Simulated Natural Nest Incubation~Experiment #1 So it begins....

[Beekissed]

Starting Nest #5 tomorrow!

Don't know how many eggs I'll be sitting just yet but I think a dozen or more. This will be a back up to my real broody who is sitting on 5 eggs right now. She's new and I'm not sure about her abilities, so backing her up with the broody box. Both sets will be the very first eggs from my heritage line WRs....the ones in my box will be iffy because I've had to save eggs from the one hen for several days, so it will be interesting if they hatch after being so old. Should be good and fertilized....that ol' boy hasn't stopped breeding that hen since he got here and she is his favorite, so will be penning him up tomorrow night to give her and the other few hens a much needed break from the White Lightning.

If any do hatch I'll try to slip them in on the broody mama, even though they are 13 days behind her own brood....it's worth a chance to see if she will accept them and will be done under cover of night.

I'd love it if I had a broody mama taking care of the babies instead of me taking care of them...I'm kinda tired of brooding baby birds right now. I currently have 5 KC ducklings in the brooder and, if it's at all possible, they are much more stupid than chickens at this age. They can't figure out the nipple bucket and they can't figure out the brood heater made from a heating pad...they really need some chicks to show them how it's all done.

Sorry I haven't written up a conclusion to this experiment yet, folks, as I've been so very busy with spring chores...the list is endless right now.

 

[fisherlady]

Starting Nest #5 tomorrow!

Don't know how many eggs I'll be sitting just yet but I think a dozen or more. This will be a back up to my real broody who is sitting on 5 eggs right now. She's new and I'm not sure about her abilities, so backing her up with the broody box. Both sets will be the very first eggs from my heritage line WRs....the ones in my box will be iffy because I've had to save eggs from the one hen for several days, so it will be interesting if they hatch after being so old. Should be good and fertilized....that ol' boy hasn't stopped breeding that hen since he got here and she is his favorite, so will be penning him up tomorrow night to give her and the other few hens a much needed break from the White Lightning.

If any do hatch I'll try to slip them in on the broody mama, even though they are 13 days behind her own brood....it's worth a chance to see if she will accept them and will be done under cover of night.

I'd love it if I had a broody mama taking care of the babies instead of me taking care of them...I'm kinda tired of brooding baby birds right now. I currently have 5 KC ducklings in the brooder and, if it's at all possible, they are much more stupid than chickens at this age. They ca
n't figure out the nipple bucket and they can't figure out the brood heater made from a heating pad...they really need some chicks to show them how it's all done.

Sorry I haven't written up a conclusion to this experiment yet, folks, as I've been so very busy with spring chores...the list is endless right now.

Glad to hear you are getting some of your WRs to set... I think we have 7 or 8 out the original 12 (under broodies, so not sure) which are starting to hatch tonight. At least 2 out of the 3 hens we have setting have pipping eggs under them. We have 2 other hens waiting to get eggs... they will get theirs mid week. I separated out 4 of our previous broody hens and put them in another pen for 3 days and collected eggs, so no question on the broody mama genetics. Mamas are Silver Pencils and Black Giants.
We sold a bunch of the chicks from previous broody hatches over the past week, got enough money to pay for the meaty project for the year... and all of the sold birds were our own mixes, so didn't cost us anything. If the hens we have waiting for eggs finish out their settings it will be 11 broodies for us this year (so far). It has been quite the spring for watching little ones running around in the yard and woods! Next year we should have enough pure stock to separate for pure eggs, so will be able to offer some pure bred chicks for sale without having to travel for broody hatching eggs.

Biggest worry right now is that the bear we trapped out of here over the weekend isn't the only one around... so more heavy duty security has been put in place to reduce chances of problems... the boar was 396 pounds and the last one DH saw he thought was in the 250 pound range, so either he was way off on the size estimate or the one he saw sitting on the porch of the coop was a different bear. Worries never cease when you have farm animals...

 

[Beekissed]

Simply amazed at your number of broodies...and your trapping a bear! Wow! They say the electronetting works on bears...saw a vid where they were actually using it in the bear's enclosures to fence off certain things. We have black bear here but they are scarce in this part of the state...our neighbor has photographed a couple with his game cams but I think Jake keeps them from venturing here.

Oh, to have that many broodies!!! Those SPRs are some kind of bird, aren't they? I wish we could take their broodiness and put it into the WRs....I've only had one of those go broody consistently every year and she wasn't too good of a broody, so I just used her mostly for fostering chicks.

If you don't mind me asking, how much do you sell your chicks for? Around here you can't get more than a buck for a chick of plain breeding and I've never seen any true heritage line chicks advertised.

 

[Cowpoke]

Starting Nest #5 tomorrow!

Don't know how many eggs I'll be sitting just yet but I think a dozen or more. This will be a back up to my real broody who is sitting on 5 eggs right now. She's new and I'm not sure about her abilities, so backing her up with the broody box. Both sets will be the very first eggs from my heritage line WRs....the ones in my box will be iffy because I've had to save eggs from the one hen for several days, so it will be interesting if they hatch after being so old. Should be good and fertilized....that ol' boy hasn't stopped breeding that hen since he got here and she is his favorite, so will be penning him up tomorrow night to give her and the other few hens a much needed break from the White Lightning.

If any do hatch I'll try to slip them in on the broody mama, even though they are 13 days behind her own brood....it's worth a chance to see if she will accept them and will be done under cover of night.

I'd love it if I had a broody mama taking care of the babies instead of me taking care of them...I'm kinda tired of brooding baby birds right now. I currently have 5 KC ducklings in the brooder and, if it's at all possible, they are much more stupid than chickens at this age. They can't figure out the nipple bucket and they can't figure out the brood heater made from a heating pad...they really need some chicks to show them how it's all done.

Sorry I haven't written up a conclusion to this experiment yet, folks, as I've been so very busy with spring chores...the list is endless right now.

Alright Bee

We'll be

waiting with you. And hoping for a Great Hatch!

 

[RoseMarie1]

I love your nest boxes, Rosemarie....I'D use them if I were a hen!

She's right, though...they do like to feel like they are hidden when they lay. I'd love to have a handyman like your hubby living close....he does some wonderful work on your coop and run. Nice, sturdy construction that looks like it would stand for 100 yrs.

yep Bee he's very good at helping me Bee......... but I did this one by myself. ;-) He's been welding that cattle panels on the gazebo and got the gate made for it and it's covered in cattle panel to. He's about 3/4 done with it. I want to put 1/2x1/2" hardware cloth around the bottom of it to hopefully keep out the snakes and then welded wire around the rest since it's smaller holes than the cattle panels.

 

[RoseMarie1]

Alright Bee

We'll be

waiting with you. And hoping for a Great Hatch!

LOL Bee White Lightening? hee hee I fell out laughing at that one.

 

[Oldmomma]

Take your time Bee, everyone fully understands plus its a great thread to revisit.

 

[fisherlady]

Simply amazed at your number of broodies...and your trapping a bear! Wow! They say the electronetting works on bears...saw a vid where they were actually using it in the bear's enclosures to fence off certain things. We have black bear here but they are scarce in this part of the state...our neighbor has photographed a couple with his game cams but I think Jake keeps them from venturing here.

Oh, to have that many broodies!!! Those SPRs are some kind of bird, aren't they? I wish we could take their broodiness and put it into the WRs....I've only had one of those go broody consistently every year and she wasn't too good of a broody, so I just used her mostly for fostering chicks.

If you don't mind me asking, how much do you sell your chicks for? Around here you can't get more than a buck for a chick of plain breeding and I've never seen any true heritage line chicks advertised.

I don't know what we are doing right to end up with the broody numbers... of our current 5 setters 1 is a hatchery black giant and 4 are barn yard mixes. I don't know if it is purely genetics or if our coop set up accidentally looks like the perfect maternity ward set up to our hens or if the 'broody flu' phenomenon is just that contagious here. The Pencils we have are mostly done with their broods, though one still has her 7 chicks with her. I am just getting our WR and BR numbers started, so fingers crossed on how they do as they grow up!

The chicks we sold were all broody raised till the hen was finished, and then were on their own for a while in the coop with the big birds. I advertised them as already being good foragers and able to put themselves back to bed at night. Since they were all 8 to 12 weeks old I asked $5-$7 for them. ($7 for some of the 12 week ones I was positive were pullets) We had 3 different couples show up and they took all we had except for one of the young cockerels. The folks who responded to the ad all said they were interested because of the fact they were broody raised and already used to being out foraging since that was the type set up they already had in place or in one case it was the set up they wanted for their place because they remember how their grandparent's home was. All 3 couples asked us to recontact them in the future when we had more available...
It was fun actually, the buyers all had a ton of questions about our set up and birds, checked out our coop and the adult birds (one lady even ended up buying some of our older mixed breed eggers she fell in love with!). They knew they were getting mixed breed barnyarders but they were all fine with that, one fellow said he actually preferred it. My DH would call over the older birds (roosters) and hand feed them and it was surprising how many of the buyers had never seen friendly roosters?? Let alone a place with 4 of them running around who would all come to be hand fed... I think we must spend too much time spoiling our birds!

I don't think $5 to $7 is out of line for healthy large fowl birds who have been fed and housed for 8+ weeks... and if folks didn't want to pay it they could choose to just not answer the ad. The way I see it is that if I couldn't sell them for that $$ then I would eat them instead! They all should end up being 6 or 7 pound hens (maybe slightly more for the black giant mixes) and 9 pound roosters... so would be worth that $$ for the meat. We could easily let them finish out here foraging over the summer and butcher them in the fall, since their food consumption drops drastically over the summer when they are out foraging in the woods.

 

[Tomtommom]

I don't know what we are doing right to end up with the broody numbers... of our current 5 setters 1 is a hatchery black giant and 4 are barn yard mixes. I don't know if it is purely genetics or if our coop set up accidentally looks like the perfect maternity ward set up to our hens or if the 'broody flu' phenomenon is just that contagious here. The Pencils we have are mostly done with their broods, though one still has her 7 chicks with her. I am just getting our WR and BR numbers started, so fingers crossed on how they do as they grow up!

The chicks we sold were all broody raised till the hen was finished, and then were on their own for a while in the coop with the big birds. I advertised them as already being good foragers and able to put themselves back to bed at night. Since they were all 8 to 12 weeks old I asked $5-$7 for them. ($7 for some of the 12 week ones I was positive were pullets) We had 3 different couples show up and they took all we had except for one of the young cockerels. The folks who responded to the ad all said they were interested because of the fact they were broody raised and already used to being out foraging since that was the type set up they already had in place or in one case it was the set up they wanted for their place because they remember how their grandparent's home was. All 3 couples asked us to recontact them in the future when we had more available...
It was fun actually, the buyers all had a ton of questions about our set up and birds, checked out our coop and the adult birds (one lady even ended up buying some of our older mixed breed eggers she fell in love with!). They knew they were getting mixed breed barnyarders but they were all fine with that, one fellow said he actually preferred it. My DH would call over the older birds (roosters) and hand feed them and it was surprising how many of the buyers had never seen friendly roosters?? Let alone a place with 4 of them running around who would all come to be hand fed... I think we must spend too much time spoiling our birds!

I don't think $5 to $7 is out of line for healthy large fowl birds who have been fed and housed for 8+ weeks... and if folks didn't want to pay it they could choose to just not answer the ad. The way I see it is that if I couldn't sell them for that $$ then I would eat them instead! They all should end up being 6 or 7 pound hens (maybe slightly more for the black giant mixes) and 9 pound roosters... so would be worth that $$ for the meat. We could easily let them finish out here foraging over the summer and butcher them in the fall, since their food consumption drops drastically over the summer when they are out foraging in the woods.

Frankly $5-$7 is cheap. I would expect to pay $10 for a 12 week old pullet.

 

[Beekissed]

I was thinking you were selling chick chicks....newly hatched ones. Around here the going rate is $1 for newly hatched or a week or two old chicks, junior birds of around a month or more go for around $3, point of lay grade (hatchery sourced genetics) go for $7 and hens of 2 yrs or older go for $5.

Supply and demand in your particular area, I'm guessing....chickens just aren't much of a novelty in rural WV like they are growing to be in the suburbs and urban sprawl areas. The only way I'd get more than $3 for that age of bird is to explain in detail about the heritage line breeding~and most getting into chickens right now wouldn't give a flying fling about all that....they want silkies and cochins

~ and $3 won't even pay for the feed they've eaten during that grow out period.

I'll have to remember to mention the broody raising, all natural raising, foraging, etc. in any ads I place...that's a good tip!

I've never really sold chicks or birds before this Hootie Hatch....mostly I just raise the birds and eat the extras. If I start hatching for breeding purposes, I may learn how to capon so I can keep the cockerels long enough to get some size on them before butchering.