Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[Perris]

So the tractor had to have new wheels it is like 15 to 20 years old.. Gentleman that built it was a electrician he used metal conduit that lasts close to forever.
The reason to have it is banty the cats would love to have chicken dinner. Banty are tx today!View attachment 3212553View attachment 3212554View attachment 3212555View attachment 3212553View attachment 3212554View attachment 3212555

are we playing spot the difference again Penny?

 

[pennyJo1960]

Nope added new tires one rusted off so he went and did both.. cost like 20 bucks total but worth it.

 

[Shadrach]

I'm sorry if you mentioned it before : do you let Henry eat the layer feed ?

Yes. At the moment it's very difficult not to.
An all flock type feed with Calcium offered seperately doesn't work well with the Ex Battery hens. They need a lot of calcium. They lay daily and their eggs are quite large compared to the Legbars and even Matilda who is a big hen.
I do have a 1% calcium feed that I try to get down him while the hens aren't looking.
C doesn't bother with this and trying to get C to approach feeding the chickens in a prescribed manner is near impossible. Henry still gets more calcium than is good for him.

 

[Shadrach]

I need @pennyJo1960 at my place! Haha saw a baby rat having a a sniff at my compost bin.

I haven't taken a chicken to the vet before, but I have spent a fair amount of time talking to the vet clinic about my chickens. I've always found them very helpful. And they dispense flock-sized amounts of wormer/coccidiostat for me, so I don't have cow or horse sized bottles sitting in my refrigerator. I live in a rural place where keeping chickens is just the way everyone used to do things and still is the way a lot of people do. The vets are very good here and I imagine they are in all small rural places here in New Zealand.

If anyone wants to follow my hybrid incubation thread you can find it here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/hybrid-incubation-feedback-please.1541686/

I didn't get any feedback on my plan yet, probably because I tend to ask complicated questions! I'll be posting updates as I go along. Should be educational at least.

I'll have a look although you've probably gathered I only hatch by broody hen.
The last incubator went in the bin over a decade ago.

 

[Shadrach]

I don't know for absolutely sure that it was the humidity, but it's the most educated guess I can make. I had one 100% failed hatched of I think 16 eggs, all of which were developed at the same rate, and all of which died in the shell without pipping. They all had air cell sizes that indicated an issue with humidity. These eggs were split between 2 different hens also. I only candled them after they failed to hatch as I am usually very hands-off. This happened over a very unusually humid period over summer where the humidity just did not break. I get lower hatch rates (below 50%) when the humidity is high and excellent hatch rates (above 90%) when the humidity drops into the 50s and 60s for at least a handful of days during the 21 days. This has all been with broodies.

I honestly don't know how I can be sure of the precise reason, but this seems like a solid explanation worth accounting for and seeing what happens.

I had a link to a very interesting in depth study on what it takes to provide the ideal conditions for incubation.
It's seriously complicated.

I've tried the link but I'm getting "internal server error" messages.
I'll try again some time. I should find a way of getting the entire study in PDF.

 

[Shadrach]

I have the same hatching problems when hot and humid with broodies. I will start eggs in the incubator at the same time and split the chicks between the broodies. Last year I didn't incubate, because I still wasn't feeling well from covid, and had 16 of 18 broodies fail completely. The 2 that had eggs hatch, One was in nest box and had 5 of 12. The other showed up from the brush with 10. This year is similar. The 2 in the brush had 9 each. The ones in the nest boxes have 11 between 6 hens.
So I agree with Shadrach that on the dirt works better.

Chickens know a lot about what makes a good nest.

 

[Shadrach]

Warm and mainly sunny.
This is one of the sick notes. She's looked a little better the last couple of days.
Most of the mites on her legs are dead now. I've ordered some Iodine (can't believe how expensive it is here compared to Catalonia) to make the mixture that I found worked really well and that was to mix Betadine (a solution) 25% to 75% Vaseline.

Everybody out. They had around three hours out today while I messed around with the new coop run and cleaned up. No treats today much to Henry's disgust.

This is one of the lap sitters.

This is all that's left of the old coop roost bar crew.

 

[BDutch]

So the tractor had to have new wheels it is like 15 to 20 years old.. Gentleman that built it was a electrician he used metal conduit that lasts close to forever.
The reason to have it is banty the cats would love to have chicken dinner. Banty are tx today!View attachment 3212553View attachment 3212554View attachment 3212555View attachment 3212553View attachment 3212554View attachment 3212555

Are you sure the cats are a threat to the bantams? I have tiny chickens for 8 years and until recently , never has a problem with cats. I dare to say the normal housecats are no threat for small bantams. But if there are wild cats that aren’t fed I wouldn't trust them either.

 

[TheFatBlueCat]

Chickens know a lot about what makes a good nest.

I entirely agree. Using the incubator goes against all my intentions, I've agonized over the decision. If one of my hens sets up under a bush somewhere I would be pleased. Maybe when we move to the larger property I'll be able to encourage this more. I'm going to cut some chunks of soil and grass out of the garden and put them in the boxes and see how that plays out this season.
It may well be that the incubator will be a failed experiment and I figure out a better solution provided by nature, who is more wise than any human solution. I don't want to fall into the trap of trying to 'fix' a problem with mechanical means, then that creates a bunch more problems, and all of a sudden I have a ridiculous system on my hands in service to the machines.

 

[ManueB]

you may find this useful: https://extension.uga.edu/publications/detail.html?number=C954&title=Nutrition for the Backyard Flock#title5
especially the section on minerals. In old poultry books the advice is to make sure the flock has access to old mortar, which no doubt worked fine when mortar was lime mortar. I've no idea what goes into modern mortars, but you might, as you've been building recently!

My partner is still doing the finishing work after changing our windows. We bought standard sized to pay less, so he had to make the holes in the wall bigger. Unfortunately he got some of the old mortar dust in his eyes almost ten days ago and he's been in pain since, he is convinced it's due to the limestone in the old mortar! From what I gather modern mortar is a mix of cement and thin sand, I don't think it would be of any use .
I still don't understand how our flock can lack calcium since we are on really chalky ground.

I have the same hatching problems when hot and humid with broodies. I will start eggs in the incubator at the same time and split the chicks between the broodies. Last year I didn't incubate, because I still wasn't feeling well from covid, and had 16 of 18 broodies fail completely. The 2 that had eggs hatch, One was in nest box and had 5 of 12. The other showed up from the brush with 10. This year is similar. The 2 in the brush had 9 each. The ones in the nest boxes have 11 between 6 hens.
So I agree with Shadrach that on the dirt works better.

That makes a huge difference! But if the humidity is in the air, it should also cause a problem for the broodies outside ? Or maybe they can give the egg better ventilation ? It's quite a mystery how this works for me.

Yes. At the moment it's very difficult not to.
An all flock type feed with Calcium offered seperately doesn't work well with the Ex Battery hens. They need a lot of calcium. They lay daily and their eggs are quite large compared to the Legbars and even Matilda who is a big hen.
I do have a 1% calcium feed that I try to get down him while the hens aren't looking.
C doesn't bother with this and trying to get C to approach feeding the chickens in a prescribed manner is near impossible. Henry still gets more calcium than is good for him.

Ok. Unfortunately for Théo and Gaston. I will be doing this too because the all flock isn't going well. I'll try to find a layer feed that has less calcium than the one I just bought, it's over 4% and I think some of the brand I used before had less.