***OKIES in the BYC III ***

[old*cowboy]

Looks like a good assortment of bantams and heavies ther cowboy. Nuthing cutier than chicks!

saw this ad in Bowling Green ,Ky craigslist. I can transport in june if ya need me too!lol

Due to a move I am closing my loft. I have Giant Runts, Black and white Lahores, Modenas, German Modenas, Old German Owls, Fantails. I will ship at buyers or birds may be picked up in Glasgow KY 42141 Please contact by phone or text at 270-308-5265 fir prices and availability.

How far from this are you Wayne.

 

[nnbreeder]

Cowboy, those are some awful cute babies!
Do you keep water in your foam incubator when you hatch with it? I only had 1 hatch and did a dry hatch, didn't add a drop of water til lockdown. But I don't know if that was the right way or not.

Teva and I have been using the dry incubation for years. Usually a house will carry about a 40% humidity level, old trailers like we have about 30%, and it works great. There is a very good article about it here on BYC.

There is a very accurate way to monitor humidity throughout the incubation process. You keep a chat on how much the eggs weigh. Just pick out four or five eggs to do this with. An egg loses weight as they mature and there is a set percentage that they must lose. There are charts and cheat sheets to be found with a search.

 

[jcatblum]

Tried several times to get the new chicks to pose-- but they are not interested. Everytime I come close w the camera they scatter. Snapped a pic w my phone. I am sure everyone agrees even though the brown one came from an chocolate brown egg it isn't a pure copper maran. Think there was about 12 dz copper maran eggs from the same seller @ the Blanchard auction. Wonder how many others hatched out brown chicks.

 

[Elwood Lightfoot]

I use a 6 x 2 x 2 water tank. For a lid, I use a retangle made from pvc pipe with a piece of 1 inch chicken wire wire tied to the pvc frame. I use a 2 foot runner rug to cover part of the top to hold the heat from a suspended heat lamp. It can be adjusted to allow more air flow . The Lamp can be raised or lowered to adjust the warmth. Just slide the cover back and forth along the tank to have access to food and water at each end. Holds a lot of babies and they have plenty of exercise room.

Where do you keep the tank at? I'm guessing in a barn? I have a full outbuilding no room and probably not safe for chicks so I've been using the back bedroom in the house for them gets a bit dusty in there but I know nothing is going to get at them till they are big enough to at least run away if they can LOL

 

[Ksane]

The eggs were shipped, there were 16 Cochin eggs and 8 hatched. I also had 15 Polish eggs but I think something was wrong with them. Only 4 hatched and out of those 4 there's only 1 left. Not very healthy chicks.

Been playing with my new bugs LOL I have one female that's about to pop I'm sure she is going to deliver any time now, I think they are really cool, I wonder how many adults are needed to maintain a productive colony, of either type, I have also been working on getting the incubator going I got a 12v power supply and it should run the small fans in the bator and the hatchers so should be ready to start eggs in the next couple days I just need to rethink brooders since I've used the plastic tubs for bugs that I would have placed the chicks in,

lol! You're so funny! That's how I was when I got mine last week.
Jcat-you all are so lucky to have all these babies!!

 

[jcatblum]

Elwood I was just wondering how many different animals do you have. Off the top of my head geese, chickens, goats, pigs, guinea pigs, snakes, rabbits, bugs & dogs. I am sure I am missing something. Trying to imagine how you keep a full time job with all the animals & projects!

We are lucky to have the Marans. They are feather legged-- don't know if we would have bought them if I knew that -- our stickers are awful & I let the birds free range, feathered legs jus give stickers something else to stick too! We didn't buy the eggs for the birds. DD wants LOTS of chocolate brown eggs since they are the prettiest, so of course we HAD to buy the eggs when she saw them.

 

[Elwood Lightfoot]

Originally Posted by old*cowboy
The eggs were shipped, there were 16 Cochin eggs and 8 hatched. I also had 15 Polish eggs but I think something was wrong with them. Only 4 hatched and out of those 4 there's only 1 left. Not very healthy chicks.
As I understood from researching what I thought I needed to know when I built my incubator that the conditions under the hen are ideal and the incubators were supposed to mimic those and so I have always used some water to keep the humidity up where it's recommended keeping it around 45 to 50% till day 18 is easy to get it up to 75-80% for the last three days took me a couple tries to keep it there, I tried to put water in the heat area and it shot up to 100% like a sauna so that didn't work out I had poached eggs I couldn't eat, I ended up draping a sock over a wire hanger and setting it in the bowl of water and it wicked up what it needed in front of the fan and the humidity held at just under 80% that seemed to work out well, I was thinking about trying the water crystals in the incubator and particularly the waterer you posted a pic of I think that might help a lot in not having to open it up to add water in the later days of the hatch, (although I added a tube so I fill it from the outside, it's the hatchers I'm going to try it in) I don't really know I think it's kinda a loose science a lot of room for error maybe I know lots of different things work for different situations LOL I just like making something out of nothing and hatching birds from eggs is like that, or building a $50. incubator that holds more eggs than I'll ever put in it LOL

 

[Elwood Lightfoot]

Elwood I was just wondering how many different animals do you have. Off the top of my head geese, chickens, goats, pigs, guinea pigs, snakes, rabbits, bugs & dogs. I am sure I am missing something. Trying to imagine how you keep a full time job with all the animals & projects!

And Ducks LOL I don't like to be idle and am never bored

 

[Elwood Lightfoot]

Good VERY Early Morning Everyone, I'm having one of those nights where sleep just may not happen at all I really hate them when I have to be at work at 7am they aren't so bad when I have the day off LOL I sure do wish I had the day off...

I was looking for a motor that I bought from an auction a couple years ago it's a half horse motor and can't for the life of me figure out where I put it I have the one that Christina gave me to use on the plucker and it would be too much for this project I need a smaller one to turn the grinder I just got that will make flour I think a half or third would be more than enough and a quarter horse would probably be enough so I need to disassemble a washer or dryer maybe for one in the next couple days and have that going by this weekend, I have about 20 tubs that I need to add ground feed to as a substrate for the mealworms then given a couple months I should have plenty to offer if anyone is interested in them. Most people use a course grain, Oats, Bran etc.. I have been grinding the bedding for them into a powder that will sift through a screen for about 22 years it makes harvest of large amounts of the mealworms a whole lot easier and a lot less waste of the food or substrate for them, Till I got this grinder I had to grind it 2 cups at a time in an old blender set to the fastest setting it works really well but takes all day or night to process 50lbs of chicken feed into the food/substrate for them. I make a set of different sizes screen filters to run them through when they are ready and it separates Frass from the babies and eggs and the medium and large into separate containers so I have some to sell, some to feed and some to continue raising to make more, it really isn't time consuming if you grind the bedding into the flour that will go through a standard window screen, For the bugs I am thinking that I can grind the cat food that it calls for into a powder and make it more readily available for them,

When I was at Tractor Supply yesterday I was looking at pully's and couldn't remember the sizes that I had or needed LOL I guess I need to take more notes or take the parts with me to the store LOL

 

[Elwood Lightfoot]

I would say that I killed the thread but I did that earlier and now I'm here by myself with the exception of one guest lurker LOL and my guess is they aren't going to reveal who they are and just continue to lurk without posting LOL No matter though I'm glad your here and hope your having a better night than I am or at least up by choice and not just cause you can't sleep LOL