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[rebrascora]

Quote: Noooo.... I meant that if you were hoping for a broody hen to incubate eggs then it would probably be next Spring before one went broody.... you will get eggs way before then!

If you have had them a month, then they should be well settled in. If 2 of them are showing reddened combs, then it could be any day for them to start laying. Are they checking out the nest boxes. Some people say that their pullets squat down when you approach them and that is a sign that they will start laying soon, but mine didn't do that. You might see the cockerel escort the pullets to the nesting boxes and check them out with her, a bit like house hunting as a couple! If he is just a young cockerel, he may not have learned to do that yet though.

It sounds like you may be making "a first egg" report any day though.... buying a dozen eggs from the shop usually does the trick though.... the same sort of principle as... wait all day for a bus and then 3 come at once.

Best wishes

Barbara

 

[birchwoodchooks]

I'm very lucky I have a handy husband and a friend who is a joiner!

 

[lamberts chooks]

Haha, well that was a feather brain moment on my part there!!!
Funnily enough when I went to let them out their house this morning, the Orpington and the cockerel were both asleep in the nest box together!
Also, are dummy eggs a good idea? I put 2 in the nest box yesterday, just to guide them for when they start and hopefully encourage a bit of laying!

 

[birchwoodchooks]

Dummy eggs are good for putting under a broody (while you collect a batch of eggs) / encouraging a bird to sit without risking them egg pecking, which if they start can be an awful habit to break (pardon the pun). I wouldn't think it would help encourage laying as that happens once the system is mature enough which can take a while for Orpingtons. I would guess if a bird isn't mature enough to lay she won't be mature enough to go broody as it will all be hormonally controlled, I'd take the dummies out till she's laying regularly but that's just me.

 

[rebrascora]

Some people consider dummy eggs to be useful in encouraging young pullets to lay in the nest boxes, rather on the floor or out in the run, so in my view there is no harm leaving them in the nests but as birchwoodchooks says, it will not make them lay any sooner unfortunately.

 

[birchwoodchooks]

Set my eggs this morning this is going to be a very long 3 weeks.

 

[rebrascora]

Yes, I can imagine.
It's easier I think when you have lots of other chooks to look after to distract you, but when it's an incubator in the house to fuss and frown over all the time and worry about temperature and humidity being right, I don't know how I would cope with that. And then of course at the end of it all, to see them pipping and zipping, I would never sleep or leave the house! Thank goodness I have a couple of broodies who tell me to mind my own business, in no uncertain terms, when I get too interfering. I don't think I could manage an incubator. How do you cope with power cuts etc? We have been getting blips almost every day recently. Do incubators cope with that sort of thing?
How many have you set? Did you manage to get the Brahmas and bantam Orps you wanted? Do keep us updated with their progress. I bet your boys are nearly as excited as you!

 

[birchwoodchooks]

We seem to be okay with power dips, thankfully I really would be on the edge of my seat. I managed to get both breeds and have set 6 of each. The boys have been wearing out the carpet already running upstairs to peer into the incubator. I have a brinsea incubator and have had fantastic hatch rates in it. I don't worry too much about humidity I use a chart, weigh the eggs before they go in then calculate what the should weigh on hatch day (first weight less 14%). Then weigh them every 3 days to check there are following the line, and adjust appropriatly. Takes all the guess work out of it.

I just can't wait to see the boys faces when we candle next week.

 

[7OxfordHens]

Exciting, keep us updated on their progress.

Our two Rhode-Island bantam chicks are spending the day times outside now, in a covered run. I can't believe how loudly they cheep for such small things, they seem to be much more happy outside scratching about, than in their brooder. When do you think they can start sleeping outside (in coop)? They are about 75 % feathered at the moment. It was much easier with our last batch, raised by broody - she and her 7 week olds have started sleeping in the main coop now.

Have you finished your drilling Barbara?

 

[rebrascora]

Hi, yes drilling finished for now. I am still having to lift some hens up onto the new roost on a night. The teenagers have figured out the ladder quite well, but the older ones and younger ones haven't quite got it yet. The two broodies take their chicks into the sideboard/brooder each night and seem reasonably content to share it although they have distinct compartments that they prefer. There is chick crumb and water in there for them and rearer pellets in the hen house area for the adults and juveniles, but they all go out and free range during the day. Tasha is keeping her brood fairly close to the hen house, but Frances and her older lot (3 weeks) spend most of the day turning over the horses muck heap. Poor worms just don't stand a chance, but I've never had such fantastic manure.... it's broken down so finely, it's just like compost you buy, with added nitrogen from the hens own additions of course! I might have to start charging double for it! I operate a delivery service to local gardeners and the proceeds go to World Horse Welfare charity so that horses less fortunate than mine can benefit from the sale of their waste product.

When I think back to the start of the year/summer, I was so concerned that the hens/chicks would get stood on by the horses or attacked by my cats or the broodies would never manage to keep all their chicks together and would lose some. I would put all the chicks in a box and carry them out to a small covered enclosure in the stack yard with their mother during the day, so they could have some grass and then put them back in the box at night and carry them back to the hen house and put them in the sideboard and then have to catch the broody and put her in too, because she couldn't figure out where they had gone once I put them in the box. Now that I am onto my third brood, I am so much more relaxed and let the broody take them out of the sideboard when she wants to and into the yard and beyond and then they know how and where to go back to on a night.... what a neurotic mother I was that first time!! Poor Tasha must have been rolling her eyes at me with what she had to put up with.

Of course, I've had problems too, but on the whole it has been a wonderful experience keeping hens again.