NY chicken lover!!!!

[AQHAchick22]

Quote:
Agreed. Plus the eggs are smaller than a "standard egg."

 

[ktblue3]

I'm having a terrible time maintaining a constant humidity (acc. to my thermometer/hygrometer)!! Temp is great but I can have the humidity at 55 at 4 PM when I leave school. When I get back in at 8 AM, the humidity has gone down to the teens. The school turns down the heat overnight. Is that the issue? I'm using a hovabator 1588 genesis. Has a fan. If I actually fill the channels, it is too much moisture so I put in what I need to maintain 40-60% Am I worrying too much? Is the last 4 or 5 days the most critical for humidity. I have heard so many different responses as to the "correct" humidity, I don't know what to believe. At lockdown, is 70-80% good to maintain? I will try a sponge to see if that makes a difference in controlling the humidity. I have had some chicks in the past that were fully developed but never pipped or made it out. Why? My hatch rate can range from 86% down to 50% and I'm never quite sure why. I try to do the same things each time! Frustrated!
K.....

 

[leahlefler]

Wow, this is a long thread! We are just starting our chicken-keeping journey. We live near Jamestown, NY and don't have any chickens yet - live on 1 acre and will be ordering chicks this spring! There are four of us (my husband Dennis, me (Leah), and our two boys, ages 6 and 8. And a Golden Retriever!

 

[rancher hicks]

Why Do: If you're planning on selling some baked good from the eggs you get from your birds, I sure hope you add some better laying breeds. Silkies are not the best egg layers. You may not see an egg from your little Silkie hen until the end of this year. I had to wait a year to get an egg from my lavender hen! That was annoying!

I recommend keeping a variety of breeds to insure that some will be laying. My Dels keep going when the others slack off, but my marans lay well in the winter too. EE's are hybrids of sort and lay well, but the BR's don't lay as well as I'd like.

Some breeds do better in confinement while other don't.

 

[Sweetpea3829]

I recommend keeping a variety of breeds to insure that some will be laying. My Dels keep going when the others slack off, but my marans lay well in the winter too. EE's are hybrids of sort and lay well, but the BR's don't lay as well as I'd like.

Some breeds do better in confinement while other don't.

LOL, and it can be different per bird, too...because my BR is the best layer in my flock. Lays almost every day. The EEs in my flock are solid layers, too...but they tend to take two or more days off a week, where the BR hen typically only takes the one day off.


***Noticed some of my silver sebrights are twitching again. No idea what the issue is with them! As long as it doesn't spread to the silkie, or the australorps, or the ones hatching tomorrow...I'm fine with that. The Sebrights were a bit of an impulse buy, lol.

Speaking of tomorrow's hatch...there are two pips in there already! One of them is quite active, too. I'm a bit surprised...they are a day early.

 

[Glasshen]

Welcome Leahlefler! Don't worry about the past, just jump in and go from here. There are some western NY folks here, and if you have questions, you will get lots of opinions, but you will need to sift through and decide what makes sense for you, as sometimes the opinions are very different. There are no experts, just a bunch of folks who love their birds willing to share their experiences.

 

[marquisella]

I'm having a terrible time maintaining a constant humidity (acc. to my thermometer/hygrometer)!! Temp is great but I can have the humidity at 55 at 4 PM when I leave school. When I get back in at 8 AM, the humidity has gone down to the teens. The school turns down the heat overnight. Is that the issue? I'm using a hovabator 1588 genesis. Has a fan. If I actually fill the channels, it is too much moisture so I put in what I need to maintain 40-60% Am I worrying too much? Is the last 4 or 5 days the most critical for humidity. I have heard so many different responses as to the "correct" humidity, I don't know what to believe. At lockdown, is 70-80% good to maintain? I will try a sponge to see if that makes a difference in controlling the humidity. I have had some chicks in the past that were fully developed but never pipped or made it out. Why? My hatch rate can range from 86% down to 50% and I'm never quite sure why. I try to do the same things each time! Frustrated!
K.....

Some of us do the "dry hatch". I only put water in my incubator once a week. Others leave it dry all the time, then the last 3 days, up it & fill all the channels. The most common reason for chicks to develop & then not hatch is too much humidity. The chick inner pips, and drowns in the excess water. You should open the large end of the dead chicks eggs & look at it. If when you move it around & see liquid moving, it was too humid. If it looks like it was shrink wrapped with the dry membrane around it, it was too dry. Are these your eggs or were they shipped?

 

[Gramma Chick]

I think I have my DH as addicted to chickens as I am! I talked him into building me a cabinet incubator. It will be big enough to hold 3 egg turners! I can not wait!

So cool how did you do it ? I need mine to be too !

 

[help4me]

Hi,

I just had a message and it all disappeared, starting over with much shorter message.

Hi, we live in Cazenovia. We got started in the crazy chicken adventure when my daughter who was turning 10 last year wanted to hatch some out. So, we got the Mini Brinsea while she researched what she wanted. She decided on Lavender Orpingtons. So, we ordered 7 eggs from e-bay,. Short story... 3 hatched despite our many mistakes. We ended up with only one hen, named Collette and two roosters Rocky and Ricky. We just recently sold Rocky and then my son who is 8 was honored when his teacher offered him her 3 baby chicks from the classroom, and well how could we say no. So, now Collette and Ricky who are the BEST chickens ever are waiting to hatch some of their own. We have 4 eggs in the incubator due May3rd, and some we are constantly rotating out of the basement waiting for Collette to go broody again. This is our first time hatching our own eggs trying both ways. Seeing we are so new to all this we are not sure what our hatch rate will be, but boy is it exciting! Here they are the pictures were taken yesterday, except for the baby chicks, and I don't have any of Lily yet.


Rocky and Luke Collette Come on babies, please be hens



When we got the babies we had no idea what they were. We ended up getting two silkies, Buttercup and Lily and one mystery Bantam named Chirpy.I think she is a EE, and yes we call them all girls till proven otherwise by there crowing. Boy are they silly, and fun to watch. Now I have to rethink the chicken logistics.


Chirpy Buttercup

 

[marquisella]

Quote: How come when we were young, we didn't ask our husbands to be, if they liked chickens? Would have made things so much easier...