Monday, August 27, 2012

State of the Hen House Address

I know I'll be saying I wish I had some broody hens next spring, but for now, I'm glad that mine are finally over their broody behavior.

The first hen hatched out eight eggs and six chicks survived.  Not too bad of a chicken mama.  Except she deserted her brood after only three weeks.  I had her and her chicks locked in the kidding pen, but after a few weeks she started flapping her way over the door and joining the flock.  She would come back at night to sleep with the chicks, but eventually even gave that up.

The second hen (who managed to eat almost her entire unborn brood) hatched out a single chick.  I put her and her chick in the kidding pen with the abandoned chicks.  At first, the hen chased the older chicks everywhere, but after a day or two she got bored with chasing them around.  And after a week and a half, got bored with staying in with them at all.  Flew the coop.  Great.  Now I hand deliver her back to her chick each night so they can snuggle.

About a week later, the third broody hen (who crushed all but three eggs in her clutch) hatched out a single chick.  There were actually two more eggs underneath her, but I took them away after two days as she still wanted to sit and wasn't paying much attention to the newly hatched chick.  I candled the eggs and one was a dud and the other I wasn't sure of.  So I put it in the incubator and sure enough, two days later there was a chick peeping inside.  Not sure of the reasons for the long delay between hatchings, probably somebody sat in her nest and laid an egg after she started setting.  Anyways, I took the not-quite-out-of-the-shell chick and shoved it underneath the hen at night and crossed my fingers that she didn't freak out and peck it to death.  The next morning I went out there and there were two fluffy chicks, one four days younger than it's sibling, but doing well.

Because I'm a glutton for punishment,  almost two weeks ago I filled up the incubator with forty-five eggs and turned it on.  Twelve eggs have already been tossed because they were infertile, and I'd guess that about another dozen are "maybes".  I erred on the side of "hopefully a good maybe" for those and kept them in the incubator.  No skin off my back if they are in there and if I'm lucky, my candling guesses were incorrect and some of those "maybes" will turn into live hatches.  I'm hoping to have better luck than my spring incubating efforts (i.e. only two darned live chicks out of over ninety eggs).  It feels like I just stopped worrying about eggs and chicks and brooding and now I go ahead and started all over.

But there is a method to my madness.  Really.  Hear me out...

We usually order Cornish cross meat birds in the beginning of September for butchering in November.  So if I plan my homegrown hatching to correspond with the delivery of the meat chicks, I can put them all together in one pen and brood them all at the same time.  Hopefully, the beginning / middle of November will be cool enough for butchering the meat birds yet still warm enough that the homegrown egg laying chicks will be feathered out nicely and won't require supplemental heat.

That's the theory anyhow.

So at least I've got something growing this year!  We may not have much fruit or vegetables, but there sure is plenty of protein either running around (meat birds), waiting for collection in nest boxes (eggs), or in the milk pail on our homestead.

12 comments:

  1. Glad to hear you got some chicks from the broody hens! I hate it when mine are broody, but they just won't give up. I am incubating eggs for the first time. I hope I have some success. I'm nine days away from the three week mark and five of my eggs look like yolkers. Do these blow up if you leave them in the incubator? I just hate to take them out because I am no expert on candling, imagine me some eggs, and a flashlight sitting in a closet ;) So I would hate to throw them out, but I will also hate it if they explode! Love the cartoon at the end too funny!!!

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    1. Kelly, the infertile eggs look totally "clear" when you candle them. There are other that may look like there's something in there, but sometimes I'm not sure so I just keep them in the 'bator. I've never had one explode, but I'm guessing I'm lucky. Can't imagine the stink it would cause. Oh, that's me when I candle; cram myself in a closet (have to move all the crap to one corner), bright flashlight, cartons of eggs. The cats think I'm crazy.

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    2. Ok, thank you so much for the answer. Five of the eggs are clear with a floaty yolk. The other five look dark and full. I am going to take the five out, I don't want the stinky mess. The last time I candled eggs, my kids were like "What are you doing?" and then they all crammed in the closet with me to look ☺

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    3. Kelly, when you say "floaty yolk", do you mean the air space at the top end (the non-as-pointy end)? There will be an air space at the top of both "dead" and "live" eggs at your point. The dead ones will look pretty clear. The good ones will be darker and you'll probably be able to see some blood veins running along the insides of the shell.

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    4. No, the really dark ones have a clear space on the end of them and the five uncertain eggs are all clear except for what looks like just a yolk that moves when you turn the egg. The dark ones are seriously dark and I can see veins in some of them. I may leave the uncertains in for a couple more days to see if anything changes, because these five eggs are the ones I really wanted to be fertile. They would have been 100% cochin :( Nine more days ☺

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  2. CR,
    I'm glad you did get some chicks, but I'm sorry you had to go through all of those eggs to get what you have.

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  3. LOVE the cartoon! :)
    I hope the plan hatches out for you!

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  4. Gotta say you are one very determined chicken hatchin' mama!

    Laughed out loud at the cartoon! Really funny.

    We just had our one surviving banty hen hatch out four little chickies. I'll try to get a picture and blog post on them up yet tonight.

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  5. Wow, there is so much that goes into getting those full size birds! I agree with Mama Pea, you are one determined mama!

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  6. Seems like you need to show a few training videos to your hens. They seem to possess a cornucopia of egg and chick destroying habits. I have never even heard of momma hens abandoning their chicks. Normally the are cold blooded killers of anyone trying to mess with the hatchlings. You didn't even mention the "scalped" chick.

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  7. Sandy, just keep on keeping on. Not much else I can do :)

    Candy, did you just make a funny?!

    Mama Pea, I'd try the banties again if I could get my hands on some. But the last Silkie banty I had could only set on three "normal" sized eggs.

    Erin, When I see or hear people complaining about the price of a full grown (but not old) laying hen, I really don't think they understand all the time involved with getting that chicken to egg-laying age or even "just" the eight weeks to butchering age for the creepy meats.

    Chai Chai, I actually still have that scalped chick picture somewhere on my computer, but even the thought of it still freaks me out. If you really want to see it I'll email it to you, it is "interesting". I don't want to gross out my entire blogging followers and post it here. Besides, if my Mom saw it on the blog, she would most definitely vomit all over her keyboard.

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    1. I don't want to see it, I was just adding it to the list of woes!

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