The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[Bulldogma]

Final hatch count is twelve live and wonderful chicks. Last one just out this morning is another Buff. Drying in the bator. I removed the last three eggs and did an eggtopsie. A White and a Black were both quitters at day fourteen! I missed them candling. They looked right to me with air cell and everything. The third was a gorgeous Lavender chick that died in the shell without internally pipping. It had absorbed the yolk too! This chick had the hugest vaulted skull of any of the other twelve chicks. Hmmm..

So twelve live beautiful chicks out of thirteen viable embryos is the best hatch out of Silkie eggs from an incubator for me EVER!

Fantastic news, Mumsy!!!!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

It is difficult to move a setting hen without her quiting the nest. Don't worry about a 2 foot drop. Many commercial chicks (the ones you may have ordered included) regularly take a 3 or 4 story fall to get to the sorting and sexing floor, as soon as they come out of the incubator, in fact it seems to help them.

There is scientific evidence that wood duck chicks who take a 60 foot or higher gainer from the nest just to follow their mama have a better shot at growing to adult hood than those wood duck chicks who only free fall a few feet to get to the ground. I have seen hen chicks fall 20 feet from a barn loft to follow their mother when she quits the nest. It seems to stun them some but only for a couple of seconds and then the chicks are off like a shot. I think it is like spanking a baby or the butt to start it breathing.

 

[Melabella]

Hello Every one!

Congrats Mumsy, so wonderful about your chicks... can't wait to see more pictures, congrats to everyone else as well, spring, spring babies!

I am getting ready for yet another dumping of snow, ,ugh,,,

Aoxa, please keep those puppy pictures coming... he lowers one's blood pressure!

Just wanted to say hello, and bump the thread back up to the top, it had slid way too far down!

MB

 

[bluebirdnanny]

I am really enjoying all the photos and posts on your little ones as well as that BIG little canine baby!

 

[chickiemomy]

Quote: The pictures she had sent me looked like coreyza. The vet from the department said it was similar to CRD and Coreyza in symptoms, but that once treated they would not become carriers or develop it again.

I felt so terrible for her..


the lesson for this week -- Quarantine!

 

[jendodd79]

New babies! Red frizzle cochin (suspicious comb?) and a Mottled Houdan

 

[Sally8]

Quarantine might be something good to post on that thing maybe by a combined group with advice and stories to support (if you have any) Once in a while, I have a reality check that I take for granted something that is given to me freely. I have no restrictions on the number of hens or if I have a rooster or 6. Our town, at this time does not enforce dog licenses but will say that it's important to keep up with rabies. A free rabies clinic is offered every year up the road about 3 miles. The only thing I ever see going on are low flying helicopters looking for those labs. lol I always wave. The forests around me are mostly deciduous and it's hard to see down through.

 

[aoxa]

Final hatch count is twelve live and wonderful chicks. Last one just out this morning is another Buff. Drying in the bator. I removed the last three eggs and did an eggtopsie. A White and a Black were both quitters at day fourteen! I missed them candling. They looked right to me with air cell and everything. The third was a gorgeous Lavender chick that died in the shell without internally pipping. It had absorbed the yolk too! This chick had the hugest vaulted skull of any of the other twelve chicks. Hmmm..

So twelve live beautiful chicks out of thirteen viable embryos is the best hatch out of Silkie eggs from an incubator for me EVER!

Great hatch rate Mumsy! I bet you love your incubator!

On our way home with some new 2 week old chicks!

We picked up a Mottled Houdan pullet, a gold laced polish pullet and an unsexed red frizzle Cochin. We also have a bunch of silkies for my friend and they are sooooo cute. Having silkie regret!!

Congrats Jen!

the lesson for this week -- Quarantine!

New babies! Red frizzle cochin (suspicious comb?) and a Mottled Houdan

I would not say that Houdan is a pullet just yet, but it does look promising. The crest reminds me of the girls I have raised at that age. I am going to be getting 20 in late April and maybe even ordering some sexed pullets from McMurray as they seem to have half decent birds..

The frizzle cochin is adorable as well

 

[TurtlePowerTrav]

Long term thread lurker and occaisonal questioner...

I finally have a broody hen

however, she has chosen a nest box that is in the middle of everything, two feet off the ground and cannot be moved.

I want to move her as I am concerned about the safety of her babies both because of the other birds and the two foot drop from the nest.

Have any of you moved a broody successfully? I'm thinking of taking a nest in beside her at night, first stealing her eggs and then placing her on them. That way I can move the whole assembly to where she can still see the flock but will be safe from them. My concerns are that this will break her out of her broodiness or she will break the eggs in transport.

She's been on the nest for just over a week, let her keep some random eggs last Wednesday. Have not seen her leave the nest at all.

Any ideas would be great!

If you move her to a new nest, do it at night with as little(none is best) light as possible. Have someone with you to help with the egg move while you hold the hen. Mark the eggs with a permanent marker so you can easily see if she steals eggs you don't want hatched. She will wake in the new location and should go back to it when she gets off to eat. I have done this twice now with 2 broodies. Worked fine.

 

[Bulldogma]

It is difficult to move a setting hen without her quiting the nest. Don't worry about a 2 foot drop. Many commercial chicks (the ones you may have ordered included) regularly take a 3 or 4 story fall to get to the sorting and sexing floor, as soon as they come out of the incubator, in fact it seems to help them.

There is scientific evidence that wood duck chicks who take a 60 foot or higher gainer from the nest just to follow their mama have a better shot at growing to adult hood than those wood duck chicks who only free fall a few feet to get to the ground. I have seen hen chicks fall 20 feet from a barn loft to follow their mother when she quits the nest. It seems to stun them some but only for a couple of seconds and then the chicks are off like a shot. I think it is like spanking a baby or the butt to start it breathing.

Interesting stuff! Welcome to the thread!

New babies! Red frizzle cochin (suspicious comb?) and a Mottled Houdan

Too cute!!


Funny story from this evening. I have a black Silkie sitting on 5 SFH eggs in one of my "private" sections of my horse trailer coop. Well, the other day our bantam cochin roo was "taking advantage" of a pullet who isn't even laying to the point of pretty much putting the poor girl into shock (normally the 2 mature Silkie hens are in with him, but they are both separated with eggs or chicks currently). So I took the pullet out and put her in with the black broody Silkie - the two get along and the space is large enough. Tonight I snuck out to candle the eggs, and when I opened the door, the pullet and the Silkie are both in the same nest box (a plastic kitty litter bucket) all cuddled up and happy! I've seen two broody hens do that, but a broody sharing with a pullet who isn't even laying yet?? LOL!

Oh - and knock on wood, but all 5 eggs had good movement!