I am curious what incubator and brooder set ups serama hatchers are using.
They are such a difficult breed to hatch eggs from and the babies seem to need extra care. As I've only had seramas for a little under a year it has been a difficult breed to get into and the occasional mysterious chick death or fully formed unhatched egg has been very frustrating. I've never had these kinds of problems with full sized chicks.
Hatch rates seem to still be very low but I don't yet want to invest in an expensive retail incubator. I'm seeing an unusually high percentage of quitter eggs but am only using a Little Giant incubator with two thermometers/humidity readers, a fan, and hand turning.
When I let my hens go broody they don't lay for a
very long time afterwards and although hatch rate is higher, I'm seeing increased unexplained chick death than with brooder babies. I'm thinking a broody serama hen needs to be moved to her own completely separate space?
I just bought a
brinsea ecoglow as I'm tired of my heat lamp bulbs randomly dying and the high electricity usage but am still waiting for it to be delivered. I'm pretty sure I lost two chicks from chill when the last bulb went out in the middle of the night.
I've had difficulty in introducing fully feathered chicks to being fully outside with the adult birds. I've relied on cages placed within the target pen. Although my birds don't tend to peck or be mean (I successfully have three mature roosters in the same pen with 9 hens) I am still seeing a lot of stress on the half grown juveniles. I've recently built a good sized serama coop (everything from the nesting boxes to the rails and doors being proportional to their size), and am just about ready to move everyone over.
But I am thinking about adding a small pen within the pen for the juvenile birds I'd like to acclimate and at least one broody box on ground level. I'm wondering if anyone else has found this to be more successful and worth the time/expense and what set up everyone is successfully using.
I tend to do staggered hatches, setting eggs when I have enough to warrant it. Does anyone else do this and how do you brood your chicks? (being of several sizes.) What incubator, incubator settings are you using? It seems like if the humidity is as high as is often recommended the chicks have difficulty hatching.
Do you wean off of light/heat the same way you do full sized chicks? (my mother-in-law consistently has every batch of chicks off of lights by 6 weeks but I just have not been able to do this)
Thanks so much!
