The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[armorfirelady]

My flock includes 5 hens that hatched in 2011 - they all stopped laying this fall with the molt, and today one of them laid an egg! Hooray! you never know who will return to laying and who will not ever lay again....so one layer down, four left to watch and wonder. Well, 3 really, because one of the four has a comb that tells me she won't be laying again.

I take it that spring is just right around the corner since egg laying has picked up. Edie finally started laying again as did one of the old girls. 4 eggs 2 days in a row is a good thing. My egg customers will be very happy again Now if I could just make a path in the hard frozen snow so the peepers could venture out to the lean to they would be happier. They are outside most of the day wandering between the coop and old run. It seems the single digits don't seem to bother them but I think its the fact the sun is actually peeking out that they enjoy. They hanging cabbages seem to be keeping them occupied as well.

Quote: I have been getting free mint plants from family and friends and have been planting them around the the chicken coop. Sometimes the hens eat them but it seems the plants hold up well to chicken traffic & help cover the bare spots. It smells wonderful when I mow also Some of it has even made its way into the coop. Its buried under the DL now but come spring I am sure it will be there under the DL

I have used eucalyptus oil in water to spray around the coop when the bugs are bad. I use homemade cleaner made from orange peels and vinegar to clean the inside of the coop when needed.

And the bad mommy award goes to... ME!
I did something I've never done before. And considering how anal I am, this slip up is an indication of what 40+ lambs born in 5 days will do to your brain...
I totally forgot to put a batch of hatching eggs in lockdown. :-0
And what's worse is, I didn't remember until day 21!
So... two dozen eggs, still in the turner (the top shelf of course), with no humidity increase.
I opened the bator and it was like popcorn - chicks everywhere! LOL. And they all hatched except one.
Guess I got very lucky. But boy do I feel bad those chicks spent a day riding the ferris wheel. Or in the case of a few who doesn't wear their seat belts, falling down the cracks to the bottom. :-/

Glad to hear you had a great hatch rate. Its amazing how resilient chicks can be when they need to

 

[ronott1]

And the bad mommy award goes to... ME!
I did something I've never done before. And considering how anal I am, this slip up is an indication of what 40+ lambs born in 5 days will do to your brain...
I totally forgot to put a batch of hatching eggs in lockdown. :-0
And what's worse is, I didn't remember until day 21!
So... two dozen eggs, still in the turner (the top shelf of course), with no humidity increase.
I opened the bator and it was like popcorn - chicks everywhere! LOL. And they all hatched except one.
Guess I got very lucky. But boy do I feel bad those chicks spent a day riding the ferris wheel. Or in the case of a few who doesn't wear their seat belts, falling down the cracks to the bottom. :-/

I have messed up on hatching days too. After the first couple hatch, Humidity will go up any way. It also seems like cabinet incubators are more forgiving of humidity issues. Plastic incubators too.

Post some pictures!

Trader Joes fertile eggs are now Hy-line W36 leghorn pullets crossed with a different breed rooster. I hatched some along with Australorps that have been bred for productivity.

Do they look productive? They are three weeks old:

 

[lalaland]

And the bad mommy award goes to... ME!
I did something I've never done before. And considering how anal I am, this slip up is an indication of what 40+ lambs born in 5 days will do to your brain...
I totally forgot to put a batch of hatching eggs in lockdown. :-0
And what's worse is, I didn't remember until day 21!
So... two dozen eggs, still in the turner (the top shelf of course), with no humidity increase.
I opened the bator and it was like popcorn - chicks everywhere! LOL. And they all hatched except one.
Guess I got very lucky. But boy do I feel bad those chicks spent a day riding the ferris wheel. Or in the case of a few who doesn't wear their seat belts, falling down the cracks to the bottom. :-/

Glad you got such great results, so nice that you got a break! And are you kidding me? You have lambs? where are the pictures? nothing sweeter than baby lambs, they are even better than baby chicks....



@ronott1 , love the sound track on the video. happy looking and sounding chicks!

 

[CherMoz]

And the bad mommy award goes to... ME!
I did something I've never done before. And considering how anal I am, this slip up is an indication of what 40+ lambs born in 5 days will do to your brain...
I totally forgot to put a batch of hatching eggs in lockdown. :-0
And what's worse is, I didn't remember until day 21!
So... two dozen eggs, still in the turner (the top shelf of course), with no humidity increase.
I opened the bator and it was like popcorn - chicks everywhere! LOL. And they all hatched except one.
Guess I got very lucky. But boy do I feel bad those chicks spent a day riding the ferris wheel. Or in the case of a few who doesn't wear their seat belts, falling down the cracks to the bottom. :-/

Congratulations on a GREAT hatch.

 

[lazy gardener]

And the bad mommy award goes to... ME!
I did something I've never done before. And considering how anal I am, this slip up is an indication of what 40+ lambs born in 5 days will do to your brain...
I totally forgot to put a batch of hatching eggs in lockdown. :-0
And what's worse is, I didn't remember until day 21!
So... two dozen eggs, still in the turner (the top shelf of course), with no humidity increase.
I opened the bator and it was like popcorn - chicks everywhere! LOL. And they all hatched except one.
Guess I got very lucky. But boy do I feel bad those chicks spent a day riding the ferris wheel. Or in the case of a few who doesn't wear their seat belts, falling down the cracks to the bottom. :-/

RedRidge: How sweet is that! Had you weeded out any duds during incubation, or did you have 24 eggs that stayed viable right from the get go? Were they your own eggs? Dry hatch? What was your humidity throughout the hatch? I'm beginning to think that the advice to increase humidity at lock down is one of those bits of advice: We do it this way, because that's the way it's always been done. I know that I got all flustered with my last hatch, concerned that it was too dry when there was a chick that was glued in the shell, so I raised the humidity, only to have the last 2 end up being mushy. The dry chick did well with assisted hatch and a bit of hydro therapy, the mushy chicks did not survive.

I have messed up on hatching days too. After the first couple hatch, Humidity will go up any way. It also seems like cabinet incubators are more forgiving of humidity issues. Plastic incubators too.

Post some pictures!

Trader Joes fertile eggs are now Hy-line W36 leghorn pullets crossed with a different breed rooster. I hatched some along with Australorps that have been bred for productivity.

Do they look productive? They are three weeks old:

Ronott1: Tell me about your Trader Joe's experience: What was your hatch rate? I'd love to try some, just for grins and giggles... I certainly don't need them, but how cool, to go in the grocery store, and buy a dozen eggs, hatch out some peeps that will keep you in eggs for 2 years!

 

[ronott1]

RedRidge: How sweet is that! Had you weeded out any duds during incubation, or did you have 24 eggs that stayed viable right from the get go? Were they your own eggs? Dry hatch? What was your humidity throughout the hatch? I'm beginning to think that the advice to increase humidity at lock down is one of those bits of advice: We do it this way, because that's the way it's always been done. I know that I got all flustered with my last hatch, concerned that it was too dry when there was a chick that was glued in the shell, so I raised the humidity, only to have the last 2 end up being mushy. The dry chick did well with assisted hatch and a bit of hydro therapy, the mushy chicks did not survive.

Ronott1: Tell me about your Trader Joe's experience: What was your hatch rate? I'd love to try some, just for grins and giggles... I certainly don't need them, but how cool, to go in the grocery store, and buy a dozen eggs, hatch out some peeps that will keep you in eggs for 2 years!

I bought 2 dozen and hatched 17 chicks! One hatched late and died and a second one had failure to thrive. I have 15 chicks for six dollars from the store.

It looks like they are either Austra whites or California Whites.

 

[lazy gardener]

That's a pretty impressive hatch rate for eggs destined for the breakfast table.

 

[Lacy Blues]

RedRidge: How sweet is that! Had you weeded out any duds during incubation, or did you have 24 eggs that stayed viable right from the get go? Were they your own eggs? Dry hatch? What was your humidity throughout the hatch? I'm beginning to think that the advice to increase humidity at lock down is one of those bits of advice: We do it this way, because that's the way it's always been done. I know that I got all flustered with my last hatch, concerned that it was too dry when there was a chick that was glued in the shell, so I raised the humidity, only to have the last 2 end up being mushy. The dry chick did well with assisted hatch and a bit of hydro therapy, the mushy chicks did not survive.

Ronott1: Tell me about your Trader Joe's experience: What was your hatch rate? I'd love to try some, just for grins and giggles... I certainly don't need them, but how cool, to go in the grocery store, and buy a dozen eggs, hatch out some peeps that will keep you in eggs for 2 years!

If you're saying you had one really dry chick and then raised the humidity and the other two were mushy, I really don't think that a period this short of raised humidity would create a mushy chick. I think the humidity has to be too high for more than a day or two.

Regarding raising the humidity for the last three days, I'm not sure about that either. I mean, heck, does anyone have a hen that raises humidity? I wonder about these things.

 

[RedRidge]

Lazy Gardner, they were my own eggs, all less than 10 days old, standard bred RIR. I no longer candle eggs, palpate does, ultrasound ewes, or preg check cattle. I used to do all of the above, but it just ate up time and money. I set them in an old cabinet Bator with no water. Humidity is about 30%. Usually I move a shelf of eggs every Friday to the hatcher at the bottom and fill the pan at the top with water. Humidity at hatch is usually 60-65%, but water is gone by the end of hatch and I don't add water again until the next Friday. This was the first of three hatches in a row from these two pens. You can bet I won't forget to move eggs down tomorrow.

 

[ronott1]

That's a pretty impressive hatch rate for eggs destined for the breakfast table.

Trader Joe's egg supplier had the stored like hatching eggs--big end up in the carton. It looks like they have been working on fertility since these were much better for fertility than the eggs I hatched a couple of year ago.