Washingtonians

[Stumpfarmer]

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I'd use shavings, but you can never guarantee that they're cedar-free and I've managed to get the old shingle-weaver's complaint: cedar poisoning.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

Does anybody know of a good free web site hosting.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

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I use alfalfa pellets for my brooders, that way when its time to change them I just toss into the garden.. When they are older I go to the shavings.

Oh, that sounds nice but I tried to use alfalfa pellets here once and the cows pushed a couple steel posts over to get to them. I can only envy you the freedom from big determined quadrupeds. Alfalafa smells nice, and makes great compost.

 

[KMHunter]

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Nice one CR!!! Good try!

Hey I didn't say how MANY YEARS early I would be !!!!

You are full of "applesauce" tonight!

 

[KMHunter]

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Those are wonderfully beatuiful, BIG chickens!

 

[Chicken Rustler]

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We all know its really only a 20 somethings !!!!

 

[pettec63]

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yeaa!!! I wanna see!??? lol

 

[Kaneke]

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when my neighbor donated his old coop to me, he had been using deep straw in it and in the run (under a covered carport)
for his four chickens (four others did not make it to adulthood)

I cleared it out pronto !

it was dusty, it was dirty (they changed it out every three days but it was still dirty, as in earth dirt not chicken dirt),
no wonder his chickens were always sneezing

and straw gets moldy really fast ... even in a "dry" covered area --- mold is NOT your chickens' friend ...

he got rid of the chickens because they were "too much work" ... LOL, changing out the bedding that often !

our soil here is mostly sandy and rocky, very little topsoil, it drains GREAT ... which steered me towards sand under the chickens (I remember the mess at my aunt's chicken house, with matted-down hay -- I hated to go in the run there)

it's super easy to scoop out the poo from the sand in the coop .. I have only an inch or so deep in there and it works fine -- will add a poop board now that I see where the chicks prefer to roost (they have two 4-foot long roosts, perpendicular to each other right now, but I can see that the poo is all in one end of one roost ...

right now my run is big clumps of weedy grass, with some evergreen blow-down branchlets in there too, since the chicks love to eat those

as they dig down to the sandy dirt, I will add more sand out there too, the grass clumps should grow right on up through it

 

[TheReidHomestead]

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Oh I'm excited for you!!!! Who are you getting them from? And I expect to see pic's el pronto!!!!

 

[cheryl98117]

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That would be me. Tomorrow is day 8, so I think I will candle tomorrow, or maby late tonight. Will I be able to tell those that are "good" from those that aren't by now? And I should toss those that are clear? I'm almost afraid to look as I am already super bumbed out about this entire ordeal. the seller did say she would send me more eggs for the cost of shipping, but I dont know if I want to have eggs shipped that far again.

Im gonna go watch some of those videos that were sudgested earlier. Hopefully I will have at least half that are good. But think that maby hoping for 15 out of 30 is a bit of a stretch with as bad as the eggs were.

I'll let you know that I kept all of mine until day 18. I did check them for smell.. But I had one I would have tossed hatch.

Well I candled, and every single one that I pulled, I also cracked open just to see. Every single one that I cracked had nothing in it, and was so scrambled that the white and yolk were the consistancy of water. Just poured out of the eggs. Any that were not definately clear, I left in the bator.

So far the losses are; 4 bantam, 4 light sussex, one ? marked egg, 3 Cukoo Marans, 1 CMX, and 1 thats marked with an F. All of these were totally scrambled, watery, and clear. There are 5 more that I am iffy on, but will wait and see so long as they don't start smelling.

Edited to add. I am in no way saying that this is the sellers fault. The eggs were perfect, all intact, with no major damage to the box. I'm thinking they got pretty shook up during transport.