Good Morning! <=2017

redninja · Post by **redninja** » Tue Jun 21, 2016 6:32 am

Much cooler this morning. 11 degrees.
OMG. Just listened to an item on CBC.
They have developed a way, through candling, to determine sex of chicken in the egg before incubation!
This will lead to them only hatching hens and get rid of the roo shredding practice.
Wow

TomK · Post by **TomK** » Tue Jun 21, 2016 6:45 am

Wow...not sure if thats a good thing or not...wouldn't it be better to find a use for unwanted roos?

redninja · Post by **redninja** » Tue Jun 21, 2016 6:49 am

This is all about money for the egg industry. They want their hatcheries full of girls to replace layers. You might find the opposite for the meat industry where they only hatch males.
For all of us here, we need our roosters.

Maximus · Post by **Maximus** » Tue Jun 21, 2016 7:03 am

Well that's very interesting and wonderful because that really is a horrid practice. Wonder how that is even possible. I can't even figure it out until someone crows or lays an egg haha!

Speaking of sex of chickens, due to thunder last night I couldn't sleep for a while and I read this article. A brief drop in temperature for 3 days during incubation can change the sex of the chicken. A male to a female - but only 10% of the males switch. Very interesting. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/a-dro ... 38516.html

Lovely day. Nice and cool, windows are open and AAC is off. A wee bit of rain and a whole lot of racket to get those few drops.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Maximus · Post by **Maximus** » Tue Jun 21, 2016 7:14 am

redninja wrote:QR_BBPOST This is all about money for the egg industry. They want their hatcheries full of girls to replace layers. You might find the opposite for the meat industry where they only hatch males.
For all of us here, we need our roosters.

The egg layers and meat suppliers are different breeds I think. But you're right, Roos go for meat consumption so we do need them. I wonder if there is a standard layer breed they use. Hmm, I've never looked that up. I hate the thought of waste. Those female or male eggs should be sold at the minimum.

Post by **WLLady** » Tue Jun 21, 2016 8:21 am

Morning everyone!
what i don't understand is why don't hatcheries just incubate a couple of degrees higher? the female embryos can withstand the higher temps better and it kills the male embryos. of course, you decrease the numbers of females too, but you can skew the ratio....(has to be highly controlled but there's tons of literature on how to do it). then they'd have fewer males to begin with....?
sigh. so the scientist in me thinks it's great they can do that by candling. the realist and geneticist in me says "uh oh"....that is to me, first it is just wrong to shred a male chick....BUT it's also wrong to circumvent mother nature IMO. we need a few boys for the simple reason of propagating the species without genetic bottlenecking, preferably with a fit male. the fitter the male the better the offspring, and that's how species evolve and adapt to the world. if we cut out that whole process completely it's going to come dangerously close to losing species because of mismanagement, or some other aspect. sure we can hermetically seal our buildings and do AI and use sperm from a "great" male and if something happens in which we no longer have the protected living conditions those birds and lines are going to be gone because they are mal-adapted.

just means i'm going to keep doing what i do (within reason and personal ability) to continue GOOD lines of birds that aren't genetically bottlenecked....cause someday we're gonna need them when and if the poultry industry tanks through some freak incident that wipes out all our genetically identical birds....

wow. i might be having a pessimistic day....lol.

beautiful morning this morning. not a single drop of rain last night. we watched the thunderstorms build right on top of us, and move east and dump over there LOL. amazing watching the clouds grow and hearing the winds coming...i'm SOOO happy it's cooler today! so happy! i thought for sure i was going to lose birds yesterday to the heat. thankfully not....but that is sooooo hard on them. the horses actually drank about 100 liters of water yesterday. and were soaked from standing and sweating. fun fun.

got 4 tiny little lightning fast guineas to cayle last night. forgot how quiet and fast those things are within 24 hours of hatching LOL. faster than mice! and the orange legs are really quite funny.
well, trying to figure out holiday/vacation plans. hitting a snag with our piknik timing. sigh. if we can't make it we'll stop at jan's and leave something for everyone! will try to figure it out today....and today i'm picking up copies of the xrays and CT scans, so i can look at those a little more in depth too....should be interesting anyways. i still don't believe they could straighten everything out....i gotta see that again to believe it!

hope everyone has a nice, cool day!!!!!

ross · Post by **ross** » Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:10 am

Maybe they can make chickens like worms . Both sexes in one body then use whatever one yu want . Real frankinchickens .

Ontario Chick · Post by **Ontario Chick** » Tue Jun 21, 2016 10:39 am

Good morning,
Had a tornado warning last night, just like Kathy watched the storm build up, some pretty spectacular clouds at one point everything turned an odd yellow colour and not a drop of rain.
Temperature 32C in the barn in the evening and late at night had to go in and turn the heat lamp back on.
Can't come up with one positive thing to say about the "sexing before hatch" thing, somehow we always manage to use the best new shiny thing for something completely stupid.
Ok, lovely sunny day, sky is the bluest blue, having a LG latte in a local Cafe, things could be worse.
Have a productive one !

JimW · Post by **JimW** » Tue Jun 21, 2016 11:10 pm

Good evening. Much more pleasant day today. Birds seemed a lot happier. My stupid adult guinea fowl have not been going into their pen in the evening for me to lock them up. We had 6, down to 2 earlier this evening, was just sitting here in the living room a few minutes ago, hear a bunch of bird and weird noises, ran outside with flashlight, but too late. I think I am down to 1 adult guinea fowl now. These were the larger french guineas, not as fast and cannot fly very well, compared to the regular guineas. For the future I think I will keep the french guineas locked up 24/7 and only let out the regular guineas for free range tick control. I have 20 keets I am raising up, plus 2 dozen eggs in the incubator so hopefully a few of those will hatch.

Maximus · Post by **Maximus** » Wed Jun 22, 2016 7:36 am

Is it me or is predator deaths high this year??

I was talking to the guy behind me, which is waaaaaay far behind me. He has been shooting at the coyotes because they killed his dog in his backyard. Dog was a retired hunting lab napping under a tree and he said by the time he noticed from the kitchen window it was too late. He fought every tear as he was telling me and in the same breath he is furious and has declared war on them. He said he's gotten 4 so far but knows more. I, thankfully, haven't seen any since the crossbow goes off almost every day. My neighbour up the road hasn't seen them crossing his property lately either. I've also been taking the ATV out back to make it not so 'peaceful' out there where was before I avoided it.

Boy life is busy these days. Summer is always killer with extra work outside and our business is the busiest in the months without snow. By the time I stopped yesterday it was 9:30 and I flopped in my chair and finished watching a movie with JT. (Horrible Bosses 2).

We left it up to him to float back and forth between Lou's place and here. He works all day with Lou (co-op) till the end of the school year but then he comes home at the end of every day. I find a lot of (selfish) comfort in that. He's starting to work with a brick layer for a month in the summer. He wants to do masonry so we have 4 houses on the go this summer and will be a great opportunity for him to learn and check out his future so to speak.

Surprise rain last night. Anyone else get it? Not much, but enough to make everything wet.

Ducklings get a warm swim each morning. It's been cool, but they want their water. I make it nice and warm for them and boy the playing that happens in the mornings is so humorous, dunk after dunk and running around and almost tripping over a blade of grass. They sure are sweet!! Glad I got ducklings instead of Guinea fowl. It was a toss up.

Got some more Roos heading to the auction this Friday. Boy my hatch ration was not pullet friendly. I'm hoping I have some more girls sitting under silkie mom!! 8 eggs under her. 29th is her due date.

Taaaadaaaa! 95% of the lettuce is ready all at once. Ugh.

Friends over for BBQ and bonfire this weekend. Might get some kayaking in. Soooo busy, but hoping to make some time for it.

Hope everyone has a great day!