The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Kassaundra]

I understand the sewing part.
I don't know how to do the sprouting part.

Start paging back the video was posted yesterday I believe. Leah's Mom I believe is the one who posted it, (but I could be wrong on that)

 

[armorfirelady]

So today I think is day #3 of grains in my canning jar. I used a piece of cheese cloth on the top. I rinse them twice a day then turn it upside down in the dish rack so it can drain out. The sink is in front of a window.

These are the sprouts tonight

The Canadian peas are sprouting and some wheat. I will give it a few more days to see how they do. I might try some of my moms bird seed next to see if it sprouts better or faster.

You guys were right the flax got gummy and a few pieces stayed stuck to the cheese cloth. I think I may try cutting a piece of plastic canvas to fit in the lid and see if it will work like those canning jar cover LM posted.

 

[TeaChick]

sounds like egg problems. A good soak in warm water sometimes helps.
I see in later reading this has been resolved.

This is my opinion

I have only one way to repair prolaps. A sharp knife.
Prolaps is generally a genetic issue and is repeated, The hen can go through horrible pain and infection with out you knowing about it until you find a dead bird. If you do not do autopsy's, you will not even know that either. Culling out birds with pinched tails or birds that are poor layers or unthrifty birds will give you healthy birds for generations.

Good luck..

They should hatch at day 21 or day 22. A few may hatch after and up to day 25 if you have opened the box often.
I would toss out all of those eggs and try again..I am going to assume you do not have your incubator working correctly...

Do you have a good thermometer besides the one that comes with the incubator? Calibrated?
Do you have a hygrometer that has been calibrated correctly?
What temp are you using? Humidity?

Love the video

I really like the coop..nice room for the chickens

What other fruits are you going  to plant?

it took a little while to get my homemade incubator straightened out.
I have a good thermometer in there.
No hydrometer. Small cup of water in the past away from the eggs.
I can't throw them out, they're my son's.
I candle them tonight. One of them is completely dark, except the air sac. Another looked almost completely dark. A third looked pretty close to the second one. The rest I think are quitters.
I'm giving them a few more days, but if there's nothing by Wed, I'm going to stay opening them up to see what's going on.

 

[RedRidge]

First eggs of the season in lockdown. Yeah! Let the hatching begin.

 

[TeaChick]

Of

...

Start paging back the video was posted yesterday I believe.  Leah's Mom I believe is the one who posted it, (but I could be wrong on that)
[/quote
Oh, okay. Thanks I will. I don't know how I missed it I looked at every page from yesterday, but I have kids running around.....

 

[mlowen]

Leslie - wish I had all that room in my chicken house!  I might have to beam you and your builders over here too  

Don't we all feel ripped off that there is no real beaming from one place to another and no air cars...as we were promised by the Jetsons!?!

 

[FridayYet]

sounds like egg problems. A good soak in warm water sometimes helps.
I see in later reading this has been resolved.

This is my opinion

I have only one way to repair prolaps. A sharp knife.
Prolaps is generally a genetic issue and is repeated, The hen can go through horrible pain and infection with out you knowing about it until you find a dead bird. If you do not do autopsy's, you will not even know that either. Culling out birds with pinched tails or birds that are poor layers or unthrifty birds will give you healthy birds for generations.

Good luck..

Thanks for your reply - my beliefs are not so different from yours even though I live in the suburbs of Southern California and only have 5 hens. I notice pretty quickly if one of them is acting "off". These will never reproduce since I don't have a rooster, so the next generations will come from breeders (who hopefully cull for the reasons you mention above.)

Once I realized what had happened this morning I decided to give her this one shot to see if she recovers. If I get a hint of it happening again, I'll have to figure out how to euthanize her.

So far she's doing fine, eating and drinking with gusto and running around like normal. I hope she stays that way but am mentally prepared if she doesn't. This is a good learning experience if I ever decide to raise chickens in the future.

I value your opinion and thanks for responding.

 

[ki4got]

Quote: um... that the egg is unfertilized.

 

[ChickensRDinos]

I'd love to have a Kindle, but agree with lazy gardener about trusting the "cloud" for storage. Does anyone know, can I put pdf files (or any file formats) on a flash drive and then use that in the Kindle? I already keep MANY papers and websites in pdf format, so if I could use a flash drive with the Kindle I'd be sold.

You can read PDFs on a kindle no problem. Flash drive will not work but you can use a USB cable for just wirelessly transfer or email files to your kindle account:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200375630

 

[ChickChickChicky]

You can read PDFs on a kindle no problem. Flash drive will not work but you can use a USB cable for just wirelessly transfer or email files to your kindle account:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200375630

Thank you, that was very helpful. Looks like a Kindle may be in my future!