She said/He said Who's right? Who's wrong? No one!

[cppeace]

Hatcher number 3 wants out of the incubator so bad is sad but balace is still a little rough, prolly move it in a few hours. No further progress to report, number 4 egg is sill moving well but no further pip expanding yet. number 5 still moving but no pip yet.

 

[sjturner79]

Yeah, it took me a week to read the thread before I joined! Any idea when silkie chicks will start to roost? I have two, 6 week old silkie chicks and they will not go on the roost yet!

It will depend on the roost and how hard it is to get to - mine were roosting in the brooder from 3 days old.
There are others i know of that are 2 years old and don't roost, but the owner doesn't care.

If you want to train a chook to roost -
1 Build a roost at least 4 inch wide,
2 make a ramp from floor to roost.
3 identify the chooks favorite food/treat
4 at bed time place the food along the roost.
5 place the chook on the roost.
6 repeat every couple of days till they start heading up there by themselves.
After about 2 weeks sleeping on a roost they will start to look for one without the ramp.

 

[sjturner79]

I don't have any pics of the second brooder that had the perch in it.
some pics of the other Chicks on the roost in the coop.,
and another pic of the roost when i up sized it from safe for 4 chooks to hold 10.








On another note- the hen in the pics is the start of my renewed chicken obsession. Her name was cluck cluck. My mix breed chick is her daughter.
Cluck cluck was blind, with a crooked neck, and then developed leg problems. she died at 4 years old of failure to recover from a broken leg.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

By the way AmyLynn thank you for the name idea we have dubbed our little crippled boy Tiny Tim.

LOL. That's great.

up to post 4100 - only 10 days worth to catch up on now.
I hope amylyn sorted out her laying problem - The only way i found to get silkies to lay in the boxes way to set the nest boxes a step down from floor level - but i also have silkies that roost happily ( i do have a ramp up to the roost bar though) I may have to join some of the silly threads just so i can have something to post to reach 5000 posts - i don't like out of the brooder and really don't want to be hanging with the peeps ( sounds like a kid in the 90's) .

No. It got worse. I found a couple outside. The last couple days I have started to some in the nest boxes again, but the majority are still in teh corner right in front of the door. They were all using the boxes in teh beginning-I should say box, because they would only use the one. But I haven't changed out the bedding on the floor yet either cause our feed store said it would be another month at least before they had straw an no one else in my area knows anyone who has it. My silkies don't have a problem roosting. As a matter of fact they prefer the top or middle roost and are usually the first birds in the coop so they can claim their spot on the roost...lol
Buy a gold feather membership and you can be anything you want....lol

Yeah, it took me a week to read the thread before I joined! Any idea when silkie chicks will start to roost? I have two, 6 week old silkie chicks and they will not go on the roost yet!

My understanding is not all silkies take to roosting. Mine first one only rooseted on the bottom roost. I was always worried she didn't have any one to cuddle with. It was supposed to get down in the low 30's one night about a week or two after I moved them out to the coop and I was worried so when I went to close up the coop and check on them I put her on the top roost with the others and she settled right down. Next night when I went out she was up there by herself....lol A couple weeks later I took the three silkies that my sister was wanting to get rid of and the first two nights had to shoo them out of the nesting boxes and put them on the roost. After that it was a fight to see who got to get the top roost. I've seen them squish 9 of them up there, I don't think all ten have made it at once...lol

 

[scflock]

Well, there's an art that should be sold not kept till asked, but as you say, if I just put Brinsea in the BYC search engine, and read the 20,000 posts (oops, 50,000, just checked) that came up, I'd know more. Thank you, honestly.

Hmmmm reconsidering my want of the Brinsea.... Haha

I'm sitting outside waiting for the [can't-post-my-expletive here] squirrels to come back! They have chewed off portions of my ducks' feeder and I'm mad! Good gravy! I tried to let them be, as the ducks dont seem to mind them as much as I do, but this tearing up of my equipment is pushing me too far!!

So mad I can't type coherently. Lol

Right! me too!

All of the glowing reviews of Brinsea, and you guys get one bad one and tuck tail and run? Let me put it this way, I have run heavy equipment all my life, and now I supervise a whole fleet of heavy equipment. When I tell someone to do a job that I know can be done, and they say their machine won't do it, I say "Maybe it's the operator"

 

[WVduckchick]

All of the glowing reviews of Brinsea, and you guys get one bad one and tuck tail and run? Let me put it this way, I have run heavy equipment all my life, and now I supervise a whole fleet of heavy equipment. When I tell someone to do a job that I know can be done, and they say their machine won't do it, I say "Maybe it's the operator"

We call that a "Sue" (stupid user error)

 

[NTBugtraq]

All of the glowing reviews of Brinsea, and you guys get one bad one and tuck tail and run? Let me put it this way, I have run heavy equipment all my life, and now I supervise a whole fleet of heavy equipment. When I tell someone to do a job that I know can be done, and they say their machine won't do it, I say "Maybe it's the operator"

I have only given a review of setting the thing up...has nothing to do with how well it works.

One final point about Brinsea Octogon 40 ADV EX setup...The humidity pump pumps water into the bator via a small tube, and that tube drips the water onto what they call an Evaporator Pad. The pads get folded into a V shape, then you tuck it into a space that has 3 small clips intended to keep it above the eggs. Its a tight fit, and its even harder to make sure that it stays as a V. I haven't quite figured out how to do this easily, and if its not done correctly the water will just drip down into the bator and out the vent holes...I have found that pulling the pump tube out of the bator (or almost completely out of the bator) helps, then re-inserting it once the pad is in place. The trick seems to be to get the V open where the tube is, because you can't direct the tube anywhere other than where it goes by itself.

 

[scflock]

I have only given a review of setting the thing up...has nothing to do with how well it works.

One final point about Brinsea Octogon 40 ADV EX setup...The humidity pump pumps water into the bator via a small tube, and that tube drips the water onto what they call an Evaporator Pad. The pads get folded into a V shape, then you tuck it into a space that has 3 small clips intended to keep it above the eggs. Its a tight fit, and its even harder to make sure that it stays as a V. I haven't quite figured out how to do this easily, and if its not done correctly the water will just drip down into the bator and out the vent holes...I have found that pulling the pump tube out of the bator (or almost completely out of the bator) helps, then re-inserting it once the pad is in place. The trick seems to be to get the V open where the tube is, because you can't direct the tube anywhere other than where it goes by itself.

I have read that the pump is a pain, but I don't have one so I have no experience. Yorkshire Coop has one, so if she drops in maybe she can help. I would still run water in at least one well so that noisy pump doesn't run all the time.
I was ribbing you about the operator. I know the pumpis a pain, but I think you made the rails harder than it had to be. If you had asked me before you got frustrated, I may have been able to save you some grief. That's what this thread is for. If you don't want to search 50K posts, just pop in and ask a question any time

 

[RubyNala97]

It will depend on the roost and how hard it is to get to - mine were roosting in the brooder from 3 days old. There are others i know of that are 2 years old and don't roost, but the owner doesn't care. If you want to train a chook to roost - 1 Build a roost at least 4 inch wide, 2 make a ramp from floor to roost. 3 identify the chooks favorite food/treat 4 at bed time place the food along the roost. 5 place the chook on the roost. 6 repeat every couple of days till they start heading up there by themselves. After about 2 weeks sleeping on a roost they will start to look for one without the ramp.

I don't have any pics of the second brooder that had the perch in it. some pics of the other Chicks on the roost in the coop., and another pic of the roost when i up sized it from safe for 4 chooks to hold 10. On another note- the hen in the pics is the start of my renewed chicken obsession. Her name was cluck cluck. My mix breed chick is her daughter. Cluck cluck was blind, with a crooked neck, and then developed leg problems. she died at 4 years old of failure to recover from a broken leg.

LOL. That's great. No. It got worse. I found a couple outside. The last couple days I have started to some in the nest boxes again, but the majority are still in teh corner right in front of the door. They were all using the boxes in teh beginning-I should say box, because they would only use the one. But I haven't changed out the bedding on the floor yet either cause our feed store said it would be another month at least before they had straw an no one else in my area knows anyone who has it. My silkies don't have a problem roosting. As a matter of fact they prefer the top or middle roost and are usually the first birds in the coop so they can claim their spot on the roost...lol Buy a gold feather membership and you can be anything you want....lol My understanding is not all silkies take to roosting. Mine first one only rooseted on the bottom roost. I was always worried she didn't have any one to cuddle with. It was supposed to get down in the low 30's one night about a week or two after I moved them out to the coop and I was worried so when I went to close up the coop and check on them I put her on the top roost with the others and she settled right down. Next night when I went out she was up there by herself....lol A couple weeks later I took the three silkies that my sister was wanting to get rid of and the first two nights had to shoo them out of the nesting boxes and put them on the roost. After that it was a fight to see who got to get the top roost. I've seen them squish 9 of them up there, I don't think all ten have made it at once...lol

Thank you guys so much for this info. It's exactly what I was looking for. In the grow out cage I have them in, there is a little shelf, I was trying to keep the water on it so that it wouldn't get filled with straw. But they would knock it off at night and both snuggle up on the shelf. I have a roost in there but I'm thinking now that's its too narrow. It's made for a parrot. I'm going to find a wider piece of wood and try to train them to go on that at night. I want them to be used to roosting when I put them out in the coop.

 

[WVduckchick]

I have read that the pump is a pain, but I don't have one so I have no experience. Yorkshire Coop has one, so if she drops in maybe she can help. I would still run water in at least one well so that noisy pump doesn't run all the time.
I was ribbing you about the operator. I know the pumpis a pain, but I think you made the rails harder than it had to be. If you had asked me before you got frustrated, I may have been able to save you some grief. That's what this thread is for. If you don't want to search 50K posts, just pop in and ask a question any time

I was just teasing too. I would figure I would be more like Bugtraq, and not read the directions so carefully to begin with, so this is all great information for me. There is info on almost anything on this forum, but its almost too much sometimes, and hard to find exactly what you need. So thanks!

Thank you guys so much for this info. It's exactly what I was looking for. In the grow out cage I have them in, there is a little shelf, I was trying to keep the water on it so that it wouldn't get filled with straw. But they would knock it off at night and both snuggle up on the shelf. I have a roost in there but I'm thinking now that's its too narrow. It's made for a parrot. I'm going to find a wider piece of wood and try to train them to go on that at night. I want them to be used to roosting when I put them out in the coop.

I appreciate the info too, being new to silkies. All of my girls still gather on one end of the roost, and some below on the floor. I don't think I have ever seen one of the silkies on the roost pole. I plan to re-do the whole thing, so they will have to pick a new spot. They may not like it, but they will have to get used to it!