Haching Eggs, Thats how I roll!

When I moved in (4 years ago) my friend Linda sent her son Chris up to for a month to built me a cat run on the side of my house (I bred pedigree cats and the run was for breeding cats that were not allowed free roam) and some fencing etc.


Well a neigbour rang the planning office and the short story is I had to (as in Chris had to come back and) take it down! So we used some of (the rest of the panels r in storage until I can think of a use for them) it to make a 25' x 15' studed run inside my triple garage. Which I used for my stud boys for a couple of years and since as my chick rearing area! It has a double eley socket and is "rat prove" and cat prove. All my cats are neutered now and love their free roam lifestyle, mostly Big Norwegian Forest cats some 10kgs, they catch and eat whole rabbits, they ate all the wood pigeons, killed (but didn't eat) about 20 rats when I first moved in (no rats left now) basically they are a poultry keeper/gardners dream. But I digress



I have 3 incubators 2 auto-turn (1x24(dads) 1x48 (bought from P&T poultry) egg size) they take about 30/60 bantam eggs each and a large plastic (60 egg also bought from P&T)  none turn which I use a hacher. I load eggs in weekly batches, a very experienced poultry man told me you can keep eggs at least 3 weeks (without reducing hatching rates) b4 loading (dark cuboard, cardboard tray top and bottom then filp once a day) the books say not & that the eggs are best kept point down. Anyway I've never had to try it.
I keep a note book next to the incubators because 20+ years of shift work have destroyed my memory. I pencil the breed/colour initals on the top of the egg and the date on each egg when I collect them, store them in plastic trays in a kichen cuboard filling online/telephone orders in poly-boxs, I stop at a post office at 08.30 on my way home from night shift to post the eggs and have good hatch rates reported. Poly boxes sometimes get a bad name but as long as you start with clean eggs(lots of fresh shavings in nest boxes), the right size is used, some kichen/toilet roll is placed around each egg and they are not reused if dirty or exposed to extremes of temperature their fine. Sense that used to be common!

I place the eggs into the incubator, I try not to mix large fowl and bantam eggs together in the same incubator at the same time. I top up the water up if/when I'm there doing something else but i don't worry about the humidity levels at all (in my experience it makes little difference with chicken eggs where I life) I candle on about day 6-8 and remove any clears, occasionally I recandle on day 14ist espically if a egg clearly started off but had ?died/stopped on 1st candle but I wasn't 100%, I pencil a largeX on those eggs and they are always duds when I check them later but I havent got the courage YET just to clear them a 1st candle. If i didn't 2nd candle a day 14 I always do them on day 19 when they are transfered to the hatcher which has a large water capacity under the grate that the eggs sit on, very important because you need high humidity so they don't stick to the shell at piping but they will dround in the shallowest of shallow water!

Now the HARD part do not open the hatcher at all EVER (this makes a huge difference to the amount that hatch and the amount that die in their shells), I have a temp/humidy meter on top with its probe doing though the tiny view whole, the reservoir is big enought to last without a top up! I wish I had bought a clear hatcher but I bought a red plastic one not knowing what i didn't know until it was too late, the auto turn incubators of course have clear plastic lids which do not need to because you can open them whenever you like (during the 1st 19 days & within reason of course).

Chicks are quite happy in there for 24+ hours after hatching, if you able to have drowed-proof chick drinking water in there, then 48+ hours. A saucer with pepples works well for me but they will drown if given the slightest chance at all, when they hatch they are drawn to the water like crasied fish on the bank of a pond.

I can tell by listening though the lid if they are piping/hatching or hatched, so about 48 hours after first hatch I go out with a jug of hot water, the brood box ready, open the hatcher scoop out all dry chicks/top up drink saucer (not too much) pour the rest of the jug to refill the base reservoir and put the lid back on (in as few seconds as possible) then carefully settle the dry chicks in the brood box, giving each one a couple of beak dips in their water (a normal thin liped plastic chick water dome). Now why the rush you might ask espically as I'm so laid back and pragmatic, its been my experince that drops in temp but I think more humidy during the hatching stage causes death! So I only open it when I do because I have to take the early hatched chicks out before they would die but it means that some of the ones just about to hatch now wont! They don't all hatch at the same time on day 21 as they are laid by different birds maybe differnet breeds.  I leave any just hatched because they are not dry and fuffly and need to stay in the incubator/hatcher then I take out the 48 hours later, get rid of any unhatched eggs at which time I unplug and really clean it hard/disinfect, and set it doing agian for 24 hours b4 checking and transfering the next batch of 19 day eggs.  The two auto hatch incubators run for several months, I only clean/disinfect them when turning them off for the off-season and give them another disinfect again before I start them off again in February.

Keeping Chickens-something I'm good at?

I'm away but I though I'd post about clipping chickens wings after reading a post about it. Chickens in the yard seems to becoming a ever increasingly popular past time and there are a lot of people looking into chickens with no/little idea.
 
I’ve kept chickens on and off 30 years since I was a young-in, in urban gardens, alotments and in/next to exposed country fields with and without fencing (3 feet), and have never clipped a hen, ducks & geese are another matter but hens no.
It’s been my experience that as long as they have food & water and some interesting ground to scrach they stay confined by any natually barrier/3ft fence or within 100 feet of the their house. Its always good to have a closed in run attached to the house even if your going to let free range most of the time. It really comes in handy when the weathers bad or if you fancy a lie-in. Its also great if your going away b4 dark and not coming back until after the fox might be about. Because you can tempt them back into the house/run with treats at 2pm SO much easier than into a small evernight house without a run.

I currently have 7 chicken houses all with a attached/enclosed run with roof shelters. They mostly hate the rain and will not come out of the house when its stair rods (heavy rain)  but they will scrach about their run because its covered.
I've kept many breeds of chickens over the years and lots of hybids, each have their own merits.

I'm over wintering pairs of Black Pekin & Lavender Pekin Bantams(Pekins are a true Bantam that means they are not just a smaller version of a larger breed, they only come in small),
Trio's of Lavender cuckoo Pekins, Golden partiridge Pekins (my current fav) Lemon Cuckoo Cochins & Buff Cochins (Cochins are often thought to be the large fowl equivalent of Pekins but dna proved they are not related) and a quartet of specled sussex bantams. I also have 4 buff pekin hens without a cock.

A trio is 2hens1cock, a quartet is 3hens1cock, if you don't know what a pair is I can't help you.

I picked these breeds because they are utilly birds as in they fairly lay well (for pure breeds), you can eat them(meat) and important to me there is a market for hatching eggs. I sell hatching eggs for £5 per half dozen + p&p. I also have 2 poultry markets a year about 45minutes and a annual breed bird sale about 30minutes away. Now some people make a living out of this, I end up with free eggs/meat for myself, gifts/presents/swaps with friends and family and a little money left over each year to repay myself for past investment.

Going away for a few days, While I still can before the goats.

Just used the last of the gardens garlic, making a huge glut of Hummus to take up to the cabin. Must plan more this year, much more.

So I need to ring the Rural Payments Agent to register for a Holding number, Before going any further with the goat plans.

I kept 2 Sannen goats for 4 years, I kidded and milked. So I'm not a total newbie. I don't have enough land here to get a large dairy breed but I'm not going to let that stop me. Lots of people in the states keep Pygmys for milking, although that doesn't seem to be the case here. I'm going to do a lot of research, speak to breeders and see if I can come up with a workible plan. Get 2 girls, then get them in kid, let the kids have all the milk for the first 8+ weeks, then start taking a little off twice a day (working hard to train the girls to getting used to being milked and maybe geting enough for the odd bowl of Alpen or 100ml for the odd batch of scones). The kids go to their new homes at 12 weeks and I would then take all the milk for butter, cheese and yogurt until its time to dry them off to repet the annual process. Great idea on paper at least.  With the freezing and storing I could have supplys for most of the year.

I'm just on my own so I don't need a huge amount but if I had it I could find uses, like Soap making!

The growing part

So a few months of reflection have lead me to the following conclusion, I'm not a natural gardner!
Ok I can bring seeds on in the green house or window cills, run a green house and water everything, I'm the most diligent compostor and I've added a second wormery to the garden, cos I really hate waste. But hard digging, heavy stuff is just not me and thats what I really need right now. So I need a gardner but on a Nurses salary thats a lot of money, I thought I would but a card up at the local agricultural college, hoping I might find someone keen and cheap. A large kichen garden might be out of question anyhow because I'm prity seriously thinking of goats this year, it was always the long term plan but I wasn't totally ready to give up holidays, trips and all manor of fun gallivanting until now. Of course they eat everything (grass last) so that will effect the whole planning of the garden.

I love goats milk (handy as I'm intolerant to cows), yogurt, butter and cheese and have done lots of research on preparing your own dairy produce. I've made yogurt b4 A nanny in milk with a female kid would be the easiest start but I'm guessing hard to find. I plan to eat the male kids and sell the female kids. However the size of my available plot and the fact that goats are excape artists might lead me down the pygmy goat path, which will be enough milk for me but no meat because I think all the kids will go as pets.

Life in the Freezer!

December was hard, lots of snow coming, going, returning, flooding! Getting out to the chickens was hard, but first chance I got I moved them close to the side door, to make it easier to check on them when the snow was deep and crisp and even!

The green tomato chutney is fantastic and I was inidated with Thanks from everyone who received a gift jar!
The christmas cake, puddings and sweetmince pies were also a massive success (Thank you Deila)  Those few small cooking apples went a long way, lets hope I get a bigger crop this year.

So much for nights spent reading seed catalogues, I worked lots of Overtime when I could get out, took holidays on the nights I was snowed in. But that doesn't mean I didn't do lots of planning!

I bought a Beehaus in the sale which came a few days ago and have signed up for a bee keeping course, with a lot of hard work and a good amount of luck I might have honey this fall and wax for candles! I also have a soap recipe that I really want to try.

My dad has promised to sort out my fence this year which means more possibities with animal keeping this year.
I've intend to get some birds from Happychicks they deliver to my area on the first Tuesday each month. I think 6 hybrid chickens will keep me more reliably supplied than the pure breeds that started droping off in September! A trio of Aylesbury ducks and geese are also on the shopping list also for eggs. Duck eggs are yummie and the best for cake baking, geese eggs make the most excellent custards and best of all creme caramel, I can't wait.