The 5th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[mlm Mike]

My very first asparagus!

I love asparagus. We have some that grows where a fence line used to be.

Wow, I've been reading these pages this whole weekend...every time I took a break, I'd come back to 10 more pages. lol
I brought out my Hovabator 1588 and got it running Thursday night...I am running some of my own hen's eggs as a test- 2 BCM dark ones, 5 F2 Olive eggers, and 3 F1 OEs. I want to test the incubator, the thermometers and the fertility of my birds (their 2nd year breeding- last year I had many chicks out of them.

So they should hit day 21 around March 28th. (I'll move them into another incubator to hatch if this one holds temps and shows good results with these eggs during the next 3 weeks.)

Also, today at our local animal shelter (my daughter and I volunteer there every weekend and it is the only "no kill" one in our county)the weekend employee called me over and said he had a "gift' for me. Someone had surrendered 2 baby Pekin (we think) ducklings and they didn't have any way to care for them there, so he gave me the babies, who look about 1 week old, and a bag of crumbles for them.
Here they are...
and my 16 year old animal lover daughter named them Rio and Lila already. I was done having domestic ducks...so I hope they are both females or at least a pair.

Cute ducklings. It's really nice that you and your daughter are able to volunteer at the shelter.

Whew! Just finished reading through about 20 pages of posts in the past 24hrs since I was on here! Sounds like you all are having fun! LOVE the chick pictures!

We are also having a bit of a pre-Spring Thaw up here in Michigan - I am SO EXCITED to see the snow slowly receding!!!!

Hopefully the sap will start running in our Maple Trees soon - we have some more 40 degree days forecast for this week!

I guess I will join the change-the-avatar game. Love putting faces to names on here. Hi Everyone!

This is a picture of me about a year ago with one of our very first chickens, who is now 5 1/2 years old and still laying eggs! She is a little hatchery BO with the sweetest temperament, a very dedicated broody, and is affectionately known as "Lil' Girl".

I am hoping that maybe she or one of our other BO's will decide to go broody in time for the hatch-along, or at least in time to adopt the chicks I will start in the incubator...

I hope you get your maple sap soon!

So the new cabinet bator is here!!! It arrived ON my car instead of in it. it was bigger than described. I'll get pics of it in the morning. For now, here's how it arrived. (Disregard the irritated looking husband)

Yeah, you gotta take care of that....

You know that cannot be unseen. Nightmares tonight.

 

[Happy Chooks]

I am so jealous! Asparagus is my favorite..and soo expensive. I only get it when it goes on sale. Is it difficult to grow...or even possible in Pa.?

Not too difficult. I did put in 24 crowns last year and only 2 came up. I got 24 more crowns this year, but you don't eat those, you let them go to fern to establish the roots.

Quick question: can I use saline eye drops on a chicken. I have a 9 wk. old pullet shutting her eye all day today. She's still indoors, no swelling, or discoloration. I don't know what's wrong, it looks fine. I thought maybe flushing it might help if she's got something in it. Or maybe a sibling scratched it?

Vetericyn eye spray or Terrimycin eye ointment would work well for an eye injury.

Wow, I've been reading these pages this whole weekend...every time I took a break, I'd come back to 10 more pages. lol
I brought out my Hovabator 1588 and got it running Thursday night...I am running some of my own hen's eggs as a test- 2 BCM dark ones, 5 F2 Olive eggers, and 3 F1 OEs. I want to test the incubator, the thermometers and the fertility of my birds (their 2nd year breeding- last year I had many chicks out of them.

So they should hit day 21 around March 28th. (I'll move them into another incubator to hatch if this one holds temps and shows good results with these eggs during the next 3 weeks.)

Also, today at our local animal shelter (my daughter and I volunteer there every weekend and it is the only "no kill" one in our county)the weekend employee called me over and said he had a "gift' for me. Someone had surrendered 2 baby Pekin (we think) ducklings and they didn't have any way to care for them there, so he gave me the babies, who look about 1 week old, and a bag of crumbles for them.
Here they are...
and my 16 year old animal lover daughter named them Rio and Lila already. I was done having domestic ducks...so I hope they are both females or at least a pair.

Awwww, adorable! So nice of you to take them in!

Yay! How many years have you had them in? I have a planter full on their third year. Hopefully we can eat some of them this year!

I planted them last year, but I believe they were 2 year crowns that I purchased. I was told when they were big enough around, I could eat them.

Never thought to put asparagus in a planter. Great idea! I may have to try that this year.

Well, we live in gopher-ville. If they weren't in a raised bed with wire on the bottom, we wouldn't have anything growing in our garden. I used to put my tomatoes in the ground until I witnessed the darn gophers pulling down 5 foot tall tomato plants. There one day, *poof* gone the next.

we all stalk here too..lol.. now thiss purple egg business.. i already need an EE for the blue and green eggs.. but i had no idea that purple eggs are a possibility... i gotta have one.. also we looked in some eggs with the flashlight this weekend.. amazing!! i can see the tiny chick forming and its eye.. so cool

My contribution to purple eggs. Welsummer rooster over hatchery BR hen gave me a black sex link that lays this:

I just candles and weighed 42 eggs.. Here's my question: the difference between the weights on Day 1 and today, Day 8, is between 3 and 4.6 grams. I think to find out the percentage lost I take that difference, say 3.1 grams and divide it by the egg's weight on Day 1, 60.1 grams. This gives me a weight loss of .051 percent. Do I then figure that on Day 14 that percentage will double? I am just trying to figure out if I should adjust my humidity level. So far, it's been about 22- 29%.

Thanks. I'd appreciate any input.

I see Sally responded to you.

I have no clue, I don't weigh my eggs.

I found out another interesting thing that has helped with my hatches

I thought about how the hens sit on the eggs. this causes some weight as well as darkness. I started putting a hand towel over the eggs. I put the thermometer wire under the towel (by the eggs but not touching them) and the temp stays almost exact. My homemade incubator consists of a light bulb, a small computer fan, and a hot water tank thermometer. the enclosure is constructed of foam insulation with a plexi-glass window in the door. Cheap, not very pretty, but works great!

Glad it's working well!

Count me in! this will be my first hatch a long.

Welcome!

My Welsummer hen lays a nearly purple egg.

Wow, that is a really pretty color!

No way to read 600+ posts, thank goodness Ron has his summaries! Hope I didn't miss the video of the Emu egg rocking

Hatched 11 Dominiques and a Dominegger (Dom x Easter Egger) over the weekend, as well as a Welsummer and 3 of my own RIR eggs, and a 4th RIR almost done hatching a day late. A woman who bought chicks from me a few weeks ago asked if I would hatch some of her daughter's eggs and split the hatch as payment. She brought me 49 eggs today. Did not expect that many LOL. 2 were quite large and they think they might be the neighbor's duck eggs, but they're brown. As a non-duck owner, I do not know, can/do ducks lay brown eggs? Like, pretty dark brown.

I don't know that ducks lay brown, but duck eggs are usually more waxy looking/feeling than chicken eggs. I've seen white, black, gray duck eggs, but not brown.

So the new cabinet bator is here!!! It arrived ON my car instead of in it. it was bigger than described. I'll get pics of it in the morning. For now, here's how it arrived. (Disregard the irritated looking husband)

So jealous! Can't wait to see it all set up! I'd have to change DH's to get one - he's not THAT supportive of my chicken addiction.

I might do so. I actually want to try hatching out some eggs from my chickens so all I really need is an incubator. I haven't entirely decided what to buy though.

Welcome!

Good Morning All.

Happy Monday.

With daylight savings time change I woke up to pitch black. Time to get DD off to school and make some coffee.

I know, right. I don't like getting up when it's dark.

This is the season when many hikers get "Springer Fever". The hikers I am writing about go to a mountain in north Georgia named "Springer" and begin a journey to a mountain in Maine named "Katahdin". Good luck to those who are beginning their "Thru-Hike" of the Appalachian Trail. They will be a bit sore also.

Last year I did 56 mile hike in 5 days on the Pacific Crest Trail with my son. (high altitude hiking at 8,000 feet) We met many hikers hiking the entire PCT trail, and it was so interesting talking with them. They started at the Mexican border in April and were hoping to end the trail at Canada by October 1st. This years hikers will be starting up soon.

Say Hello to half of my weekend! Hubs and I have had a very busy weekend, more time fine tuning our new incubator so it has perfection in temps top to bottom, but our brainstorm has turned out amazing!

Gigantic Cabinet COOLER INCUBATOR w/semi auto turning

I took images all the way through this project even the fine tuning to get no variance top to bottom so I will create a Thread with how we did everything later on when I get all the stuff organized.


150 qt Coleman Xtreme insulated Cooler as big as I could find, $67. free shipping I think its just about 4' long
Dual Fan $17.00 for set of Four(used two), use old power inverter thingers I had, Two 90 Watt Lights in ceramics $1.97 each, single Wafer Thermostat $22., rear Air duct.cost of styrofoam? I had it leftover, foil tape $3.00 have half left over. Three of those egg trays you suggested out of the six in the lot $21. for lot of 6, 3 rods for the trays $1.95 each., Handle $1.97, plexi $1.98 x 2, shelf we had left over from our reno, and a pc of thin cabinet back for the lower shelf, and a tad of caulk and gasket sealant we had on hand. clevis pins were $1.25 ea. x3 and flat pc alum for turning was a buck or two. and one 2x3 lumber $2.97


est $132.00 cost





Here is hubs showing off his handywork of my GENIUS! HOWEVER I did get yelled at because I put the "darn thermometer" in his way for when he took the tray out!
Has some tweaking needs done, but Its awesome!!





Check out this vid of my fine tuning temps so top to bottom are identical, MIND you I messed with a taped piece of cardboard in the bottom and re-sized the return duct opening numerous times and the depth of the bottom shelf to get the temps the same. It wasn't an easy feat and my bum hurts from sitting in the kids little chair watching the thing and making minor adjustments! HA HA HA

This vid is before I added the permanent backer board shelf at the bottom as I was adjusting for perfection. I could technically include a hatcher in the bottom or another egg rack, but I dont want to hatch in it, but it has plenty room for additions stuff, also if you note the cut outs in the side of the cooler, you can easily take out the racks and turn this quickly into a multi level hatcher, we may do another for a hatcher and find plastic tubs to fit in the slits.

Great build Sally!

Hey! and here he is

Dang, he's pretty!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Quote: it shouldnt make you nervous, THINK of this....

You have lights all over your home, and they are not even Ceramic sockets, its not a difficult thing to make by any means.

Wow that is a great cooler-bator Sally! Those cup holder turners are ingenious. Does the turning operate by a lever on the outside of the device? Looks like it has a fan in there too. Really neat.

yes Hubs showed how it works in the first video, you could do shelves and just add auto turners but I am way way too cheap LOL

Quote: Next year! thats a year away! ha ha ha

Quote: Thanks to Oz hooking me up with those cheap egg trays, and very very sturdy and even though DH argued with me to know end about my design, he worked on it with me and I must admit its very cool, I just checked and my temps are 100.6 100.6 100.4 100.4 I dont think those differents are a major deal so I am happy with its continue to run steady heat. But it took major fiddling with the duct return size as well as the bottom shelf placement and depth. I did take all measurements at the final run. I need to find an egg tray like those that serama will fit in as mine fall through LOL

The participant list is up to date to post 1946.

There are now 182 participants!

Currently there are 3 open contests (with plenty more to come)!

Contest #1: Guess How Many Eggs Will Be Set
Go here to enter: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...e-set-5th-annual-byc-easter-hatch-a-long/0_50

Contest #2: Creative Brooder Contest
Go here to enter: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ooder-5th-annual-byc-easter-hatch-a-long/0_50

Contest #3: Poultry in the Snow
Go here to enter: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...w-2014-easter-hatch-a-long/0_50#post_12971199

I've decided that I need one of these:



Not that my chickens are dangerous, mind you, just always underfoot and at the door. lol

easy peasey

Quote: love him!

 

[uphilljill]

Wow that is an amazing color purple egg!

 

[austinbndr28]

Not too difficult. I did put in 24 crowns last year and only 2 came up. I got 24 more crowns this year, but you don't eat those, you let them go to fern to establish the roots.

Vetericyn eye spray or Terrimycin eye ointment would work well for an eye injury.

Awwww, adorable! So nice of you to take them in!

I planted them last year, but I believe they were 2 year crowns that I purchased. I was told when they were big enough around, I could eat them.

Well, we live in gopher-ville. If they weren't in a raised bed with wire on the bottom, we wouldn't have anything growing in our garden. I used to put my tomatoes in the ground until I witnessed the darn gophers pulling down 5 foot tall tomato plants. There one day, *poof* gone the next.

My contribution to purple eggs. Welsummer rooster over hatchery BR hen gave me a black sex link that lays this:



I see Sally responded to you.

I have no clue, I don't weigh my eggs.

Glad it's working well!

Welcome!

Wow, that is a really pretty color!

I don't know that ducks lay brown, but duck eggs are usually more waxy looking/feeling than chicken eggs. I've seen white, black, gray duck eggs, but not brown.

So jealous! Can't wait to see it all set up! I'd have to change DH's to get one - he's not THAT supportive of my chicken addiction.

Welcome!

I know, right. I don't like getting up when it's dark.

Last year I did 56 mile hike in 5 days on the Pacific Crest Trail with my son. (high altitude hiking at 8,000 feet) We met many hikers hiking the entire PCT trail, and it was so interesting talking with them. They started at the Mexican border in April and were hoping to end the trail at Canada by October 1st. This years hikers will be starting up soon.

Great build Sally!

Dang, he's pretty!

it shouldnt make you nervous, THINK of this....

You have lights all over your home, and they are not even Ceramic sockets, its not a difficult thing to make by any means.


yes Hubs showed how it works in the first video, you could do shelves and just add auto turners but I am way way too cheap LOL

Next year! thats a year away! ha ha ha

Thanks to Oz hooking me up with those cheap egg trays, and very very sturdy and even though DH argued with me to know end about my design, he worked on it with me and I must admit its very cool, I just checked and my temps are 100.6 100.6 100.4 100.4 I dont think those differents are a major deal so I am happy with its continue to run steady heat. But it took major fiddling with the duct return size as well as the bottom shelf placement and depth. I did take all measurements at the final run. I need to find an egg tray like those that serama will fit in as mine fall through LOL






easy peasey

love him!

Here is that roosters father.

 

[Christabelle]

Holy cow- now that is a Purple egg. I am less impressed with my hen now. Imma show her that picture and tell her to step up her game!

 

[rbaker0345]

Hey Chooks, how did you get asparagus before me? Mine hasn't even given us a peak yet!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Wow that is an amazing color purple egg!

x2

 

[Blarneyeggs]

Yeah, you gotta take care of that....

OH My goodness!! Coffee through the nose! Good to hear the boys went somewhere nice, but stew pot works too...I eat chicken almost every day... had some this morning already.

SALLY!!! That incubator!! When I grow up, I wanna be you.

 

[Blarneyeggs]

Hey Chooks, how did you get asparagus before me? Mine hasn't even given us a peak yet!

Seriously grown stuff already?? I'm still waiting for the mud to emerge from the snow....