Thinking about writing software program...

[needmorechickens!]

I think its an excellent idea....I'm a programmer too...I'll help test!
~Rebecca

 

[SGM]

Why doesn't someone just set-up one with excel? I have a goat breeders program that when you enter a date that the goat was bred it automatically projects your stalling date, date she's due when she would come in heat again if she didn't settle, etc. I don't have a clue how to change it for chickens though. I guess I could look and see though...

 

[rizq]

Excel would work for dates and projections, but it is pretty limited. Writing a specific program would give you many more options ... like being able to see you temp and humidity on your computer screen ... I LOVE that idea!

 

[SGM]

Yeah but would it be costly?

 

[rizq]

Costly to create? I don't know, the op would have to answer that as I don't write programs. I would think it would be mainly time, so it depends on how much time it takes.

As far as buying the finished program ... some are expensive and some aren't. I guess that depends on how much time the programer puts into it and how technical and functional it is. That's a good question though ... how much do you think your finished product would cost djackjr? Would it be affordable to those of us who can't stop collecting chickens and spend all our money on chicken feed?

Whether the cost is worth it or not would be personal preference. I guess it depends on how technical you want to get and how much you are willing to pay for unnecessary conveniences (or if it would even be useful to you) if it would be worth it or not.

I think it's a cool idea, though.

ETA: Excel would definitely be cheaper and easier ... I can program excel to tell me the dates ... but I can also count on my calendar, lol. It wouldn't be worth the time, for me personally, to mess with excel.

 

[panner123]

Quote:
A number of schools around here have classes that raise chickens. All my grand children have had an bator in their class many times. The long and short of it is, prep the bator (get the temp and humidity set), put the eggs in for 18 days, take the turner out on day 18, raise the humidity abd watch the eggs hatch. That is the simple bator way. The best way is to let moma hen do all the work. You will find she knows which egg to kick out of the nest, at what time so it won't blow up in the nest. And if the chicks need help getting out of the egg, she can do it much better than we can.

 

[djackjr]

The only costs would be my time which is free!!!! Since I like to mess around with programs in my spare time, this one has me going allready. So just send Ideas that you would like to see in the program and I will sit down and flowchart it out and get working on it. This is a great way for me to spend the blah winter months!! Beats painting a bedroom or bathroom.

 

[tackyrama]

This is my last post on this thread. I have 7, soon to be 8 grandchildren and they are all up to their noses in geeky computer stuff. Computers are great for what they do. I was a programmer for cnc machines. The last thing I would ever do is subject my grandkids to more uneccesary computer stuff. The grandkids love to visit and see nature in progress withour ANY help from an impersonal computer.


My chicken coop project https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=14471-coop-layout was conceived and constructed whooly by myself with inspiration from my old grandad who if he needed anything done was done by himself with only his personal computer for aid (his brain) As you can see I am computer savvy which is not to say computer controlled.

 

[LilRalphieRoosmama]

Well, I think it's a great idea. I have a hard time remembering the info, so I made an excel spreadsheet. If I have several hatches going on at once, it's even harder to keep track. I like the idea of having the info right on the screen. Good luck with your project!

 

[The Chicken Lady]

Interesting idea... I think it would be important for the program to be able to display information in charts and graphs. Sometimes, a visual display is better than a table of values.