Surviving Minnesota!

[BantyChooks]

For the first 3 weeks of their life, they are living in a tote in my spare bathroom, in which I turn up the heat to 75 degrees and they have a chick mat heater under half of the wood chips. Once they are 3 weeks old they get kicked out to the coop. In the coop I have 2nd level in the insulated area that is 3 feet high by 4 foot by 8 foot and this is wrapped with silver reflective wrap and they have another chick heater mat. It works.....not ideal yet. I would love for some larger hatches to make this work better.

Hmm... That's a good idea. I have an extra roll of that stuff.

 

[duluthralphie]

I am in from doing my chores... I hope to be able to feel my fingers in a couple days..

The Temperature Telling Device is showing 30 degrees.. The Iphone says the wind is 16MPH..
I think they both lie. I feels like 10 below out there. That NW wind blowing from the VWN is a killer today.

I did not get one egg from my outside birds today. Not even the turkey.

I got 7 eggs total. From the indoor birds. Which is good as those are the ones I want to hatch soon.

I got 5 legbar eggs. 2 whites and 3 Creams.
and 2 toad eggs.... Yes, I have indoor toads now. 2 hens and a rooster.

On the good side, I spent a little time looking in my cull/grow out pen. I found a good looking PC cockerel. Much darker in color than Knucklehead or Knothead. I may throw him in the PC pen or give him a couple hens in a month or two...

Unless, of course, Holm visits here and I find my cull pen short of birds again... I am surprised he missed this one.

 

[ejb3810]

Ralphie, what have you ended up with as relates to the White Legbars ? How many pullets and cockerels for the upcoming season ?

 

[duluthralphie]

I have quite a few. I cannot give you a number as I will only be using about 10 white girls and 2 white boys for breeding. One boy will be in reserve the rest will be going to skinny chicken freezer camp.

I may only breed about 6-7 girls even. Just not sure. I have 15-20 I think. Some have tail angles I don't like or their weight is a tad light. I will only be breeding enough for me to get a decent number to pick from so it is all up in the air now. I am quite happy with my whites. Far happier than I am with the Creams and Creole.

I had one little hen I hatched out of a test breeding in Sept. I am really happy with the way she looks. That was the test breeding with some Incubator operator error so I did not get a lot. I again was not as happy with the creams.

I got 2 PC from that breeding. but they both ended up being too red of boys.

 

[jerryse]

8 eggs today plus I found 6 hidden from a free range pullet ( escaped ) . So not as bad as some of you . Still numbers are down .

 

[Cebarmlds]

How many layers do you have?

I got 5 eggs from 20 today. I’m okay with that.

 

[jerryse]

How many layers do you have?

I got 5 eggs from 20 today. I’m okay with that.

About 30 to 35 .

 

[duluthralphie]

How many layers do you have?

I got 5 eggs from 20 today. I’m okay with that.

I appear to have 7 layers and 75 freeloaders....

 

[Cebarmlds]

Good morning.

 

[duluthralphie]

Good morning.

Morning back...