oooooh the things we do...

[aguirre]

I'm a newby, just looking around and getting a bit of help with hatching...seeing some of these photos on this site is getting me very eggcited for my chicks to hatch...
Last week was a disaster for me and my kids. 15 eggs and nothing, not even one made it. cracked them all open to see why and only one viable chick inside one egg...it didn't make it either.... but alas...all is not lost...i got on ebay and went waaaaaay overboard, determined to have success...From three different sources I now have a total of 39 hatching eggs in my Hova Bator... 12 light sussex, 13 ameraucaunas, 3 golden lakenvelder, 2 silver phoenix, 4 bantam cochin, 5 RIR and/or brown sex link...5 RIR and/or brown sex link????
what does that mean??
Unfortunately I couldn't arrange all to arrive on the same day so the light sussex went in on 10/26...candled them last night and threw out one with cracks...the others all arrived yesterday and added those into the Bator...(my not so great planning skills forced me to purchase another Bator to move the light sussex to on hatch day....oh the things we do...
I now have six weeks to get a pen built to house my chickens to be...
I noticed some coops here have red lights in them...why is that? do they have to have light? or is that just to help with laying? does my coop need to be heated? I live in the north bay area about 30 minutes above San Fran, temps are not extreme here and there is not too many structures housing poultry to compare to...whats your thought?

 

[skeeter9]

Hi Aguirre,
The red light some people use is for heat. In your area it doesn't get cold enough for you to need heat in your coop. I live where it sometimes gets down in the 20's at night, and my chickens do just fine with no heat. Of course, they have an area in their pen where they can go to get out of the weather, etc.

Some people keep lights on in their coops to emulate longer daylight hours so their girls will lay more, but personally, I don't like to mess with their natural cycles. It's just a matter of preference.

Hope this helps,

Lori