The Old Folks Home

[Hangtown Farms]

Daughter update.

~Made it 250 miles on this bad boy today

Guy your daughter is very lucky. What a dream come true.

Id like to ride one of these around Spain though it would probably jostle all the Hatching eggs Id be caring around with me lol

 

[ronott1]

Sending positive thoughts and prayers your way.

@Barbiejo

It is great to have you at the old folks home too!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

She just texted and said she made it to Hanoi today.
She's trying to sell the bike now. Even if she loses money on it, she saved a lot on busses and trains. And, I'm sure it was way more fun than 20+ hours of bus rides.
I asked her if she was going to Halong bay and she said she's doing another day in Hanoi and then going to Halong for 2 days, sleeping on a boat in the bay and kayaking, then a train to Sapa, back to Hanoi for a day and then a flight to Thailand to meet my wife.

A friend of hers asked where she got the muscles and she said she's been backpacking for over 2 months.

Halong video.

Sapa, Vietnam

 

[ozexpat]

So, humidity....

It's rarely below seventy percent at CocoBeach and paid havoc on my hatch rates. I could never get the humidity in the bator below fifty five and had loads of chicks dead in shell ask fully formed. Many of those pipped but were just too swollen to maneuver.

Local chicks were hatching at fifty percent and broody hens were getting the same.

I ended up with a dehumidifier I bought on craigslist from a marijuana growing lad fit twenty five bucks. After stripping it down to clean out all the cannabis resin. I put it in a suitcase and carted it to the Philippines.

My incubator room is twelve by four. I have the megabator that can hold six hundred chicken eggs without double stacking and a smaller cabinet bator that I use hovabator turners in. I have three in there set up for quail production one my quail get really laying.

I run the dehumidifier with a hygrostat set at forty percent. The room gets opened three times a day for turning eggs but we pull a gallon of water a day out of the air.

My incubators register a humidity of thirty eight percent. I would like to run at twenty five but can't achieve that do of take what I can.

My hatch rates are now around ninety on local eggs.

The last shipped eggs were fifty percent with the chicken eggs, twenty five percent on the turkey (our first to ever hatch and we have six poults) and the ducks are pipping.

A massive improvement.

For those struggling with humidity in either direction I strongly suggest treating a few hatches like a science research project. Label each egg and weigh them at six, twelve and eighteen days. At six days you want an average weight loss of two to three percent. At twelve days it should be six to eight percent and then at eighteen days it should be eleven to thirteen percent.

If you are at eleven percent don't add water until your first pip. At thirteen you can bump humidity up to sixty five percent which is enough do that the hydrostatic gradient is narrow enough to arrest further evaporation.

There are many many factors that effect hatch rates. Humidity is a big part.

 

[Highcotton]

You are quite right, ChickenCanoe! May ALL our days be long and filled with joy! In fact, this is one of my favorite sayings, an old Irish blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

I may be a woman, but I agree on the bringing a bunch of girls camping! Camping was our dinner vacation as a child, so I love it! We spent less money on where we slept so we could eat out for a few dinners and spend more money on fun stuff, plus waking up outside is so lovely! Not to mention the whole cooking outdoors= deliciousness! But most girls I know, would be complaining about the lack of social media, tv, phones, malls etc! I tried to take one of my cousins hiking with us one time, and woke she did have a good time, geez she complained the whole time! Taking too long, bugs, hot, whatever! Makes it so much less fun for everyone listening to you! But I have a feeling, if I have any daughters, they will be tomboys like me

And I want to hear about the breakfast cooked by your father! :-D bet I'm not the only one!

And wow, Wisher! That's crazy about the egg!

Our daughter was like having 2. She always brought a friend everywhere. They enjoyed the camping and didn't complain much. Three girls together doesn't work very well.

 

[tcmstalcup]

Does anyone else "idiot hatch". I hatched SFH, blue laced barnies, marans, and AofU X EE frizzles all together. Oh and I threw in a couple of mutts from the laying pen cuz there was room. Now I pick some of them up and ask them. What the heck are you? Some are obvious but probably half are not.

 

[CanuckBock]

The dog and I unloaded this second load of birch. Such a shortage here for us...of wood that is...NOT!​

Snow keeps on falling and falling...now it is belly deep for the dog. Poor ol' girl Fixins. But as always, it has warmed up to snow, so no more -20C (-4F) temps to bare for now...just more moisture of the snowy kind. Rather Christmas postcard like. "Dee dee dee!"

Heavenly winter wonderland at the geese and swan pens today.​

I AM gonna SO sell snowcones in July on the roadside here...was kidding before about it but not now..."Snowcones...get yer snowcones so we can finally see the green for the white!"


Quote:
Originally Posted by ChickenCanoe

Daughter update.

Made it 250 miles on this bad boy today

Congrats CC! You have had a hand in raising up some awesome children...love the ongoing saga of your daughter and her gumption. Hats off to your style! So love the photos and we all get to live thru her eyes...what AWESOME fun times. Thank you for this kindness of sharing with us oldies but goodies.

My first name is Cheryl.

Thoughts, strength and mighty prayers Cheryl.

I think my favorite part is that you have to go/walk to the top of the hill (half a mile) to get any bars on your phone!! Close enough that you can call for help if you need it, far enough away that nobody wants to bother.

Bwa ha ha...reminds me of one particular spot on my bus run...no service.

I happen to stop often enough right at the exact place were there is no reception--how do I know since I have never owned a mobile device myself? Huge GROANS and CRIES of frustration...I chuckle to myself because I have never EVER found any reasons whatsoever to own a mobile phone, beeper/pager...EVER...if you wanna get ahold of me, e-mail me or leave a message on the landline. Now my spouse, he has one because he is out and about in the middle of the boonies (bag phone for years and now a booster; we rely on our kid, computer engineer to outfit him with the latest and greatest devices because, well uh, Mom needs to be able to call Dad from the land line and see when dinner needs to be ready for his return, right?). I am sorry for all you persons that have to have a computer/phone and need to be wired in 24/7...for if it becomes an obsessive addiction, to me that can never be good for a human...unless it is about fun with food and well, we gotta eat every day, right...I said RIGHT?

I love leaving my computer sitting on the desk where it cannot bother me (had two laptops and wore then right out...now back to a desk top and love it--so much more power!). I need to regularly go outside to enjoy the REAL world--all fun and such on the Net but really...I never needed to be in constant contact with anyone before; texting, talking, e-mailing anyone like I see the walking zombies doing. No umbilical corded devices required to keep me alive. I am not a doctor on call, ready to "save a life" because of my talents. Pretty much check on the answering machine very few hours...the blinky light tells me if it was important enough to leave a message over. If someone died, I'll learn about it soon enough. LMBO Still waiting on the big inheritance--but not likely...not happened yet and probably won't. Born into the wrong family, no decent silver spoons to be found.

In the summer time here, there are SO many campers that camp right under our service tower, there are times where my dial up worked better than the supposed "high speed" they had us upgrade too when they quit providing dial up. Funny that, they sell more "connections" than they can provide services for. In the summer (darn eh), there are days where I cannot access my server...days of no Internet service and you know what! That is FABULOUS really...because the last thing I believe I need to be doing is having my brain sucked out by some silly technology (technology is meant to serve me, not me serve IT) when there is so many REAL things that need doing, in the summer time.

Now winter time, sure, need some entertainment to distract me from the winter whites because I need to go inside and warm up a bit before continuing onwards...but summer time. HA!

I live for summer time outside and being disconnected from the brain sucking techno worlds ... no offense meant to anyone here! I still have coffee breaks in the summer time and enjoy being plugged in to visit with like minded persons that are living the dream in the real world playing with bockers but I see far too many focussed inwards to these devices. The whole REAL world is rolling along, without them. That brain in a test tube, virtual reality is some people's worlds and I feel very sorry for them. I don't think humans are meant to live like that and would help explain why so many have depression and health issues...they don't feel real, don't even really move, and don't feel like they accomplish anything in a day.

Quote:

Oh, Heavens, Wisher! You realize that if you'd been out there with 7 teenage girls instead of guys, you'd have had to camp on top of that hill or deal with withdrawal symptoms.

Tom girls are always welcome...we camp as good and better than the boys I figure. My father took us camping in real canvas tents in the farthest outreaches of the wilderness--hours and hours by small boat. Camping to me was real work...a real workout because there were no luxuries...you hauled everything you needed in (freeze dried was mandatory if you did not boat in), you hauled water and organized firewood, made the latrine, hung your food way up in the tree along with the clothes you cooked in so the bears were not overly attracted, burned your garbage & buried it, can't recall how many times my head froze from the mountain stream you washed up in...my recollection of camping was that it was no "walk in the park." Even the dog had a small pack to carry their kibs in. Camping was an all day job just to do what you normally got done in what, an hour maybe at home with our conveniences?

I laughed when my MIL gave me a mix master that plugged into the used holiday trailer we bought from them. I looked at her stunned...she thought it was just great to show off to the camping neighbours that you could "whip cream" or "bake a cake" at the campsites. We bought the holiday trailer not to camp in (those days are loooong over for Rick and I...when we get tired of sitting round the fire pit pretending to camp at our always specially reserved slot--we go inside the house here!), but as a mobile evacuation plan on wheels for the dogs and us. Used it in 2005 when the Father's day flood (~150 year flood??) perked up three feet of water from the very ground after days & days of raining. Emergency planning...we have a home on wheels to escape in if we hafta. I guess I am old and can declare that loud and proud because camping would be more work to me and no R&R...R&R would be a hotel with room service where someone ELSE makes the bed, tidies the room, cooks and does the dishes! Tee hee...with our luck, I'd pick up bed bugs and infest our home. Bwa ha ha. Best I stay home and man the fort.

My father, he surveyed for the Mica Creek dam project and was use to being out and about in the middle of literally nowhere with basically a bed roll, tarp, extra wool socks, a compass, and an axe. I was the first registered child born in Mica Creek...real pioneer types, my family. I am quite surprised my father did not make my sister and I start the fire with two sticks just to prove a point that we could if we needed to. Thanks Dad!

I took a girly girl classmate freshwater fishing once. My secret hot spot, the scenery was fabulous and always the lure of some mighty big trout to be caught. She whined about how early we had to leave, she whined that the dog got to ride inside the cab, she whined about the gravel roads, she whined bout the hike in, she whined about the bug spray, she whined about practically everything I found wonderful and enjoyable about going. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was when I showed her how to bait her hook with a worm (told you I was OLD--bait and barbs were legal in the Dino era) and left her with a supply and went further upstream to start fishing. Not gone ten feet away and she whined she had lost her "bait." I went back once more to show her how it's done and then when I got 15 feet away, she announced her "bait" was gone again. I said to her simply, "There's suntan lotion in my pack by your feet. Why don't you have a nap and soak up some sun?" That was that...happy as a clam she was...all she had to so was sit there. Never again, never EVER again did I invite a female counter part (other than the canines or TOM boys--they're not really girly girls now are they!!) to enjoy my fishing trip outings. Rather be alone than cater to someone that simply does not what to be out there.

Wisher, I too had a son, and I agree, God knew I would never make much of a mother to a girl...not one that would not end up being just like me. Ha ha ha...jury is still out on if that is a fate worse than death or not!

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[insanity]

Doing "Idiot Hatch" right now. My brooder has 2 SS,3 EE(store bought),3 EE (mine), 1 Tetra tint, and 3 SFH. I just wait till they grow out. lus DH can't get me to sell them young if I can't ID them.

 

[ronott1]

Does anyone else "idiot hatch". I hatched SFH, blue laced barnies, marans, and AofU X EE frizzles all together. Oh and I threw in a couple of mutts from the laying pen cuz there was room. Now I pick some of them up and ask them. What the heck are you? Some are obvious but probably half are not.

Separate the eggs

Doing "Idiot Hatch" right now. My brooder has 2 SS,3 EE(store bought),3 EE (mine), 1 Tetra tint, and 3 SFH. I just wait till they grow out. lus DH can't get me to sell them young if I can't ID them.

I use tomato baskets and then zip ties by color:

 

[ronott1]

Quote: by ronott1

Your hens have nice thick-shelled eggs, and I can't see a blasted thing in there, so I'm going with, so far so good! LOL Jason sent some White Empordanesa the next day, and I split his between the incubator and a broody hen who refused to quit - a very experienced Silkie who is the absolute best little Mama I have. I can't wait, too!

I have a dozen in the incubator on day 5. I will try to candle them on Tuesday.

Good Luck!