The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[SallyinIndiana]

As I was trudging through the snow and cold wind this morning to take care of the chickens, I heard a strange faint noise coming from the building where my Resse birds are that I got from Matt1616. The closer I got the more noise I heard. I sit down my bucket of hot water and opened the door and oh my goodness, what a site for sore eyes. The birds were all up on the perch except one of the boys I guess he was the leader. They were singing Sweet Home Alabama. ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha. I guess they are really getting sick of this weather and wishing they were back where they came from. Oh my goodness, please forgive me Lord for this little lie but I thought that may lift some spirits. LOL
Jimmy

Heated water dishes are freezing during the day here. I empty them at night and the power is off. But during the day when the dish is full and the power is on, the water is still freezing. And the dry crumble feed I got from the grain mill, is ignoring gravity too, I guess there was just enough moisture in the air that the grains swelled. Meaning I get to take water out every 2 -3 hours and stir the dry feed in the feeder to make sure it falls down.

 

[Pozees]

Everyone's birds look so beautiful, thanks for posting all the pictures! Ron I'm sorry to hear you've been ill, as well as the other member who said they had been ill sorry I can't think of who it was now. Seeing the pics of the Underwood hens brooding, I was wondering if anyone has had RIR of other lines brood also? Just curious.

Are there any keepers on this thread living at significant elevation above sea level other than Greathorse and me?

 

[ronniewayne]

my hens from Ron Foggel are good broodies had 3 of 4 last year hatch and raise chicks.

 

[brahmabreeder]

Posting to subscribe. I find this thread interesting even though I don't even have RIRs.

 

[RedRidge]

Previous experience please...
We have no power and bators are down to 87... various set dates from 2-11 days ago.
Do they stand a chance? Course of power doesn't come back on soon I know the answer but where is that "give up and em" point?

 

[Fred's Hens]

A hen will naturally leave the nest for up to 40 minutes to do her business. Yes, you know the answer. If this power loss goes on for a few hours, I'd not put much stock in the viability. I'd probably check them in a few days and candle them. But that presumes this doesn't go on for very long. Grandma used to place her eggs near the wood stove, turning the box side to side every half hour.

While you still have hot water. Fill a couple of drinking bottles with the hottest water you can stand. Place them on either side and put a quilt or two or the whole thing. This may buy you a half and hour.

But again, if this goes for three or four hours, it is highly unlikely. It is the stop and start that kills the eggs, in my view.
Let's hope by the time you read this, power is right back on.

 

[Pozees]

Great suggestions, Fred, as always. Only other thing I can think of is same idea with rocks or bricks if you have a wood/coal fire and can warm some up to put around the incubator. Or put whatever you can warm in a box and set the incubator on top of it, and cover with quilts.

I had power outages during one hatch and it did seem to severely reduce the hatch, but I did still get some chicks.

Do you have a friend/neighbor/fellow keeper within an hour's drive that has power that might be able to help? As a last ditch effort if power is till out, you can also find a converter to plug your incubator into and plug into the lighter on a running vehicle to power it.

Sorry, hoping you return with good news.

 

[brahmabreeder]

Previous experience please...
We have no power and bators are down to 87... various set dates from 2-11 days ago.
Do they stand a chance? Course of power doesn't come back on soon I know the answer but where is that "give up and em" point?

Only thing I will add and I'm sure you already know this but just don't open your bator. I would keep pushing through with these eggs no matter what just to see if a few keep developing. I left my incubator off overnight since it was a homemade bator and had a light bulb( I was trying to candle ) and my hatch rate was barely affected.

 

[RedRidge]

Ok... Power was off 90 minutes - 2 hrs but bators got down to 75... It is below zero here outside so temp dropped quickly.
Hoping that 90 minutes isn't too bad though. We shall see.
Power has been in and out since it came back on. What is really bad is I have a backup battery and a converter ( we are off grid capable), but my backup battery was not charged and the converter is on the truck, which is usually here but... hubby took it to work today. I keep it charged during spring storms but have never had a problem during the winter if we aren't having ice.
Series of unfortunate events... sigh...
Note to self: CHARGE Back up battery

 

[NYREDS]

Once several years ago our powr went out & the power company wouldn't give an estimate for when it would be back on. I had 25 Guinea Fowl eggs in the incubator at the time. I filled 2 quart jars with hot water & placed them in a styrofoam picnic cooler. I then covered them with styrofoam packing peanuts. Placed the eggs on top of the packing peanuts then filled the cooler the rest of the way with more styrofoam peanuts. Covered the cooler with a heavy blanket & hoped for the best.
Power was out for a little over 22 hours. When I got the incubator back up to operating temperature I retuned thestill warm eggs to the incubator. 22 of the 25 hatched.