The 4th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long

[Arielle]

Quote: YEs, I remember seeing you on the Heritage THread.

Nice selection to try from one of the best breeders, well two actually.

I'm in the process of defining a new direction-- the heritage birds. HOwever, I'm changing the whole model to more free range and little bagged feed, so getting the land producing will take time. I'm looking to the heritage birds for meat birds. That's why my two choices to get someday are Rees's NH and to get BUckeyes. Progress to change out birds is SLOW ! I raised them all and they are hard to part with.

I know BOb constantly reminds us to not get attached to them . . . too late!

 

[Arielle]

Quote:

Lots to keep up with. I use the multi sometimes to cover a whole page at once for making responses.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: IT is my understnding that high moisture content effects a couple areas: oxygen availability for the chicks in breathing, and temp needs to be decreased slightly. Not just heater turned down, but actual temps need to be lowered a few degrees. I go the latter from incubating turkey eggs and using Porters Turkeys notes on hatching.

 

[Arielle]

Quote:

Or BOTH?

 

[ImpulsiveFarmer]

Quote: Can you talk to my DH?

And I thought me and my husband were bad. Although if we had a couple more bators or a bigger one I'd probably be hatching out more.

 

[ImpulsiveFarmer]

woops posted twice.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: Gotta love chickens-- very flexible!!

 

[Arielle]

Quote:

Love how adaptable these styrofoam incubators are. THis last hatch I dry incubated-- ran at 19%, and when I wanted to check air cell devleopment, AHHHH the batteries went out!!! AHHH. I made apoint of looking at lock down. For sure the air cells are bigger than the last batch of 100% hatch (11 hatch/11 lockdown) so I"m worried about those in the hatcher now. Some are internally pipped.

Amazing that these eggs hatch given all that we put them thru !! lol

 

[ImpulsiveFarmer]

Quote:

OZEXPAT:

the meat is less per bird but way better per pound of feed,

they mature in a few weeks

the eggs are used as garnishes in many asian dishes

they can be kept in a relatively small cage

they dont crow

cotornix quails wont set, and arent native so releasing them into wild is irresponsible.



All the above and:

The eggs are great in vinegar.

I feed the extra eggs to my animals in shell.

Children love the little fried eggs.

All I eat at one time is one Jumbo quail and find that enough but two make a nice meal.

Processing is just a few minutes each and incredibly easy (if you skin).

Hmm, keep talking... You just might convince me to try raising quail!

They are pretty cute...

My DH has been bugging me since we started keeping chickens to get quail, maybe I will give in and let him get some this year.

 

[ImpulsiveFarmer]

Anyone else using pallets and scrap lumber to build their coops? My husband got a bunch of pallet tops (the ones with the solid wood board) from his job and they look to be the perfect thing to build a low cost coop. We are also using pallets to make paddocks for our pigs.