Utah!

[themadchicken]

does anyone know about broody hens? a friend of mine stopped by tonight and said one of his hens was acting weird. he described a broody hen. she will not leave the nest box at all. He has wood eggs (i don't know why) in the boxes and she wont leave them unless he tosses her out of the coop, she gets extremely irritable and goes right back in and sits. i happen to have some Ameraucanas that are fertile from my young ee rooster. he wants 6 new hens to replace his old hens. so how many eggs should we let her sit on? and how do i hold the eggs for incubation? I'm kind of new on this whole old fashion way but need to know cause i plan on my silkies to sit on some for me in the upcoming year.if anyone knows about this it will be helpful cause i plan on starting to gather eggs for him tomorrow.

 

[the-bird-man]

Oh the good ol days!! 

any idea what year this is from? its very cool. thanks for posting this

 

[RedIII]

madchicken, I think you can refrigerate those eggs for at least a week. Before you go to stick them under the hen, just make sure they're back up to room temperature. I don't know enough about it to be very helpful, but there are plenty of other experienced people on here that I'm sure can chime in

Fun stuff!

 

[SashaT]

Oh the good ol days!!

Oh, man! I have some GREAT stuff I should take pictures of/scan and post for you guys! I think I mentioned when I first joined that my great grandparents (whose farm we now own) used to raise chickens...there are old newspaper articles about my grandpa Merrill and his eggs, or his 1,200 chickens! In the cellar, where they used to sell their eggs, roaster hens and dairy milk out of, they have lots of tops cut off of old egg cartons. Too cool! This whole property is like a museum.

 

[Cynthia12]

Brad, here is another ad...I got a lot of them from my sis in my e-mail..I'll have to post one a day until I've posted them all, the baby chick got my attention. 1934......
I actually think these are kind of cute. Have these come back in style? For us older folks? I think I've seen some similar to these.

 

[Cynthia12]

Sasha, we would love to see some of that "stuff". That would be fun...

 

[the-bird-man]

that is cool cynthia! i am big into history so i love this stuff. did you know for years one of the most common meats eaten in the us was squab? squab is pigeon. people would breed them in their back yard and eat them, most people would think you are crazy to eat squab now a days. oh and do you know how hot dogs got their name? yep they were made out of dog

 

[Cynthia12]

I can see pigeons being eaten, especially during WW2. I couldn't eat dog today, but I could eat pigeon. I've had the wild dove.

I have 4 chicks out, and they are all buff in color, except the three that hatched from the olive color eggs have that black on their necks..triplets! Only one brown egg has hatched..like I said, buff. Now I think I know the real reason he got rid of Buff.. He said he wanted to get more sex links with the RIR roo. Guess he had to give the RIR roo a chance. I have a couple of brown eggs that are pipped..will be interesting. The ones from the green eggs have really cute full muffs and beards. Full beards! Little fluff muffins. : )
And, why are those smileys working..or the pictures? It was getting slow last night, but today, won't do anything!

 

[RedIII]

Sasha, that would be pretty fun to see some of the stuff you're talking about!

birdman, I didn't know people raised pigeons for food during that time, but I'm not too surprised. I had a relative that raised rabbits to feed his family during the Depression. I guess when it comes to taking care of your family, you need to use your resources. I had also heard that hotdogs were filled with all the leftover stuff that wouldn't normally sell in the butcher shop.......yum.

Cynthia, I just want you to know that I was awake in the middle of the night, and I thought, "Hmm, I wonder how many chicks Cynthia will get tonight?" Haha

 

[corvidae]

does anyone know about broody hens? a friend of mine stopped by tonight and said one of his hens was acting weird. he described a broody hen. she will not leave the nest box at all. He has wood eggs (i don't know why) in the boxes and she wont leave them unless he tosses her out of the coop, she gets extremely irritable and goes right back in and sits. i happen to have some Ameraucanas that are fertile from my young ee rooster. he wants 6 new hens to replace his old hens. so how many eggs should we let her sit on? and how do i hold the eggs for incubation? I'm kind of new on this whole old fashion way but need to know cause i plan on my silkies to sit on some for me in the upcoming year.if anyone knows about this it will be helpful cause i plan on starting to gather eggs for him tomorrow.

You can gather eggs for up to 7 days, though 3-4 tops is best. Keep them in a cool place, but don't refrigerate (that's a little too cool). Try to tip them from side to side a couple of times a day until they are going under the broody (just tip the whole egg carton). How many she can sit on depends on the size of the eggs--I have a BLRW who is currently sitting on more than a dozen (not sure how many more because she doesn't want to share and I don't care to move her much). A silkie wouldn't be able to sit on as many as a Buff Orpingting, for example, but basically, whatever you can cram under her should be fine. Easiest to slip them under her at night, I hear, though I put some under my broody in the middle of the day. Got my hand pecked for my trouble, too.