Good Morning! <=2017

[Ontario Chick]

what is the appeal about "flax" bedding over ordinary straw or shavings? Just wondering....

I keep chicks in the house for a few days before they go in to the barn brooder, and flax isn't dusty so the room isn't covered in a layer of fine dust as it is with wood shavings.
Thanks for the heads up Jaye, Osgoode is a bit of the usual rounds I cover, but seriously considering working it in somehow.

[Ontario Chick]

Good morning,
Bright and shiny here, had to clean out the nest and trim broody chest, one broken egg (still an egg) in the nest.
so down to 6 , she was absolutely silent yesterday.
This morning DH reported broody taking a quick break, still 6 eggs but there is chirping.
This is probably the most eventful brooding we have ever experienced.
She better produce something, because sire has been dispatched 21 days ego, that might have been a bit of rash arrogance on my part.

[JimW]

Good evening... moved a few chicks today from the garage brooders to grow out pens in the backyard to make room for new chicks I am picking up tomorrow afternoon at Mill Pond Hatchery, 25 white rock meat chicks plus whatever hatches from the 80 eggs I dropped off for custom hatching. Hoping for a decent hatch rate, at home I have had a bunch of chicks hatch on day 22 or 23, hopefully the eggs hatch on time at Mill Pond you have to pick up your hatched chicks on day 22.

[WLLady]

morning everyone!
Fingers cross Jim for a great hatch rate!!! and fuzzies OC?

well, discovered this week that my left leg is still waking up and obnoxious.....like i somehow couldn't tell before...hm.
my hand is feeling WAY better from the over protective rooster, nothing broken, lots of black and blue, will be that lovely shade of green in a couple of days. but feeling way better. phoned the surgeon and yes, i need antibiotics before i go to the dentist now, for ever....whoohoo! i guess. got that all arranged. had a not so pleasant day at work yesterday with anything and everything that could go wrong did-only thing that didn't seem to happen was a fire alarm, that was in the next building instead! and this morning the parking up close to the building (all the accessible spots) were blocked off. awesome. so i discovered that people get very impatient when you cannot walk at normal speed through a crosswalk. sigh. guess i better get practicing walking uphill and downhill. so. next challenge. lots of those lately with physio.
discovered the growout coop has decided they don't like pelletted feed and will NOT eat it, so instead they ate a whole garden of daylilies, glads and cornflowers. they're locked in now with mixed crumb and pelletted feed. doorknobs. it's a whole coop of 80% boys, 20% girls...so girls are going to get moved this weekend, and the boys will stay out there. moved the guineas and a few younger chicks to the trailer in the garden. they are growing like crazy. will separate out the chickens, turkeys and guineas in there this weekend too. all the turkeys are going into the middle pen in the barn, and the guineas stay in the trailer and the chickens go boys to the growout coop and girls to the layer coop to grow up a bit before going into the barn upstairs.
and a pile of eggs to lock down tonight, to hatch on sun-mon....so i need to clean out the brooder and get it all set up for a pile of youngsters again.
And, the big news is i am now back to full time at work! whoohoo! i did it!!!!

looking forward to the bbq in august! and then taking some holidays sometime this summer. now that i'm back full time i am allowed to take holidays again! yay! also looks like we might get planted this weekend. it's been so wet......and then because it was wet all the darned weeds were knee high and had to be sprayed....so that happened a couple days ago, and now it's dying back nicely, so hopefully it can be drilled in the next couple days. it's weird...want rain because my lawn is going brown now, but don't because we have to dry out to get planted LOL. go figure.
hope everyone has a good day!

[Ontario Chick]

I am really curious to hear about your experience Jim,
I am taking eggs there next week, staying overnight, as it's too much for me to do the 6hour round trip in one day, but DH will have to do the pick up of "hopefully" chicks and that has to be done in one day and the pick up is Thursday between 2:30 - 5:30, they must be pretty sure the hatch is done? That kind of certainty for a backyard breeder, with the 22 &23 day hatches being the norm is a bit mind boggling.

[WLLady]

i think it depends on how stable the incubators are. the industrial incubators are awesome.....
with my hovabators i would easily see 22 days.....the sportsman is 20.5-21.5 on the nose. anything that has hatched at 22 has not survived.
the industrials hold better than the sportsman, at least where i work our incubators never waver more than 0.2C, so....(but they also cost mega $$-like 14000$ for a 2 shelf that would literally hold 3 turning racks). I just had to buy a new incubator for work because ours fried all the electronics, and we are spending 20K to get 2 half units. i would not be surprised to see hatcheries buy those, but for the backyarder....well, 6/49 or lottaMax is pretty much the only way! LOL

[Ontario Chick]

Sorry forgot about the broody, WLLady reminded me, must have been posting at the same time.
Found last night sitting on the outside of the box on one splash chick, 5 eggs in the box.
Picked her up, put her back in the box with the chick, said chick immediately popped out of the box, so had to put baby gate in front of box and will keep them closed until afternoon, when said chick is going to be 24 hours old, then remove gate and let nature take it's course. :)

[Killerbunny]

Not sure if my broody will remain sitting until Tuesday. The heat at the beginning of the week disturbed her. She's off 2/3 times a day for a dust bathe. Eggs still alive though, not much chance to cool down I guess. They've looked odd since candling them. I have a hatcher on Standby just in case!

[Happy]

My broody girl refuses to get off her nest. I have to lift her out twice a day (did more often in that heat wave we had). She jostles around in her box a lot and has broken two more eggs one was a dud and one had been developing. She had egg shell and goop glued to herself and 2 other eggs. I cleaned her up best I could, changed bedding and wiped eggs but it was so sticky that wiping didn't do much. Guess will just have to see. I checked her over for mites or bugs but don't see anything. She's very restless but won't get up just stomps her feet and turns in circles. I've tried a fan on/off...a privacy curtain...none of the others are bothering her. I don't know what her issue is. She's on day 12 so we will see how she does soon enough.

[WLLady]

i have two broody jennies sitting on day 7 right now, and an ameraucana mom sitting now about 6 days....she's all zen....i mean i can walk into her pen and she doesn't even blink!!!! a little statue of a chicken hunkered down in the box.