The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[lazy gardener]

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.

Let me re-phrase to be sure I'm understanding you: You essentially do a staggered hatch in a large bator, with the bottom area being where they hatch. So the eggs that are NOT going into lock down will go close to a week at around 30%, then get raised up to around 60% while the eggs in the bottom hatch, so each batch of eggs will go through 2 humidity raises, in addition to their lock down time during their 21 day trip through the bator? Do you have issues with dander or odor affecting the upper trays? How long can you run this bator before total clean out? I have a dorm refrigerator that I intend to make into an incubator. Was planning on using my home made styrofoam bator for hatching, and use the bigger bator for incubating. But, if I can be successful with just the fridge bator, that would save me a step.

Lacy, I tend to agree with you, but after the dry chick, I wrapped the last 2 pipped eggs in damp paper towels to try to prevent them from glueing in the shell. So, either, I messed up, or I didn't... hard to tell, and pretty much a moot point. I expected the dry assisted hatch chick to die, but she was still feebly chirping after 6 hours, though she hadn't moved. So I took her out, and did a warm bath to finish un-glueing her. She initially had a curled foot, the next morning when I went to splint her, I couldn't figure out which foot it was! She quickly gained any lost ground from her difficult hatch, and I couldn't tell her apart from her siblings.

 

[ronott1]

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.

Hens do raise humidity at the end--they rip out feathers and etc.

Mushy chicks come from bacteria that gets into the naval of the chick. There is often a bit of yolk out and it is green.

 

[lazy gardener]

Hens do raise humidity at the end--they rip out feathers and etc.

Mushy chicks come from bacteria that gets into the naval of the chick. There is often a bit of yolk out and it is green.

So, I very easily could have caused the mushy chick issue by creating a bacteria soup for them to hatch in.

 

[ronott1]

So, I very easily could have caused the mushy chick issue by creating a bacteria soup for them to hatch in.

I add a couple of real copper pennies to the water--pre 1982 pennies--to create a weak copper sulfied concentration in the water. It cuts down on bacteria.

If you have a lot of mushy chicks, sanitize the eggs before hatching them in a weak bleach solution. Bacteria can come in off of the eggs. Also, some breeds or lines seem to have e coli problems. The last breed was a line of isbars. The chicks had mushy chick disease and most of the hatch died within three days of hatch. The cause was e coli and verified by necropsy.

 

[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.

Let me re-phrase to be sure I'm understanding you:  You essentially do a staggered hatch in a large bator, with the bottom area being where they hatch.  So the eggs that are NOT going into lock down will go close to a week at around 30%, then get raised up to around 60% while the eggs in the bottom hatch, so each batch of eggs will go through 2 humidity raises, in addition to their lock down time during their 21 day trip through the bator?  Do you have issues with dander or odor affecting the upper trays?  How long can you run this bator before total clean out?   I have a dorm refrigerator that I intend to make into an incubator.  Was planning on using my home made styrofoam bator for hatching, and use the bigger bator for incubating.  But, if I can be successful with just the fridge bator, that would save me a step.

Lacy, I tend to agree with you, but after the dry chick, I wrapped the last 2 pipped eggs in damp paper towels to try to prevent them from glueing in the shell.  So, either, I messed up, or I didn't... hard to tell, and pretty much a moot point.  I expected the dry assisted hatch chick to die, but she was still feebly chirping after 6 hours, though she hadn't moved.  So I took her out, and did a warm bath to finish un-glueing her.  She initially had a curled foot, the next morning when I went to splint her, I couldn't figure out which foot it was!  She quickly gained any lost ground from her difficult hatch, and I couldn't tell her apart from her siblings.

Yes, you understood the cycle correctly. My hatches average about 83% of set eggs.
Because I have a genetic project I'm working on, my bator has been running non-stop since Sept. I vacuumed it out in august, started it up in Sept, and while it was empty for one week in dec vacuumed it again (although I didn't turn it off for that week since it was calibrated and running smoothly all fall.) It will run thru June (RIR through March and then the next generation of project birds), then no scheduled hatches until next fall again.
The project birds require a lot of hatching, so I hatch every six months when the pullets reach Pol. But i only hatch about 6 batches of RIR each spring from 4 breeding pens. My hatcher has a partition which divides it into 4 sections. I was just lucky I started setting one pen before the others this year so all of these first batch were from the same pen or I'd have to cull them from the potential breeding pool... meaning generic meat and layers.

 

[Lacy Blues]

I add a couple of real copper pennies to the water--pre 1982 pennies--to create a weak copper sulfied concentration in the water. It cuts down on bacteria.

If you have a lot of mushy chicks, sanitize the eggs before hatching them in a weak bleach solution. Bacteria can come in off of the eggs. Also, some breeds or lines seem to have e coli problems. The last breed was a line of isbars. The chicks had mushy chick disease and most of the hatch died within three days of hatch. The cause was e coli and verified by necropsy.

Any other tips and tricks you want to pass along?

 

[ronott1]

Any other tips and tricks you want to pass along?

I should start a thread or a blog right?

Someone on the hatch a long thread told me to publish a book. Can you imagine that?

 

[hellbender]

I should start a thread or a blog right?

Someone on the hatch a long thread told me to publish a book. Can you imagine that?

Please don't start a blog Ron (California)...this thread is an excellent place to present tips and helpful advice in general.

Keep in mind..I still have Australorps so I'm vested here! lol

Oops....not the Australorp thread...lolol But it still applies!!!

Ron aka Hellbender

 

[ronott1]

Please don't start a blog Ron (California)...this thread is an excellent place to present tips and helpful advice in general.

Keep in mind..I still have Australorps so I'm vested here! lol

Oops....not the Australorp thread...lolol But it still applies!!!

Ron aka Hellbender

Don't worry, I will not pop over to the Blogger side....and will always give help and advice on the threads.

 

[hellbender]

Don't worry, I will not pop over to the Blogger side....and will always give help and advice on the threads.

good!

EDIT: I'm kinda vested here too but no one seems to pay attention to anything I post. Ah, but that's ok...I have always liked my own company.

All kidding aside, I do have a few friends who come here once in a while and I really enjoy reading what others post so it's by no means a waste of my time to visit here.