Dani xxx
Songster
Yeah I love their song in summer I love to sit in front of their house with a book in the sunshine and have them sing to me ! X
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- Thread starter Habibs Hens
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Yeah I love their song in summer I love to sit in front of their house with a book in the sunshine and have them sing to me ! X
You have a lovely setup. Alot better than mine.
I take them out when the weather is better and put them in a run on the grass. I hatched 18 last year. These are all I have left. Most were males and caused me no end of problems. So they had to go. It was a shame.
@happyhens1972 How did your hatch go?
Hi Yorkshire Coop! Well, it depends how you look at it really....out of fourteen eggs, I had nine pip the wrong end and I had to assist most of them in one way or another.....two were full assisted hatches, over a twelve hour period! At the end of it all, I had eleven live chicks and three dead in shell. Out of the three dead, one had a badly deformed beak so would never have been viable, one had not absorbed the yolk at all and, I suspect, was already gone at lockdown and the last had absorbed the yolk fully so died very late on for unknown reasons, with no internal pip. All three dead were cockerels...so maybe a blessing.
Out of the eleven live chicks, I had ten who were strong, healthy and vigorous and are growing like weeds. I then had one with a leg issue. It seemed like maybe it was rotated somehow, at the hip, so the poor wee mite had one leg sticking out to the side somewhat, causing him to stagger round on tiptoes. He was eating and drinking fine, getting under the electric hen OK but he spent a lot of time standing against the wall of the brooder, trying to support himself until he dropped out of exhaustion and then he slept like the dead! I fitted him with a manacle in the hope that it would sort him out but it didn't seem to make a difference and as there is an intention to cull the cockerels within the next week or two anyway, I felt it was kinder to cull him early rather than let him struggle.
So now I am left with ten very active little fluff balls who are as cute as a button BUT out of those, only four are girls!
So....eleven live chicks out of fourteen eggs is pretty good...a 79% hatch rate....not bad I suppose, especially for winter eggs, however, I am bitterly disappointed. I've never had to assist so much in all the hatches I've ever had. It was a nightmare, and to go through all that and end up with only four girls and the awful task of culling seven little boys...not good at all! The only reason the little darlings are still alive is because chicks do better in numbers, I find, so the boys are helping the girls with added warmth and curiosity and exploration, developing their confidence and ability to thrive. In a couple of weeks, when the girls are bigger, have feathered in some more and need some more room, the boys will take their one way trip
I guess I've been spoilt in all my previous hatches...I've generally had nice, easy hatches with few problems, few worries and great rates. I've also had high girl to boy ratios so the heartbreak of culling the boys has been slightly offset by good girl numbers.
My incubator temps and humidity were absolutely spot on throughout, I found out that the power cut that so worried me, actually only lasted ten minutes after all, so this was not caused by anything I did at this end. I think it was poor quality eggs....but that is no consolation.
It's not all doom and gloom, I have four beautiful little pullets, all thriving, and I actually only intended to keep two for myself out of this hatch anyway so I have achieved my objective but I just wish it had all gone a whole lot better.
I have heard alot of mention of corid. I don't think you can get this on UK. Is it possible to get some kind of equivalent without having to go to vets for prescription?
You can get and use the pigeon one from Amazon. This is the one I have ~ https://www.amazon.co.uk/Petlife-Ha...1517601929&sr=8-1&keywords=corid+for+chickens
I mentioned that to my vet and he advised against it. He got me something called mixoil. But that is more preventative than for treatment.
Hi Yorkshire Coop! Well, it depends how you look at it really....out of fourteen eggs, I had nine pip the wrong end and I had to assist most of them in one way or another.....two were full assisted hatches, over a twelve hour period! At the end of it all, I had eleven live chicks and three dead in shell. Out of the three dead, one had a badly deformed beak so would never have been viable, one had not absorbed the yolk at all and, I suspect, was already gone at lockdown and the last had absorbed the yolk fully so died very late on for unknown reasons, with no internal pip. All three dead were cockerels...so maybe a blessing.
Out of the eleven live chicks, I had ten who were strong, healthy and vigorous and are growing like weeds. I then had one with a leg issue. It seemed like maybe it was rotated somehow, at the hip, so the poor wee mite had one leg sticking out to the side somewhat, causing him to stagger round on tiptoes. He was eating and drinking fine, getting under the electric hen OK but he spent a lot of time standing against the wall of the brooder, trying to support himself until he dropped out of exhaustion and then he slept like the dead! I fitted him with a manacle in the hope that it would sort him out but it didn't seem to make a difference and as there is an intention to cull the cockerels within the next week or two anyway, I felt it was kinder to cull him early rather than let him struggle.
So now I am left with ten very active little fluff balls who are as cute as a button BUT out of those, only four are girls!
So....eleven live chicks out of fourteen eggs is pretty good...a 79% hatch rate....not bad I suppose, especially for winter eggs, however, I am bitterly disappointed. I've never had to assist so much in all the hatches I've ever had. It was a nightmare, and to go through all that and end up with only four girls and the awful task of culling seven little boys...not good at all! The only reason the little darlings are still alive is because chicks do better in numbers, I find, so the boys are helping the girls with added warmth and curiosity and exploration, developing their confidence and ability to thrive. In a couple of weeks, when the girls are bigger, have feathered in some more and need some more room, the boys will take their one way trip
I guess I've been spoilt in all my previous hatches...I've generally had nice, easy hatches with few problems, few worries and great rates. I've also had high girl to boy ratios so the heartbreak of culling the boys has been slightly offset by good girl numbers.
My incubator temps and humidity were absolutely spot on throughout, I found out that the power cut that so worried me, actually only lasted ten minutes after all, so this was not caused by anything I did at this end. I think it was poor quality eggs....but that is no consolation.
It's not all doom and gloom, I have four beautiful little pullets, all thriving, and I actually only intended to keep two for myself out of this hatch anyway so I have achieved my objective but I just wish it had all gone a whole lot better.
Wow that is a lot of wrong end pips. Were the eggs posted to you? Do you have an auto turner?
Hi. Sorry I can't remember exactly why. I think it was something about it not being everso effective for hens. But if you have used it successfully then it's worth a look in.
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