Im not sure if I should be pushing her off the nest once a day or just leave her. I have been letting nature take its course and just giving her a handfull of pellets in the nesting box. She does seem to love that!
<- Whitey all puffed up and annoyed at me looking at her
The babies are due on April 10 so she has been sitting for 8 days so far. Not sure when I should candle them and see if anything is going on? Since dark browny and light browny have been still laying in whitey's nesting box I have been checking the eggs daily to take out the new ones. None of the marked eggs are feeling particularly light and I would imagine after a week of warmth that if they werent fertile perhaps they would be lighter with off-egg gases by now?
Husband updated the chicken pen on the weekend and it really is looking all suburban farm like!
great work on the cluck run! dogs are tough with birds - the flapping and the screaming is just too much to resist. sorry about the loss. but yay on your broody gal! i think after a week you can see results in candling. i've never had much luck with it. and it kinda freaks me out
ReplyDelete;-)
i wanted to get you a reply about the "creepy meats" - just so you dont have to click back.. here is what i said:
hey SubFGirl (there is already a SFG!).. the creepy meats are bred to grow super fast. they took fast growing and meaty breeds and got them together. i'm not sure there is much chemistry in it.... but commercially they do everything to encourage growth. unfortunately they are subject to some problem - the "leg thing" (malformed legs) and they can also randomly flop over dead (kinda like chicken heart attacks), and the awful "green muscle disease." its my experience they are less resistant to diseases such as cocci. and they just arent as "chicken-y" as regular clucks. folks have had success raising them on pasture are more 'free ranging' but they still require a lot of food. and they grow really really fast. prepare for some losses...but you'll be excited once you harvest them.
you can totally put them in a run like you've got here or a more "traditional" chicken tractor. they really dont run around very much but be prepared to move the tractor to give them fresh ground.
:-)
OFG I'm not sure if I ever replied to this? Quite some time ago! I would love to be able to grow my own meat, I just think I am too soft to be able to harvest. Think I would end up with a dozen chickens eating food but not feeding me haha
DeleteI have seen the success you have with yours so it might be something we look at in the future