Wisconsin "Cheeseheads"

[Bigfamily4me]

Ok I never use the extra window thing... I'm going off memory here:

I feed medicated feed because that's what tend to be available. Even with that I have had a cocci outbreak and it flipping sucked. There is no way to say one is going to work better than another. Trial and error really. If you get cocci lots of us know how to deal with that fast so No Worries Mon...

Incubator... Jim is the be all in this. It's true. But I'll tell you after hatching for almost 6 months straight last year (I was kinda addicted, and sold quite a few) I found a trick that worked for me. Dry incubation. No water for the first 18 days then you pop it up for the lockdown. This keeps temps more stable and allows for the air cells to do what they need to. I had MUCH better hatches when I switched to that method. I also use the styrofoam incubators. You can read up on dry incubation methods on BYC.

Breda chickens... They look so cool. Different looking. From what I was reading they are a strong bird, great for free ranging, and lay a nice large white egg. (Which is supposed to be very tasty too). I'll be quite interested to see what happens with them. I love different!

Had a puking kid or two last night. I'm sure on the one because he puked for hours. I lost track after 7. The other child said he puked once at midnight. I don't necessarily believe him because at dinner he was saying how the pork chops were gonna make him puke. I think this is being played as a way to get him out of eating pork chops again because "they made him puke last time!" Very sneaky but not out of the range of possibilty. So that child, who seems remarkably recovered, will be stuck in his room all day because "he's contaminated." We'll see if he cracks....

Gotta go do more decontaminating and laundry and breakfast, etc etc

(Btw... I smell dog cr@p in my house. That dog better pray he just farted or SO HELP ME GOD!)

 

[chikenscratch]

I will be starting bees if the deal goes thru on this house!!!!

The Iditarod started. ...Alaska sled race.

Good morning all.

 

[Bigfamily4me]

There will be a funeral service for the dog at Noon. All are welcome to attend.

 

[unkadan]

There will be a funeral service for the dog at Noon. All are welcome to attend.

chalk up another "cull" for Bigfam" !!

 

[delisha]

I would love some eggs from these guys too..they are really beautiful..and so sweet. Eat tons of food though. Even more than my Orps who weigh twice as much. They are not laying. The guy did say they are not laying well. The male loves to greet me every morning..the hen is a biter. Not hard but food aggressive. Must be from hand feeding. The little pullet is shy and hard to catch. She is afraid of her parents..they are a little hard on her. I am going to try to give them a bit more room today. Tomorrow the weather should be nicer. They are enjoying the sun and love to sun bathe.

You guys will have to talk to Ann about eggs and chicks..

 

[jvls1942]

good morning,, I had bees for a couple of years.. we caught a wild swarm.. I can tell you that we never had a better garden before or since then.. Honey bees are not aggressive if left to do their thing.. just set the hive well away from the house,, a couple hundred feet or so.. when we had them, my 11 year old son handled them.. he was a mild easy going kid, so it was a natural team.

I think I should type up / update my incubation instructions and post it here for everybody to print out.. It is so much easier to set up the bator correctly BEFORE setting eggs than having to correct the problems after..

maybe I should come out of retirement and travel the countryside building chicken coops..
"Have Hammer, Will Travel" da dUm, dA dum dadada daaaa..........

Bigvam,, I am not a fan of dry incubation.. If it works for you, do it.. but I would never recommend it.. the reason it works sometime is because there is enough humidity in the surrounding air.. Have you ever done it in the dead of winter when the relative humidity is very low ? I am not putting you down or challenging you,, I really want to know..

another mythe I want to crack someday is setting a styrofoam incubator near a window where the sun can hit it.. If the bator is preset correctly, the outside temperature should not affect it unless the surrounding temp is more than 99.5F.
.hmmm maybe this will be a project for this summer..

my biggest obstacle will be finding a window that is not cluttered with house plants..

.jimbbl........

 

[Terri O]

Good morning! It sure is nice what a sunny weekend does for the soul! I noticed in Hurley's incubation corner (very nice job BTW) that she also had a styro surround for her styro incubator. I had the most luck with mine when I put it in the basement where the temps are much more stable than upstairs. This is the main reason that I am hatching a bit later this year. Our house temps fluctuate by 10+ degrees between day and night and that is just too big a span for that little incubator.
Jim's instructions are very similar between the Sportsmen and the styro ones in the area of a fail-safe temperature. Then he tapes the seams up too to help with temp and humidity. I am sure he will send you the full instruction packet! LOL!

Bees were my dh's "livestock of choice" when we first moved here JJ. I still have the hives in the back. They have mostly been reclaimed by the weeds. He wasnted to "get back into it" so I got $350 worth of hive supplies from Dadant and there are presently buried someplace in the barn! He thought they would be easy...they arent! They were very fun to have, the pollination rates in the garden were fantastic and we did capture a swarm once! That is what you had in your tree BTW...
Terry and Jerry helped capture it, very fascinating! The biggest problems we had were keeping the colony overwintered, mites and the old farmer next door and his pesticide use! I would do it again though. Thanks for that link to "use" bees! I responded to an ad on CL to host some bees but never got an answer! I will try this one.

Gotta run--it's getting late! Have a good one! TerriOhopingthesapwillstarttorunintothebucketsoon

 

[denisemhogan]

Greetings everyone! Haven't been online in awhile here. Since I was so zealously buying chicks and ducks...I have now been zealously caring for them. And all I have to say is...never again will I do baby ducks in the winter! Love my little super duper poopers...but man...are they a lot of work! Spring can not get here soon enough.

Jim...your pen is nice....I'll take one...

Have to check out these chickens your all writing about today...there is no way I can catch up on like 150 pages...lol...hope everyone is doing well....new jobs are still liked and sick animals got well.

I'll have to at least try and skim the old pages....tons to do...hope all your Easter hatches go off well!

 

[Hurley]

Good sunny day to everyone.

So Admiral Bator is up and running, a smoooooth 99.5, 40% humidity, bleached, aired, and ready to roll. Sir Hatcher just reached 12% humidity this am, finally dried out, 99.5 set, so starting humidity calibration. I'm so pleased with how stable these guys have been running. Little Red is tripping along with his eggs and the Styros are off.

Girls must have really liked their tuna sandwich yesterday, whole nestbox full of eggs this am and a bunch of hopeful looking birds. They made do with BOSS and a little cat food.

Ready for spring, looking at the forecast and next two weeks look reasonable, so.. hopeful!

 

[zeke]

good sunny but cold (-9º) morning folks,

sunshine I suggest you sleep in a few more hour b4 checking the incubator (Jim will help, when he does I suggest you follow his instructions to the letter)

vicki, I haven't used medicated feed or shots and don't intend to this year, give the chicks some grass/weeds with soil attached when they are ummm a week old,,,this gets the gut working. I will feed some FF to the chicks this year early on, not as the sole diet but as an addition. I raised 50+ chicks last year not one died from disease

today "Joe" the original BCM roo goes to jail and his replacement gets the run of the big coop, we'll see how this plays out. Last summer when I had to catch Joe he flew through a window pane and he still remembers that, very hard to catch now.

the Sportsman gets fired up and adjusted today, did this when I got it but need to do the humidity thing and get ready for chicks,,,

bbl

danbundelinguptogeteggs

WHAT IS FF and the grass n dirt diet to young chicks helps with what?