The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[atmaclean]

Does everyone boil and cool the water before adding to incubators?..I have never added water in incubator wells. The thought of water sitting in a hot environment for 24 days with live embryos with porus shells sitting on top marinaing in who knows what kind of possible germs did not make sense to me. I think that was why I made the decision to dry hatch.

I use distilled water now but used to use tap water with a few drops of Oxine ah in it. The water evaporates pretty fast so it is constantly replaced with fresh water. I've never had a problem and I've been using the same incubator (an LG) for 6 years off and on. I've hatched everything from guineas, chickens and even a batch of Canadian Geese in it very successfully. I recently purchased a new Brinsea ECO Advance and so far, it is extremely easy and doesn't go through water quite as fast. I think as long as you keep everything very clean and sterilized after each hatch, you should be fine. Just my experience....
Angela

 

[stonykill]

A question for those of you that are hatching eggs from sq and heritage lines:

I'm interested to hear what you will do with multiple roosters.

From this batch of Swedes I have, I would only keep 1 rooster. I know what I'd do with them if they were other more common breeds

But...when you you have roosters from great breeders/great lines, or a more rare breed like the SFH, do you handle that differently? I'm just curious to hear your practice - not saying any one way is right, just want to hear your perspective on this!

When hatching Sumatra's I eat extra roosters. Never keep just 1 rooster. You just never know what will happen

 

[atmaclean]

I feed foods with out fermenting. Like I feed raw meats and some fresh vegetables and herbs with out fermenting.

Wow - raw meats!? I have not heard of that.... I used to feed my greyhounds a raw meat diet after one of them developed osteosarcoma, but it just got to be way too much trouble to keep up after they passed and the kids came along. Are chickens able to process the bacteria on the raw meat like the dogs can?

I was wondering about the veggies and herbs. I usually just throw them out fresh and wasn't sure if I should be fermenting them - mainly the herbs. Thanks for the info!

 

[stonykill]

Does everyone boil and cool the water before adding to incubators?..I have never added water in incubator wells. The thought of water sitting in a hot environment for 24 days with live embryos with porus shells sitting on top marinaing in who knows what kind of possible germs did not make sense to me. I think that was why I made the decision to dry hatch.

I don't worry about such things since I started watching broody's do their work. Duck eggs look so disgusting during a broody hatch you would be positive nothing will hatch. I've watched Sumatra's hatch in a dirt nest. I've seen pooped on eggs (uncleaned by me) eggs hatch. Plus the 1st thing my 3 day old Sumatra chicks usually get led to by mama is a puddle of standing water to drink from. Mama will walk right by the fresh water I supply and bring them to a puddle. So a little bacteria in an incubator from water doesn't bother me in the least. And I've used the same LG bator for quite a while now

 

[Leahs Mom]

I feed raw meat weekly. Especially to the chicks.

Chickens will catch and eat mice, snakes...they'll even eat a fellow chicken that has died if you don't take it away. They are definitely meat eaters.

And...chickens fed on an exclusively vegetarian diet are not going to be healthy. Period. They are not designed to be vegetarian.

 

[stonykill]

Wow - raw meats!? I have not heard of that.... I used to feed my greyhounds a raw meat diet after one of them developed osteosarcoma, but it just got to be way too much trouble to keep up after they passed and the kids came along. Are chickens able to process the bacteria on the raw meat like the dogs can?

I was wondering about the veggies and herbs. I usually just throw them out fresh and wasn't sure if I should be fermenting them - mainly the herbs. Thanks for the info!

sure raw meat. My chickens eat snakes, mice, frogs, toads etc. Chickens aren't vegetarians, they are omnivores

 

[delisha]

I have a question regarding making your own ACV. I saved all the core and skin from about 3 lbs of apples. Placed them in a large pottery bowl and covered them with water. I covered the bowl with a plate and placed it in a darkened room for one week. This morning I removed the plate so I could strain the apples and found mold growing on the top. What did I do wrong?

Edited to add: The liquid is cloudy, bubbling, and smells yeasty. I removed the top mold. Can I still use it, or start over?

24 hours on a kitchen counter .....the dark room was not needed..you forgot sugar. You might be OK. get rid of the mold if you can and strain the liquid, boil part of the liquid with sugar, than you need to put it in a sealed jar in the dark after it cools.

 

[Mumsy]

Does everyone boil and cool the water before adding to incubators?..I have never added water in incubator wells. The thought of water sitting in a hot environment for 24 days with live embryos with porus shells sitting on top marinaing in who knows what kind of possible germs did not make sense to me. I think that was why I made the decision to dry hatch.

I have always used distilled water. I warm it in the micro wave and don't add it until it's around the same temp as the bator. Too hot or too cold will flucuate the inside temp too much and then takes longer for the bator to readjust. I've used the water wells and hatched out hundreds of chicks without issue to bacteria. Now I use the distilled water with sterile sponges. The porous surface of the sponge has a greater evaporating area. My problem with hatching in winter where I live is how high the humidity already is naturally occurring. I also switched to dry hatching this set because of it. Inside my barn the humidity is 80%. Inside my house it goes anywhere from 40 to 30 depending if it's raining outside.
This is where good note keeping becomes critical.

 

[aoxa]

A question for those of you that are hatching eggs from sq and heritage lines:

I'm interested to hear what you will do with multiple roosters.

From this batch of Swedes I have, I would only keep 1 rooster. I know what I'd do with them if they were other more common breeds

But...when you you have roosters from great breeders/great lines, or a more rare breed like the SFH, do you handle that differently? I'm just curious to hear your practice - not saying any one way is right, just want to hear your perspective on this!

When hatching Sumatra's I eat extra roosters. Never keep just 1 rooster. You just never know what will happen

What Stony said. Always have at least two roosters to back the other one up in case something happens.

If the roosters are SQ I sell them.

 

[delisha]

If you plan on keeping your bred true..you need to keep at least two cockerels till you hatch out a few batches from each and see how the offspring look. If you get a better replacement, you eat the extra cockerel at that time or if he is proven and throws good chicks, you might want to think about offering him to someone else for a good bred true proven rooster.