or disrupt the whole bunch and move the ams to the old layer coop.  One cockerel has started to crow so I know they are maturing but the girls are still chirping like babies.  Everyone gets along just fine.  What do you think?

DST - be careful, I seem to want every kind of chicken I see!  I have "tried" several breeds and some I like some I sold.  My hubby wishes I could decide on what I want and just keep something.  LOL  I am still in the trying mode.  I really like blue eggs and have ordered some Crested Cream Legbar eggs.  It will be a long time before I will get any money from these babies and I doubt they will ever pay for themselves.  Then again, I don't think any of my chickens have paid for themselves or their feed and certainly not their housing.  LOL

On home news - I have never really thought I would be interested in leghorns, but a co-worker of my husband called on Saturday saying he had to get rid of his 6 hens as the neighbors were complaining.  We went over to take a look and they are healthy and looked good so they went into the quarantine coop at the house.  I am already planning on breeding them with my ameraucanas to see what kind of ee layers I will get.  LOL.

And another question - when do you all worm your chickens?  How many times per year?  I have been thinking fall and spring, but what months and is fall and spring the best time?

Can you all tell I am still off work (govt employee)  My hubby is back today which is good but I guess my admin job is truly not considered necessary....  I happen to think it is...  LOL

Have a wonderful day everyone!

I don't ever worm unless there is a need to. I would rather prevent with DE and only do medical treatment if there's a need. I will give whole pumpkin in the fall, since the seeds are a natural dewormer.

 

[dutchbunny83]

I don't know what happened??!!??

I came out to feed my chickens this morning and 3 of my Blue Isbar girls are missing. No sign of them, no feathers, no blood, nothing like they vanished into thin air!
Then I notice my barred rock is hobbling. Picked her up and examined her really well-- no external injuries, no feathers around the run, just a hobble on her one leg.
All the other chickens are perfectly fine. No sign of a struggle anywhere. I re-checked my netting all around the top of the run and it's all sealed. I checked around the walls of the coop and run and there aren't any opennings, no holes dug in, nothing.
My chickens never fight, they don't even do the normal pecking at one another, I guess because they're all young?

Our backyard has a privacy fence all around it, touching 3 other backyards one behind us and one on each side. We even checked all 3 yards in case the Isbars somehow squeezed out of our pen and went in someone else's yard. There is no sign of them anywhere.

I've been out there looking for almost 2 hours it's almost like something unlocked the pen, kicked my barred rock, picked up and carried out the 3 Isbars, then locked the gate behind them!

I am so baffled!!!

 

[skitzkle]

I don't know what happened??!!??

I came out to feed my chickens this morning and 3 of my Blue Isbar girls are missing. No sign of them, no feathers, no blood, nothing like they vanished into thin air!
Then I notice my barred rock is hobbling. Picked her up and examined her really well-- no external injuries, no feathers around the run, just a hobble on her one leg.
All the other chickens are perfectly fine. No sign of a struggle anywhere. I re-checked my netting all around the top of the run and it's all sealed. I checked around the walls of the coop and run and there aren't any opennings, no holes dug in, nothing.
My chickens never fight, they don't even do the normal pecking at one another, I guess because they're all young?

Our backyard has a privacy fence all around it, touching 3 other backyards one behind us and one on each side. We even checked all 3 yards in case the Isbars somehow squeezed out of our pen and went in someone else's yard. There is no sign of them anywhere.

I've been out there looking for almost 2 hours it's almost like something unlocked the pen, kicked my barred rock, picked up and carried out the 3 Isbars, then locked the gate behind them!

I am so baffled!!!

That is disturbing! Especially the unknown. I hope you find them

 

[skitzkle]

Question for the experienced hatchers on here. I had two chicks pip and then get no further. I waited til today day 23 and opened the shells. They were fully formed and not shrink wrapped but did not get past pipping. Both had almost completely absorbed yolk sacs. Just nature? or did I do something wrong. I had 8 other hatch and 1 with assistance.

 

[tammyfarms]

I don't know what happened??!!??

I came out to feed my chickens this morning and 3 of my Blue Isbar girls are missing. No sign of them, no feathers, no blood, nothing like they vanished into thin air!
Then I notice my barred rock is hobbling. Picked her up and examined her really well-- no external injuries, no feathers around the run, just a hobble on her one leg.
All the other chickens are perfectly fine. No sign of a struggle anywhere. I re-checked my netting all around the top of the run and it's all sealed. I checked around the walls of the coop and run and there aren't any opennings, no holes dug in, nothing.
My chickens never fight, they don't even do the normal pecking at one another, I guess because they're all young?

Our backyard has a privacy fence all around it, touching 3 other backyards one behind us and one on each side. We even checked all 3 yards in case the Isbars somehow squeezed out of our pen and went in someone else's yard. There is no sign of them anywhere.

I've been out there looking for almost 2 hours it's almost like something unlocked the pen, kicked my barred rock, picked up and carried out the 3 Isbars, then locked the gate behind them!

I am so baffled!!!

How old are the Isbars? Could it have been a snake?

A few months ago I lost a 6 week old to a snake - The snake was still in the pen so I know it was the culprit.

 

[tammyfarms]

Question for the experienced hatchers on here. I had two chicks pip and then get no further. I waited til today day 23 and opened the shells. They were fully formed and not shrink wrapped but did not get past pipping. Both had almost completely absorbed yolk sacs. Just nature? or did I do something wrong. I had 8 other hatch and 1 with assistance.

Did you monitor the size of the air cells? How big were they? Were the chicks big in relation to the shell, did they seem really squished in there? Sometimes if a chick gets too big, e.g. small air cell, they can't zip. What was your humidity during days 1 - 18? You might have mentioned this earlier but I can't remember (sorry old brain).

No matter your answer - it could have been nature. Sounds like you had a good hatch for shipped eggs. They are adorable.

 

[carolbeau]

How old are the Isbars? Could it have been a snake?

A few months ago I lost a 6 week old to a snake - The snake was still in the pen so I know it was the culprit.

Snake is a good idea. One thing to note is that if a snake did get in through a small hole and then eat 3 of your hens this morning (or last night), it might be too big right now to get back out the way it came in. In which case, it would be trapped inside your coop/run area.

 

[tammyfarms]

For anyone with incubation questions you might want to check out these articles.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/how-to-incubate-hatch-eggs-using-the-dry-incubation-method

This is another very long article: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101 This is a very thorough and long article. The areas I found interesting are the air cell size during incubation and internal pipping on or about day 18. The article tells you everything from picking out an incubator, thermometer, humidistat and the entire hatching process.

 

[ramirezframing]

On home news - I have never really thought I would be interested in leghorns, but a co-worker of my husband called on Saturday saying he had to get rid of his 6 hens as the neighbors were complaining. We went over to take a look and they are healthy and looked good so they went into the quarantine coop at the house. I am already planning on breeding them with my ameraucanas to see what kind of ee layers I will get. LOL. the offspring would be called super blue egg layers (ask Bhep about them)

And another question - when do you all worm your chickens? How many times per year? I have been thinking fall and spring, but what months and is fall and spring the best time?

I do fall and spring, since I have read in several places that DE don't work for mites/ lice or worms. I also feed pumpkins in the fall.