An interesting chicken year plus more baby chicks!

[Chris_W]

Hi everyone! I started a new forum to talk about my chickens after realizing there really wasn't a dedicated farming forum

It has been an interesting year for raising chickens, and we keep learning as we go. Back in July one of our chickens decided to start brooding eggs. We thought it was cute so let her sit on the eggs in one of the 4 nesting boxes. Well, she wasn't very good at it. After a few days we found her in a different box with the original eggs uncovered... We had to throw those away as they were definitely dead at that point, but the next day she went back to the original box and started clutching another group of eggs. After a couple weeks even more chickens went broody - so now we had all 4 nesting boxes being tended by 5 hens! We decided to just let them go and stopped collecting eggs. This turned out to be a big mistake. After a few weeks a chick finally hatched. It was the cutest little thing and the original hen was so happy. But this little chick kept popping out from under mom, mom would use her wing to put it back, and the other hens were very curious. Brian and I went to set up a brooding box just for the new chick but when we got back found that one of the adults had gotten the baby. So all that work from momma hen was for nothing. So we decided to just collect all the remaining eggs and put then in the house in the incubator. Ugh, what a disaster. Did you know that rotten eggs explode? The hens obviously didn't brood very well as the majority of the eggs were actually rotten, and yes, some exploded in the incubator. But by now, the hens were still broody and had been sitting on more eggs for almost 3 weeks so we pitched all the eggs in the incubator (none were alive), cleaned it really well and started over. This time I got a really bright light to candle the eggs and only kept the ones that looked like they were alive. The very next day one hatched in the incubator and two days later another hatched. Within a week we had 6 new babies. They are inside right now and just about ready to go out in the coop with a light to keep them warm at night.

So it was a wild summer learning about broody hens and exploding rotten eggs (god, I hope I don't have to experience that again!) but we have a nice new little brood of baby chicks, and 4 of these appear to be hens

[Linda P]

Ah, the joys of chicken hatching. I've seen more than one exploding egg in my life, and it's just not pretty.
Looks like you have the routine down now, Chris, so hopefully next year when they start brooding you'll be all set.
I remember having to haul broody hens out of the nest boxes when I was gathing eggs. I HATED it...they will do
anything to try to keep you out. I had a forked stick that I would hold them down with, and then get hold of them
around the body and toss them out of the nest, holding them at bay with the stick, until I could get the eggs out.
We didn't ever leave any eggs in the nests for them to sit on, but they were free range and there would always be
some who made a pile somewhere around the barn or corncrib. It was not fun to find the abandoned nests with
those rotten eggs in them. Yuk.
Good luck with your new batch of chicks!
Linda P

[newtohosta-no more]

This was very interesting to read and I learned something. I especially learned to avoid exploding eggs! Please keep posting info and pics. I'll be visiting this forum frequently I'm sure.

[mommatina]

Chris, how funny... Cricket is the expert on raising chicks.. not me.. but I have fought with a few "settin" hens before. and yes they will do anything to keep you away from their nest...

[Annie]

Awww what cute lil chicks!
They are one of my favorite critters! We had chickens all the time I was growing up, lol and yes those eggs sure to stink when they explode! Wait until you want a hen to set on the eggs. Reach under her when you know there are some eggs (rotten) ones left. And they explode on your hand and all over the hen rotfl!
But aren't the hens cute and fluffy when they are broody? They walk around all fluffed up hehe. oh wait until you try to make a pet out of a rooster! Every one we had that we made a pet out of became really mean and attacked us haha. My sister has the scars on her leg to prove it hehe.
Whats odd is I don't think it hurts when the hens peck my hand. Maybe i just have tough skin?

[eastwood2007]

This is a fun post, and I think it's going to be a fun category.

I was pretty sure I would find a chicken story when I came here! Thanks for sharing!

Cute babies!

[Chris_W]

Thanks for all the stories

Ugh, I was so worried that one of the eggs would explode under a hen. I didn't mention, but one of the eggs actually did hatch from the first batch and caused another egg to explode in the incubator. Unfortunately that little chick was so covered in goo that we just couldn't wash it all off. It didn't make it, probably because of the huge amount of bacteria that it ingested. That's a big reason why we shut it down and started over.

The new chicks are really getting big. This batch is also very friendly and always happy to see us. One of the little chicks actually does a little dance when we get in there and if you put your hand down it jumps on your hand to go for a ride, plus gives you a little bite on your hand like it is grabbing on when you move around. It is the darndest thing, but very cute.

Most of our broody hens were actually quite tame. Two were complete meanies, though, and would attack you if you tried to get into those boxes. We tried to feed them a little while they were nesting, and a couple I even took water to them as we never saw them leave the boxes and were getting skinny. But everyone is back to normal now and they are laying really good again. Yesterday we got 9 eggs from 10 hens

Looking forward to hearing more stories from others' farming adventures!

Chris

[nanny_56]

Chris, sounds it has been a very interesting learning experience for you guys!!

I keep saying I want to be able to have chickens and pygmy goats at our next house!! I may just stick with goats after reading this!

[Chris_W]

Are goats easier than chickens? I don't know, I've heard horror stories about them eating entire gardens, and other stories about them being mean.

For some reason when people find out that I have chickens they often ask if I'm planning on getting goats too. Is that the natural progression? Chickens, goats, then on to the really hard-core stuff after that?

I think if I was to get some other animals I would love to try pheasants, but don't let Brian know that or the next thing I'll know he'll go out and buy some

[nanny_56]

LOL!!!!

I think goats have to be waaaayyy easier than trying to hatch chicks!!

If I ever get to have them I want enough land to keep them contained in a nice area so they don't eat any of my plants! It IS strange that people do put goats and chickens togther, isn't it!

I do have one rule regarding animals.....They cannot be bigger than me. So at a mere 60 inches tall, that does limit my options.


OH BRIAN.......

[Linda P]

Chris, we raised pheasants, too, when I was a kid. Dad had a contract of some sort to grow them for wildilfe restoration back in the 50's. If my memory serves me correctly,
we had about 200 of the chicks, the first year, and raieed all but about 20 or 25 of them. We had to release them when they were old enough to fend for themselves. Man, the stink in that brooder house was beyond compare. My older brother and I had the chore of cleaning it out, and neither of us has ever forgotten it. It was worse than the chicken poo! Most years we raised chickens for meat..now there is a job that I will NEVER do again...unless , of course, I am starving to death. There were few worse days in my childhood than when it was time to turn the chickens into freezer fodder. Accordingly, I never got attached to the chickens in the brooder house....but I did have my favorites in the hen house.
I've never had goats, but I did have sheep for about 15 years after we moved here. I loved to see the lambs playing in the spring. There's nothing quite so joyous as a little band of lambs suddenly jumping up and playing a game of tag around the pasture. It can make you forget all your troubles for a while.
Oh, I do have a goat story. When my kids were little, their friends down the road had a goat. It was chained to a doghouse, which was very near the road. I don't know why they never seemed to realize it, but the chain was long enough that the goat could get right out to the ege of the road, and usually laid there in wait for an unsuspecting motorist. When a car came, he would sometimes leap up, other times just lay there thoughtfully appraising the situation. The road was blacktop, and the goat lived right on the top of a small hill with a curve in it. If anyone unfamiliar with the road drove past, there would be skid marks on the blacktop. He also liked to climb on top of his doghouse to view his domain, and when you came over the hill it appeared for a brief second that he was levitating.

Linda P

[nanny_56]

Levitating Goat.....that just had to just freak you out!!

[gamekeeper]

chris,
Are you still a poltry fancier?

[Chris_W]

We still have them The original hens are really not laying much any longer, so we probably won't keep them this winter. The batch of chicks that we hatched last year turned out to be mostly roosters, and then a racoon broke into the run and snatched the only two hens from that batch... But we'll probably get a couple more laying hens next year to add to the brood. The eggs are fantastic, and our easter egger chickens lay huge eggs with lots of doubles and continue to lay an egg a day so they are great hens.

This summer we hatched button quail eggs. They are cute, but they are so tiny that the only thing you could ever do with them would be to have them as pets. It was fun, but I wouldn't do it again.

Thanks for asking

Chris