Surviving Minnesota!

[KlopKlop]

Ralphie, regarding your poor luck with clear toad eggs...
Have you ever seen Bert Jr 'doing the deed'?

If his size is near to Conrad I wonder if he is struggling to seal the deal? I have seen Conrad fall off the hen several times while trying to procreate and the hens don't give him a second try.

 

[duluthralphie]

Ok silly question what are toads? What incubators do you have?

I needed to correct your question.. LOL

Toads are my own name for a crossbreed I am trying to create. Amazingly enough Kloppers is working on the same crossbreed on his own. A toad is a cross between a CX and a rainbow. We both got ours from the same source so if we find 3 more trying this we could petition to have it as a APA breed!

I am having some problems with mine I am in generation 3 of them. It appears my rooster has problems, and an owl killed my back up toad rooster. On another thread a BYC member went Ape Poop crazy on me for calling my crosses Cornish cross crosses. Said that was a patented copywritten name and I could not use it for my mongrel chicks. So I changed the name to toads so he could claim a win. ( I am a nice guy like that)

I have 2 farm innovator (hard shell plastic Styrofoam) incubators, 1 little giant incubator, and a GQF 1202 I got from EJB.


I have placed extra turning trays in the hatching area. I have not used them yet. BUT I wanted to say I could hatch almost 400 eggs at once in it. Then I have the 123 the other 3 could hatch. So just to make my DW cringe, I keep telling her how great it is to be able to hatch 500 eggs at once! She is not amused.

We already have 5 chicks living in the living room. I bought a shelving unit I have in the dining room I am putting cages with Mama heating pad caves in. She claims to hate what I am doing to her house..BUT I catch her talking and holding a chick now and then...


Right now I have the foam incubators set up as hatchers (in the dining room) the GQF is in the basement, even I knew that in the dining room could have pushed her over the tipping point. I use the trays from them as egg turners holders while the eggs wait to go into the incubator.

 

[duluthralphie]

Ralphie, regarding your poor luck with clear toad eggs...
Have you ever seen Bert Jr 'doing the deed'?

If his size is near to Conrad I wonder if he is struggling to seal the deal? I have seen Conrad fall off the hen several times while trying to procreate and the hens don't give him a second try.

I have seen him start the deed, I do not know if he seals it, I know he does not get as many tries as the other roosters.

I am thinking Holm needs to learn AI for us. The other thing is the hens are a tad large too make the deed easy to do. I think some of them are starting to get bad legs too.

 

[holm25]

Ralph I think Ed or King George need to make a trip to the CX hens. You will still get big birds and a better chance of them breeding naturally. You get size from the hens so I think they would still grow to be giants.

 

[psladky]

I needed to correct your question.. LOL

Toads are my own name for a crossbreed I am trying to create. Amazingly enough Kloppers is working on the same crossbreed on his own. A toad is a cross between a CX and a rainbow. We both got ours from the same source so if we find 3 more trying this we could petition to have it as a APA breed!

I am having some problems with mine I am in generation 3 of them. It appears my rooster has problems, and an owl killed my back up toad rooster. On another thread a BYC member went Ape Poop crazy on me for calling my crosses Cornish cross crosses. Said that was a patented copywritten name and I could not use it for my mongrel chicks. So I changed the name to toads so he could claim a win. ( I am a nice guy like that)

I have 2 farm innovator (hard shell plastic Styrofoam) incubators, 1 little giant incubator, and a GQF 1202 I got from EJB.


I have placed extra turning trays in the hatching area. I have not used them yet. BUT I wanted to say I could hatch almost 400 eggs at once in it. Then I have the 123 the other 3 could hatch. So just to make my DW cringe, I keep telling her how great it is to be able to hatch 500 eggs at once! She is not amused.

We already have 5 chicks living in the living room. I bought a shelving unit I have in the dining room I am putting cages with Mama heating pad caves in. She claims to hate what I am doing to her house..BUT I catch her talking and holding a chick now and then...


Right now I have the foam incubators set up as hatchers (in the dining room) the GQF is in the basement, even I knew that in the dining room could have pushed her over the tipping point. I use the trays from them as egg turners holders while the eggs wait to go into the incubator.

I think our house is on it's way to becoming like yours. We have a small magic egg incubator on the counter (with my serama eggs) and we just broke out our farm innovator 4250 with egg turner for the first time. So I haven't used one like this before, my little one you just put water in the bottom. With the innovator one there are holes on the bottom so I can't put water in it to bring up the humidity (I'm at around 34% and want it up to 45% to 50%). I'm a little concerned too because the motor on the egg turner is so hot

is that normal?

 

[duluthralphie]

I think our house is on it's way to becoming like yours. We have a small magic egg incubator on the counter (with my serama eggs) and we just broke out our farm innovator 4250 with egg turner for the first time. So I haven't used one like this before, my little one you just put water in the bottom. With the innovator one there are holes on the bottom so I can't put water in it to bring up the humidity (I'm at around 34% and want it up to 45% to 50%). I'm a little concerned too because the motor on the egg turner is so hot

is that normal?

IMHO that is way too high. 34% sounds ok, 45% too high (edited to make that more clear)

I run my GQF at around 25%. I like that. The foam ones are harder to keep level, I add water when it gets down to 10-15%. I try to run 40-45% last three days then let it creep up to 60 ish during the hatch.

But I think you should talk to Jerry about it, he is by far the expert here on hatching birds.





I just went and touched the motor on one of mine. I can not even say it is really even warm..

 

[psladky]

IMHO that is way too high. 34% sounds ok, 45% too high (edited to make that more clear)

I run my GQF at around 25%. I like that. The foam ones are harder to keep level, I add water when it gets down to 10-15%. I try to run 40-45% last three days then let it creep up to 60 ish during the hatch.

But I think you should talk to Jerry about it, he is by far the expert here on hatching birds.

Thank you I tried a dry incubation on my last little batch and increased up to 65% during hatching, but they were kind of sticky (like they were shrink wrapping), so I'm a little more paranoid about it this time.
You should be living up here, are feed mill was looking for a chick hatching person. They'd love to have 500 chicks hatching

 

[lvie]

These frozen egg days are cutting into my hatchery program!

That said I planted some eggs last night. 13 toads, 3 ss and 29 creamettes..

They hatch on Mar 2nd. If I get a SS rooster I will name him Art, as the 2nd would be my late Dad's Birthday


Ivie you need some SS chicks in early March?



Yes Ralphie! I NEED some SS chicks in March. Oh - anticipation - its almost as good as going on a warm, beach vacation.
Thank you for the concern for my chickens - they seem just fine.



Not one pip from the eggs set to hatch today. Soon I will know if the incubator really did a spike on me.

 

[lvie]

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...uhArwVLfzF7tv3oEw&sig2=voYRtZvt7BVBSAdoctGvVg

Ralph and Klop... This is the song I play for my sister when sge starts throwing a fit when she cant go to her friends house... It drives her crazy... And I fear for my life when I play it...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...uhArwVLfzF7tv3oEw&sig2=voYRtZvt7BVBSAdoctGvVg

Ralph and Klop... This is the song I play for my sister when sge starts throwing a fit when she cant go to her friends house... It drives her crazy... And I fear for my life when I play it...

OHHH THE MEMORIES of raising kids.

 

[holm25]

OHHH THE MEMORIES of raising kids.

Lol the ones of them playing songs, watching shows, and saying stuff to annoy each other even if they dont like it themselves