Started with 19 chicken eggs in the incubator — two didn’t develop and were removed. Three eggs haven’t hatched (three of those have pipped, but haven’t really gotten anywhere since). One little guy is really weak and still in the incubator so the other little ones don’t sit and lay on him. That means we’ve got a thirteen little chickens in the brooder. And, early next week, the ducks should start hatching.
Tag: chickens
New Hatchlings
We’ve got a bunch of new little ones hatching — Anya has four little ones in the brooder, and we have two more in the incubator.
And hatching!
The first chick hatched this evening — and three more followed throughout the night. We’ve got four little ones out of their eggs and a bunch of eggs (hopefully) to go.
The chicken eggs are pipping!
Pipping!
Proto-chickens and Proto-ducks — 8 days later
Scott and Anya candled all of the eggs tonight — of the 41 eggs, there are three that might not be developing. But all of the eggs are still in the incubator because there weren’t any obviously undeveloped eggs. If all of these eggs hatch, we’re going to have an absolute swarm of baby birds!
Proto-chickens and Proto-ducks
Trying again with the bigger, better incubator — 22 duck eggs and 19 chicken eggs.
Incubating Eggs
We’re about to start incubating eight duck eggs, so I wanted to record the temperature and humidity settings that I’ve found for the chicken, duck, and turkey eggs (well, future turkey eggs! We managed to get five male turkeys last year)
| DUCKS | |||
| Start | End | Temp | Humidity |
| 1 | 25 | 99.5 | 55-58% |
| 26 | 28 | 98.5 | 65% |
| 28 | hatching | 97 | 70-80% |
| CHICKENS | |||
| Start | End | Temp | Humidity |
| 1 | 18 | 99.5-100.5 | 45-55% |
| 19 | Hatching | 99.5 | 65-70% |
| TURKEYS | |||
| Start | End | Temp | Humidity |
| 1 | 24 | 99-100 | 50-60% |
| 25 | Hatching | 99 | 65-70% |
Fence Stuff
We got our fence stuff! Eight rolls of 4′ welded wire fence and 50 t-posts.
Coop Mobile, Take 2
We set up the coop mobile again — I got one of the PoultryNet fences from PremierOne — I spent a lot of time debating the “Plus” version of the fence before realizing that you could buy a whole lot of the FiberTuff posts for less than the additional price for the plus fence. And the FiberTuff posts work a lot better. Since the fence was working well, we decided to move the coop over to the pasture (and not herd the poultry across the yard twice a day!!!).
The “wheels” were made using two 4×4’s with sections of 5/8″ threaded rod that were inserted into old propane tube. This was attached to the 4×4 & wheels from one of our yard carts were attached. We were then able to push the coop across the yard.
Chicken Chaos
Well … we had one day of Astra fostering the new broilers. They’re older baby guys (which is why they were super cheap) … and I think they got used to doing their own thing. And didn’t want to get back into the nesting box when she told them to. The OG baby guy totally comes when called, but these guys? Not so much. And Astra freaked out. Anya saved one of the Cornish babies while Scott and I were working on some trees — she got Astra out of the coop and tended to the little guy’s wounded head. It was bad — scalped. She tried putting Astra in the tractor with the other birds, but Astra was pretty set on getting back to baby guy. And freaked out the turkeys, who attacked her. So now Astra has the feathers pulled from the back of her head just like the Cornish she attacked.
Anya got Astra into the baby tractor, got the turkeys calmed down, and introduced the Cornish to the ducks (who, thankfully, didn’t go after the wound). Baby guy made its way out of the coop and over to Astra in the baby tractor. So they were happy, pecking around at food and grit. The Cornish were safe in the coop. And everyone else was in the big tractor. That was sorted enough that we could finish splitting the wood and getting it stacked.
Near sunset, we had to get all of the Cornish into the brooder so Astra and baby guy could go into the coop. We put a board in front of their nesting box to keep the turkeys from going after her wounded head.