Search results for query: *

Question for the genetics expert out there...based on his phenotype, is there any chance of this guy ever throwing a steel blue/grey chick? Reason I'm asking is because broody just hatched out 3 chicks...we THOUGHT we had stuck 3 New Hampshire eggs under her, but when the eggs hatched, two of...

Meet “Broody”, who is apparently a serial chick collector in addition to trying to be a serial broody :D She hatched out 11 chicks shortly after Christmas…and then two weeks later when we had 3 day old chicks in the brooder, due to a combo of equipment breakdown, extreme temps, and road...

How does everyone keep fresh unfrozen water available to their very young chicks? Our older birds use heated horizontal nipple waterers but that isn’t an option for the little guys. We have about 20 chicks ranging in age from 1 day to 5 weeks old and I’m not sure how to keep their water from...

Before I purchase a second Nurture Right 360 incubator to use as a hatcher...are there any other (potentially cheaper?) incubators out there that everyone prefers to use as a hatcher? Biggest thing I'm looking for is ease of cleaning, and being able to see in to see what's going on, as well as...

I have an order of day old chicks they just came from Murray McMurray today, and included both brown leghorns chicks and welsummer chicks. At the time I ordered, I didn’t realize that welsummer chicks (they were an impulse decision lol) looked so much like brown leghorns chicks…and of course, I...

I received my order of Whiting True Blue chicks late last week, and I have two chicks who have coloring I’ve never come across before in chick down — can anyone tell me what these chicks are going to look like when adult plumage comes in? Chick 1: Chick 2:

Everyone meet Broody…the crazy hen that makes me want to pull my hair out! She went broody in early April…great, we will give her some fertile eggs. Grafting her to a ground nest was a complete non-event. On April 8 we had three chicks hatch…but she was setting on fertile eggs and had only...

This feels likes dumb question…but if I process a chicken quickly enough (say, less than 20 mins from dispatch to ready to cook), can I cook it immediately and avoid rigor mortis setting in? Does cooking stop rigor mortis from starting? Does rigor mortis always take about 30 mins to set in, or...

What method of record keeping does everyone use? Some ideas that come to mind include Excel spreadsheet, physical notebook, etc. I’ve also contemplated some sort of simple database such as Microsoft Access that I can put a form in front of, but I can’t figure out whether Access has an...

I’m not sure exactly where I saw it here on the forums, but whoever originally posted it has my unending gratitude…posting here in hopes of helping someone else out since we all know meat birds go through a ton more water than layers. Using a cheap stock tank float and a goat/sheep feed pan has...

Broody hen is setting on eggs in our broody nest, which is in a small dog crate on floor of the coop. First three days she was in the nest we locked her in other than a morning break, to graft her firmly to this new nest. Since then we’ve been leaving the door open every day. My original...

Starting a thread to keep track of my progress with my meat bird flock… I started with New Hampshires from Henry Noll’s line from Freedom Ranger hatchery in August 2022 after reading of numerous people’s success with the birds here on the forums. I had a batch of 15 ordered, and due to early...

We have a broody hen who has been setting on eggs, and to this point we had just left her in the regular nest boxes. However, the other day someone must have gotten into her box when she got off because when my daughter found her an hour later she was on a different nest and her eggs were cold...

Last time I processed birds, I had a lung remover tool that helped get the last of the lungs, etc out. Had to process a bird on short notice tonight and couldn’t find my lung remover tool…tried to use just my fingers but couldn’t get all the lungs out. Is there anything I can use instead of a...

Some of my hens aren’t getting enough calcium because we are seeing fairly consistent soft shelled eggs. I’m not sure if the soft eggs are all from one hen or a couple. We feed all flock with oyster shells on the side. We can’t feed layer feed because we have chicks in the coop, and I don’t...

Because I have about 0.25” of flat land on our entire property, my upcoming endeavor is to build a hoop coop on one of our hillsides for my new meat bird flock. I built a hoop coop for our bachelor pad last fall on where I thought was flat-ish land, and I’ve learned from that experience — the...

Debating when to move my young cockerels into the bachelor pad and would love to hear how/when others do it and why you do it the way you do… Bachelor pad currently contains 5 roosters that are all approximately 7-9 months old. 1 will be moving out, into a new coop with his own flock of hens...

Reading about the blue egg gene and Whiting True Blues it seems that they must have two copies of the blue egg gene to breed true for blue egg color, right? If that’s the case and I order some Whiting True Blue roosters and breed them to my leghorn hens, those chicks should lay blue eggs, right...

For those of you who free-range your flock and also integrate new baby chicks into the flock early, how do you handle free ranging with the babies? Our current group of 11 chicks is about 5 weeks old now, and have been integrated since 3 weeks old. Up until the past few days, while they've...

I want to weigh our meat birds periodically so I can figure the feed ratio and rate of gain I’m getting…I have a fish scale, and thought easiest way would be to put them in a 5 gallon bucket and hang the bucket from the fish scale. That works ok when they are small…but when they are bigger they...