Yeah, I have 3 hives but I'm a bad bee dad. I just can't seem to get enough equipment built in a timely manner for them now. I didn't want to use any of the equipment from last year because they died out. I think they starved because of the early winter but I didn't want to take the chance on reusing it in case it was disease.
I have had chicks hatching for 2 days. Some of my friend's eggs from a Slow Food project started a day early (probably because they spent 2 weeks on the top shelf of the incubator) and I wasn't ready. Mine, set the same day, are starting to hatch. I have to get set up to ship 20 of them across the state. I'm going to deliver the Slow Food chicks up north, probably tomorrow.
I had a hen start setting in the only nest in a temporary house with 8 other hens, stressing them out. I moved her to a broody apartment after cleaning it out about 5 this morning. She settled right in on her eggs and the 8 from her flock that I preincubated and added to the nest.
All this chicken and bee work has put me way back on gardening.
I moved about 40 chicks to the brooder house after I mucked it out and added 3 horizontal nipple water outlets.
I'm usually up around 4.
I worked nights (5:30 PM - 4:00 AM) for most of my working life and I hated it. I love watching the sun rise but sadly, for most of my life, I had to see it before going to sleep rather than after awakening.
After that night shift period of about 15 years when I transitioned to skilled trades, I started rotating between 8 hour shifts of days, evenings and midnights every 4 months.
Chicken on a tether. She'll get used to it.Love your Hen and chicks pic tnspurs!
vehve sounds like your bunnies want out outta there pen. And it's so nice!
Here is our first broody of the year with her chicks.
I tried to take sweetie for a walk she hated it! lol
So cool. Do you have plastic or wax foundation?
I've enjoyed and drank coffee since I was in my 20s but knew that it was very acidic. Love the aroma of good coffee. My favorite coffee moments were latte in Switzerland, Green Mountain coffee in Jamaica and mornings with roosters crowing with fresh coffee in Costa Rica. I quit cold turkey about 6 months ago.
Nice fish Cynthia. What body of water was that?
@vehve I went to the Purina nutritionist presentation Saturday at Bell Community Garden. As we know, commercial feed has always been formulated to satisfy the needs of the commercial poultry industry. That being broiler and layer operations as well as chicks and growing birds. Those being the bulk of the poultry since the early 1900s, feed producers sold the same feeds to the small holder.
I asked your question and he said that they are now considering making a feed intended for aged poultry since there are so many more older birds being kept as pets, just like they make food for old dogs and cats.
He said that they assume people will feed table scraps, scratch and other treats so they put more nutrients in the feed than chickens in their prime need just so that they will still thrive.
I had always assumed that the primary differences between layer and grower feed was protein and calcium percentages. He said that layer had significantly more vitamins than grower because of all that a hen expels when laying eggs regularly.
There were two topics of his talk I found interesting.
One is that chickens, being voracious eaters, shouldn't be left without feed. In trying to keep their crops and gizzard full, if no feed is available, they'll eat whatever is accessible including their bedding. Then that stays in their gizzard until it breaks down.
The other is that most chickens start slowing down their laying as they age primarily because they're overweight. He recommended cutting back on feed (counter to the first point) in molting season to cut back on fat and to a lesser extent, muscle mass. The latter will temporarily decrease while reducing body fat.
He said that layer feed is formulated for optimal nutrition through about 6 laying cycles.
I asked him how the feed for aged hens would be formulated differently. He said he could tell me but then he'd have to kill me.
Basically he said older birds just don't uptake nutrients as well and specifically things related to shell quality like vitamin D, calcium and phosphorus.
