"Springing in the Chicks" 2016 April Hatch-a-Long Hosted by Mike & Sally

[junebuggena]

I noticed a lot of people in here are saying they use starter/grower constantly. Although this won't harm your chickens, if it has amprolium or any other anti coccidiosis in it, there can be serious delayed health effect for hatched eggs or anything that eats the eggs. If you talk to the manufactures they will advise not to use the meat or eggs for 3 weeks after feeding.
The warning not on the bag as they assume you only feed to babies.
The duck feed however is fine.

Medicated chick starter contains amprolium. It's a very low dosage thiamine blocker. It is perfectly safe to eat eggs and meat from birds fed medicated starter. But it should not be fed long term, as it can cause thiamine deficiency.
Grower, all flock, and flock raiser feeds are safe for all ages, and may actually provide better overall nutrition than layer feed for flocks that get lots of treats, free range, or have birds of mixed ages or genders.

 

[slordaz]

well Amerecuana got off the nest and hasn't been back on in in 3 days and nobody else wanted to brood them a week into brooding, and incubator was busy

Leghorn is still brooding 6 eggs shes at half way point
Buff started brooding yesterday 5-6 eggs while we weren't watching where the barred brooded hers. fpr such a sweet mannered hen she ain't so nice broody, hopefully she's as good a momma as the BR

 

[Madonna m]

I found some info on geese.. takes 30 days to hatch. Temp the same as chicken but humidity between 60 / 75. Have not found anything on the lockdown. Is that at 18 days like chickens. I assume I should turn the eggs several times during the day. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[mlm Mike]

Our first hatched! One more pip. Hoping for more. So exciting!

Congratulations!

Y'know what I did? I forgot to candle until day 8. I think I can add that to the list of things I never thought I'd do.

-Banti

2 hatched 1 hatching and another cheeping

Congrats on all the new babies and all of the pips and peeps!!

I go in lockdown in 3 more days due to hatch in 6 more days... well my eggs are due to hatch not me but you know how it is

Day 21 starts at 1:30pm and I have no pips in my 2 eggs in lockdown.

Patience is a virtue...just not one I possess.

Hope you get some action in the bator soon.

 

[JadedPhoenix]

I woke up to finding one egg pipped this afternoon. YAY!!! Seeing a little beak poking out is so cool. I can tell it will have yellow down (these are barnyard mixes so there is telling what I'll end up with). Could hear cheaping from two other eggs as well. Can't wait to go home in the morning to see what I have waiting for me. My son is on chicken watch tonight. I told him to call or text if he sees any further progress.

 

[mlm Mike]

Set 8 eggs 20 days ago. I died around day 3 of incubation, 1 I dropped while candling on day 7. 6 made it into lockdown, and as of this moment 3 are pipped. These are eggs from my flock, all mixed breeds, and I'm hatching them out to give to a friend.

Well, just figured out my new 4 stall coop is not going to be large enough. I need 6 new coop stalls. I was planning on expanding it next summer but may have to figure out something else. So many chickies, so few coops.

That happens to a lot of us.

Quote: My two coops and runs form an H and I closed off one of the spaces and planted the garden there. Being on the north side of the coop I am hoping that the runner beans will bear longer into the heat because their roots will be cooler. Runners like the cooler weather. The rest of the runners are going along side my house and porch to block the summer heat and hopefully cut our electricity bill in August.

Digging in the dirt is a good therapy for loss. I read recently that scientist have actually found that the good microbes that form in the soil have a calming effect on people through the contact of the skin (mostly hands though I suppose you could just roll in the dirt to get a big dose

).

I believe I had mentioned taking care of a chicken with it's hip joint out. In the search to find out the best treatment I found a couple of sites that I have not seen posted here yet so I am going to add their links here. The first is Poultry Pedia and they cover lots of subjects not just leg problems. https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry

The second one is Veterinary Center for Birds and Exotics. They give a detailed explanation of the problem of a hip out of joint in a bird and how it is fixed. http://www.avianexoticsvet.com/case-of-the-month.html

Oh and the pale pink egg. This girl is a Silver Penciled Bantam Wyandotte from Donna Rippy. She currently has plenty of them for sale and she ships. I can't promise that they all lay pink but the gene/s are there and they are sweet gentle beautiful bantams. My pair are so polite that my lame girl wants to hang with them instead of being isolated. She jumped out of my arms to be with them.
Those runner beans sound very interesting.

so Far so good, lock down has started and had some minor fluctuation when turned off the turner but don't think half a degree will bother them

pulled 4 of the questionaboles, have several that seem to be behind the majority, any ideas on that?

Only nine days left and I should have my first ever baby muscovys

Good luck!

OK, now i really did it... Went to the Poultry Show in Greenville, Ohio and there were some really pretty geese there.. ended up buying five eggs, two Laienden Ice, two Buff African Dewlopp and one Brown African.... I have no idea what to do now. am bringing them up to room temperature and will be looking up incubating instructions while I watch the rest of the chickens hatch and hope they hurry up so I can put the geese eggs in.. So glad I have this site to find out what to do....Have a total of 15 chickens hatched out of the 24 that I set and more pips on the way....How did this happen...now I really understand why some people say this is an addiction..

Never thought about getting eggs at a poultry show.

Update:
Well the chicks are 10 days old and growing like weeds. Still have 21 chicks, have not suffered any losses as of yet. I put electrolytes, A C V, and a couple of times I added some liquid vitamin B to their water. Now I just put A C V in their water daily and electrolytes once a week. Have not even had one case of pasty butt so far. They drink water like its going out of style. I have them on vertical nipples, they took to those with out any trouble at all. I hope to change over to horizontal nipples before long, because there're not so drippy, If you remember I ordered 24 Black Australorps eggs and received 35. Five arrived with slight cracks in them so I did not set those, and then there was four that were not fertile. Twenty six went into lock down with 21 hatching. Well I have three mystery chicks. So I guess the extra eggs were what ever they had to throw in with the order. I'll see if I can get a couple of pictures of all the chicks. So if anyone has a guess as to what the three chicks are I would welcome it.

Nice video.

@Chaos18

Set 22. Day 7-(can't remember exact numbers) pulled several blood rings and at least 4 non fertile. Day 18- several early deaths. Put 15 in lockdown. 4 hatched, one died. 3 chicks total.

21 eggs set between broody and Brinsea incubator. Due to hatch May 1st.

Sorry about the first hatch, I hope you heave better luck May 1st!

 

[sjturner79]

I hadn't thought of that but at the same time, doesn't that only apply to medicated feed? I assume they wouldn't put anti cocci stuff in non medicated feed since if you wanted medicated you would buy it... ?? Medicated is only supposed to be 8 weeks anyways max, whether you go to layer or not. Mine switched at 7 weeks then were unmedicated until 15 weeks then layer until 17 weeks until I found out in between that time that it's bad to start layer too early and could order some. I think I switched back to layer after the first egg but then back to starter/grower. I heard if they get treats and scraps it lowers the protein of layer and also heard all flock is essentially the same but marketed differently. Though I did find a higher protein layer feed yesterday that I'm gonna try.


That's true that a lot of breeds look like that, which is why I was having such difficulty naming them, and apparently everyone is too :/ guess I'll have to ask haha

Yes it is medicated feed I was talking about. Most starter feeds are medicated even if not marked as such

 

[mlm Mike]

Subscribing!!!

8 eggs under broody due April 27
8 eggs in incubator due April 28

Welcome! Good luck with your hatches!

After looking closely, I realize one stripy chick is Welsummer cross. The other is CCL cross. The other CCL egg must have produced a barred-looking chick.
12/20 chicks - 5 pips - 3 questionable.
The fridgerbator incubates well. MacGyverbator hatches well.
May and June will be tweaking the coops, breeding groups, incubators, and gardens. My next possible hatch will be end of summer.

Chicks keeping me up last night mean I'm trucking tired. My coffee is made so I'll recharge and catch up later.

Sounds like you have plenty to keep you busy!

Final count for the Bielefelder and Legbar eggs is:
Legbar 4 males, 2 females.
Bielefelder 3 males, 2 females.
Legbar eggs 6/6 hatched and Bielefelders 5/12 hatched.
Both local eggs.
I did only get 1 chick out of my shipped Gamefowl eggs, it is eating with some help, still can't stand up right though and has a cross beak. If it survives will have to be pet only

Great!

Up to 27 hatched! 16 eggs to go. Plus 5 silkies due in 2 days!

well Amerecuana got off the nest and hasn't been back on in in 3 days and nobody else wanted to brood them a week into brooding, and incubator was busy

Leghorn is still brooding 6 eggs shes at half way point
Buff started brooding yesterday 5-6 eggs while we weren't watching where the barred brooded hers. fpr such a sweet mannered hen she ain't so nice broody, hopefully she's as good a momma as the BR

I found some info on geese.. takes 30 days to hatch. Temp the same as chicken but humidity between 60 / 75. Have not found anything on the lockdown. Is that at 18 days like chickens. I assume I should turn the eggs several times during the day. Any help would be appreciated.

No, lockdown is going to be a few days before they are due to hatch.

I woke up to finding one egg pipped this afternoon. YAY!!! Seeing a little beak poking out is so cool. I can tell it will have yellow down (these are barnyard mixes so there is telling what I'll end up with). Could hear cheaping from two other eggs as well. Can't wait to go home in the morning to see what I have waiting for me. My son is on chicken watch tonight. I told him to call or text if he sees any further progress.

 

[snowy Mtns]

Two of my chicks have pipped holes and are not zipping. I noticed the first one at 1 am. It didn't progress until 4. Now at another stand still. When should I assist? The humidity is in the high 60's so the inner she'll seems to not be shrink wrapping.

 

[butterfliesdoku]

Two of my chicks have pipped holes and are not zipping. I noticed the first one at 1 am. It didn't progress until 4. Now at another stand still. When should I assist? The humidity is in the high 60's so the inner she'll seems to not be shrink wrapping.

What day are they on? That's a pretty big pip, can you see it breathing?
I honestly wouldn't worry unless it stopped mid zip for several hours.