Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[Bens-Hens]

Latest update....

Mocha is still limping, not really seeing much improvement with her mobility. A real shame as she is now nearing full size. The 'hip test' shows near two finger spacing so she is so close to laying, but may never get the chance. Maybe another week before we make a decision that can't be undone.

As for our set this weekend. My birthday is coming up, funnily enough in three weeks tomorrow! We are planning on setting the above list, but the goal posts have moved. The Araucana supplier sold our order, and can't replace it in time. MAYBE Wednesday at the earliest. Waiting to hear back from her, if she can't fill the order I am going to pass up the breed. I am prepared for a small age gap and split hatch, but not to go beyond that this season.

Also, the other supplier is having trouble filling the Barnevelder order, so far she only has one, possibly two by pick up tomorrow. We may end up filling that order with something else. I did she she had some French Wheat Maran's laying, so we could bring home two or three of those and pray for a girl!

I know slim pickings for success, but we would be happy with just one or each breed to make our small flock.

In addition, the thought of our next hatch being more successful had me concerned that our little 'recycled draw' brooder may not be up to the job if we had 8+ 3 week old chicks in it. (8+ is a 50% hatch rate)

I had gathered a few materials to add an extra 'floor' to our existing brooder, but the collection of material, age and presentation did not have me feeling the best about my work. While the wife was out (funnily enough at a hens day!) I took the kids to the hardware and we got the right materials to build a more suitable NEW brooder. Because I had my mind set on a second level, it got one of those too!

It's not quite finished yet, but by tomorrow's update it will be assembled and ready for a family 'paint-a-thon' before our current chicks get a new home. Pictures tomorrow evening!

Thanks for reading.

 

[Bens-Hens]

So we picked up our next dozen, low on Barnevelders (Nature getting in the way of my birthday plan!) so we topped up the order with two more SPW.

Had the incubator running sweetly for a few days now.

Just before I closed it up the other day for it's final practice run, I added some vinyl tube to the wood poles on the egg turner. Never tested it again in motion. A quick test fit our our eggs was all.

Well, lesson learned there. The vinyl gripped the eggs, and when our new dozen went in and the egg turner moved, it rode up over the eggs. AHHHHHHHHHH

Stripped it out, cut away the tubing and set it all back up again.

First turn worked, second one rode over the top of the eggs again, concern now. I built this so I don't have the stress of turning eggs, and now it looks like we will be turning them again.

On removal, we noticed that the paint it was coated in was soft, and also gripping the egg surface. Armed with a file and sand paper I removed all the paint in the contact area, nice and smooth. Put it all back together.

got 3 runs from it this time and it rode up again, PANIC! The I realised that we were now working with some smaller eggs, the SPW were smaller than the ones I used from our Isa Brown to make the frame. Te smaller eggs were sitting too low, and acted as a ramp for the frame.

5 minutes with a circular saw fixed it. Not a pretty job but it lowered the frame height so the little divider poles pushed the eggs well below the egg center line of the smallest SPW eggs. The bigger ones rolled easily already.

Back in action. Eggs set in time, came up to temp nicely, humidity has settled back down to 52%.

Watch and wait.

Also got the new brooder almost sorted. Family paint day sometime soon and in it goes. Might enter it into the brooder comp if it's still going.

900x600x600







As I said yesterday, I sort of had a two story in mind. When the chicks are small and not capable of landing the 300mm drop, I can remove the ladder.


My oldest son Cooper (6) said "why don't we put a door in the side to sweep the mess out of?" I love his thinking! I took it a bit further and put it in the floor itself. It drops away to make cleaning such a deep brooder easier.


Here is an underside shot I got showing the 'secret door' as my boys say.


So nice to work with new timber. Recycling is great, but unless you have the best tools to refinish it, it is had to get a good looking product. I am calling it the next hatches birthday present

Another update when they move in!

 

[Wrightsx4]

Great reading! I'm glad you linked it to our hatch along. BTW...Hi Nova! (We're both on the Michigan thread.) Your finished projects all turned out great. I was curious to see your incubator so I was glad you had photos. Mine is very...well, "household" in comparison. LOL!

 

[Wrightsx4]

Reading this makes me feel very lucky that I've so far not had any illness in my flock - that I know of at least. It's so sad that you can do everything right yet the ground you walk on can be the culprit. Wishing all your chickens health! I've only had chickens since last summer so I can imagine the stress you've been through.

 

[Bens-Hens]

Thanks Wright Family (On that note, I have another family of friends with the same last name and a catch phrase of where our last name is always Wright) Just thought I would share.

Yes, it has certainly had it's low times. We have three 'big' birds left and we are trying to keep it that way until our own hatchlings are big enough to keep them company.

Apart from Mocha's foot, they all seem healthy now, but in all honesty, they are all on notice as we won't be joining our younger birds with them if we have health concerns.

Our last hatch had their first 'grass time' this weekend, a bit yesterday and longer today. Looking forward to giving them some more space in the new brooder box.

 

[Wrightsx4]

Wishing we could have grasstime. We have snow, ice, and mudtime now for a few more weeks - but those birds seem to love exploring in it while their out. Yes, being a wright comes with those perks. My husband told me once that he and our kids were born wright, I only married wright. Lol- his way of winning.

 

[Bens-Hens]

BWHAHAHAHA, that's funny.

Autumn here, still warm and sunny, but we are getting rain from time to time. Never snows here, and only just dips below 0C in winter, cold for us but in the scale of cold places I have been it's not bad. Summer though is a different story. Just had the hottest on record. Heat waves here are 40+(104F) I think we had a wave that was about 10 days long with only one below 40C, a nice fresh 39 lol.

Where we win with winter we loose with summer. Still , overall, we have good weather in this part of the country, great beaches for those hot day's.

 

[NovaAman]

Soooo... How many grey hairs did you get from the egg turner?

 

[Bens-Hens]

Lol, Hi Nova, the fury was short and sweet, but I think I may have got a few more wrinkles, this incubating deal could give a buy ulcers!

Since going back together it has worked really well,
Humidity High of 55%, low of 52%
Temp high of 38.1C (100.6F), low of 37.4C (99.32)

Happy so far and counting down the sleeps until we can do our first candle and get an idea of how the lottery is going.

The last hatch is approaching 3 weeks now, feathers are coming out all over the place. I think our Roo estimation is out as there are two LS that are just HUGE in comparison. Three are very forward in nature, so it is making me reconsider the first time feather sexing.

Finally, Mocha. The wife and I spent a long time watching her move around the yard yesterday and we are pretty sure she is not as mobile as we thought. Again I inspected her leg for a break or bunched tendons and found nothing. Although she looks full size, she is underweight compared to the other birds, she also had a very firm crop.
Last night again I hit the books and I have my suspicion that it was never a 'foot injury', but Marek's again.

Some of the reading last night spoke of a tumor version that can have varying degree's of paralysis, and is most common in birds about to lay or just after laying (which is Mocha's approximate age). We were told when we bought her that she was about 18 weeks, which would make her now 31 weeks old. Too old for Marek's and very late to come into laying. However, I have my doubts that those two birds were 18 weeks old, probably more like 12-13, at the very most. Which puts her right in line for the Marek's barrel.

Currently developing a new plan, but it's a work in progress and getting our hands on products here seems harder than the US. We can't anything about our last hatch, but I am going to try a couple of avenue's to get our next hatch vaccinated at Day 1.

Finding a supplier is hard, one that would have smaller than 1000 doses seems harder still on this side of the country.

So I have 19 Days to figure it out, and a few months to dodge the barrel and get as many of the un-vaccinated birds past the 15 week old mark before going new the coop.

 

[NovaAman]

Mareks can have relapses... Even in older birds from what I read... Wish I could remember where. Maybe add some olive oil to some food of just hers if her crop seems more firm than it should be. CAn you check for worms? See if she is weaker, stressed, worms can get out of control fast. Make an effort to give her a bit of extra high protein on the side to keep her weight up...

I have a hen with a foot problem right now. A toe just fell off. Thinking maybe unseen frost bite, but she's the only one... Gotta get a heat lamp and a safe box for her, soak her feet and trim off all her foot feathers and see better what is going on there. She was a hen raised bird, so not as friendly for picking up... She's seemingly healthy otherwise, but birds don't show weakness until its getting to be too late sometimes..