Topics

61

Exhibiting & Promoting / Lucasville, OH - Oct 6 - 7, 2012

« on: August 12, 2012, 07:30:36 PM »

Just wondering how many ABC members are planning to attend this show and what they may be taking. I have a splash, blue, and black cockerel that I was considering taking, (maybe a splash pullet, too) but they were hatched in April so they would only be 5-6 months old and maybe not mature enough. I'd like to go to the show and don't want to go empty-handed, but on the other hand I don't want to take anything that's not ready. I may just go to watch and check out the facility since I've never been there. Who's all going?

Sharon

62

Breeding / Egg production

« on: August 09, 2012, 03:53:16 PM »

I'm just curious as to how often or how many eggs a typical Ameraucana pullet usual lays. I never really kept track until this past December when I wanted to hatch out an early batch for our fair and collected eggs from 3 hens. In 10 days, all 3 hens gave me 7 eggs each, and since one of the hens wasn't related to the other two, I figured that must be around the normal average.

The pullet we took to the fair started laying the day before we left (Friday the 27th) and has given me 10 eggs in the past 13 days, not counting today. This seems odd to me given the fact she went from a stable home surroundings with an outside run, to a small hot cage with lots of people around for an entire week...although 30 minutes after we got there she was fluffing, scratching, and rolling around in her cage like she couldn't care less.

She was hatched on January 21 so that makes her a little over 6 month old. The majority of the rest of my females are either broody or molting so I'm really happy she's laying so well. Just wondering if this sounds exceptional or somewhat the norm.

--Sharon

63

Housing, Health & Hatching / Bubbles coming out of a hatching egg

« on: May 22, 2012, 08:57:49 AM »

I just hatched out 20 more chicks this past weekend and had something unusual happen. My incubator has a clear top on it so I can watch chicks being hatched. I noticed that one of the eggs that was pipping suddenly started bubbling goo up and out of the pip hole and down the side of the egg. The hole was large enough to see the chicks mouth chirping. The bubbles quickly grew larger and started filling up the hole. I was afraid that the chick was going to choke and drown so I grabbed it out of there. I smelled it and there was no odor at all, so I peeled the top of the egg off so the chick could breath okay and to let the goo out (the goo was kind of thick, not watery) then, since it didn't smell, I placed the egg back in the incubator. I didn't want to peel the bottom off because they were hatching a day early and I didn't know how much yolk had been absorbed.

A few hours later, I noticed the chick was laying in the same spot, not moving, and was chirping a lot! I took it back out and the poor little thing was stuck solid and stiff. Whatever the goo was had dried around it and it was stiff as a board. I took it in the bathroom and rinsed it off with warm water, gently worked the egg off and cut the cord so it wouldn't pull out a hole in the chicks belly. I got as much of the goo off as I could, then wrapped the chick in a paper towel to dry it off a little before putting it back into the incubator. The chick seems fine and is running around with the other ones like nothing had happened.

Has anyone seen anything like this before? I don't like to interfere with a hatch, but I have no doubt this chick would have choked and drowned.

--Sharon

64

Housing, Health & Hatching / Infertility question

« on: March 24, 2012, 02:34:10 PM »

I have one particular hen whose eggs are never fertile. I first thought that she was denying the cockerel access, but in the last couple of weeks I\'ve seen that isn\'t the problem. None of her eggs show anything when candled, nor have anything in them if left the full 21 days. She is an F1, so too much line breeding is not the problem and her two hatch mates aren\'t having any trouble what so ever. All three are laying 5 eggs a week, have not been sick, nor have been under any stress at all.

Are some hens just like that, like women who can\'t have babies? Any thoughts on anything I could try? I don\'t want to keep wasting good eggs I could be eating, but I\'d really like to have some chicks out of her, so I can\'t help wanting to put them in my incubator.

Sharon

65

Housing, Health & Hatching / Embryo Vaccinations

« on: March 10, 2012, 09:29:11 AM »

Have any of you heard of embryo vaccinations and/or practice it? Below is an interesting article on the topic. I don\'t really understand it all, but it seems interesting.

It would be interesting to hear the method and procedure of how some of you vaccinate for Mareks. I am planning to vaccinate everything I hatch, starting with my hatch that is due next Thursday. I just want to make sure I do it correctly. I was sent 1/2 ml (29 gauge) needles and syringes with my vaccine. I\'m a little confused on the amount to give the chicks. 0.2 ml, right?

ARTICLE:
Marek\'s disease virus (MDV) vaccines of serotypes 1 and 2 administered in 18-day-old embryonated eggs induced better protection against post-hatch challenge at 3 days with virulent MDV than vaccines given at hatch. Embryonal vaccination with a polyvalent vaccine containing equal quantities of serotypes 1 and 2 of MDV and serotype 3 virus (turkey herpesvirus, HVT) was also significantly more effective than post-hatch vaccination. These and earlier results indicate that protective efficacy of single or combined Marek\'s disease vaccine serotypes against post-hatch challenge at 3 days can be substantially improved if the vaccines are injected into 18-day embryos rather than at hatch. Injection of vaccines of serotypes 1 or 2 into embryonated eggs or hatched chicks did not cause detectable gross or microscopic lesions in chickens. Vaccine viruses of serotypes 1 and 2 could be isolated from spleen cells of chickens 1 week post-vaccination, and the titer of recoverable viruses was higher in chickens that received the vaccines at the 18th day of embryonation than in chickens vaccinated at hatch. Although embryo vaccination with HVT usually provided better protection than post-hatch vaccination against early post-hatch challenge with variant pathotypes of MDV, the protection was poor regardless of vaccination protocol. If challenge with variant pathotypes of MDV was delayed until embryonally or post-hatch HVT-vaccinated chickens were 21 days of age, protection of chickens by HVT was not enhanced. Thus, resistance induced by embryonal vaccination with HVT was qualitatively similar to that induced by post-hatch vaccination with this virus.

66

Breeding / Rooster Breeding Questions

« on: February 16, 2012, 03:17:24 PM »

1. If a person wanted to use one rooster for two breeding pens, how often would you want to switch the rooster to assure fertility? Would you need to switch him back and forth from pen to pen everyday?

2. And, if you had two hens that were twin sisters, and you bred a rooster to hen #1, would it be considered inbreeding if you bred the chick out of those two back to hen #2...the aunt of the chick? Can you breed a chick to its aunt? Weird question, I know, but I don\'t know how the DNA and/or the genes work in this case.

Any thoughts on these matters would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Sharon

67

Breeding / Color variation

« on: January 22, 2012, 03:10:57 PM »

I hatched 5 (out of 7) blue chicks yesterday, all from the same splash cockerel and black hen, and one of those chicks is a very light, almost grey color. Is it normal (or common) to have such a variation in color? The 4 other blue chicks all look a like.

I also hatched out 6 splash chicks from the same splash cockerel and a splash hen. One of the splash eggs didn\'t hatch. Surely this is not that other splash, is it? The cockerel\'s daddy WAS blue. And there is a chance that the cockerel\'s momma was blue, too.

Either way, it\'s a cute little thing and I\'m eager to see what color it ends up.

--Sharon

68

Housing, Health & Hatching / Hen has large crop issue - Any suggestions would be appreciated.

« on: January 02, 2012, 01:40:18 PM »

I noticed last night that one of my 16 month-old hens had a large ball-shaped crop, so being fairly new at this, I tried searching the Internet for answers. I gather that this is somewhat normal at night, but it didn’t go away by morning like most of the articles said, so now I am a bit concerned that it could be a soured crop (or impacted) that won’t pass on its own. If someone could help shed some light on this, I would really appreciate it. This is what I have done so far:

I’ve taken her food away and put her in a pen by herself, hoping her body would digest more of it. I’ve massaged the lump (it’s a little squishy but firmer than I think it should be – not sure) several times. I just took her out a food mixture of: 4 tbs of plain non-fat yogurt, 1 tbs of apple cider vinegar, & 1 raw egg. I mixed that together. It was a little runny, but after I sprinkled the top with little pieces of egg shells, she dove right in and kept eating. I figured the vinegar and yogurt would help with digestion and the egg would help give her some nutrition and pass easy.

What else can I do? And please tell me if I shouldn’t do what I am doing. She acts okay as far as not being lethargic - I caught it soon, but she sometimes makes a funny neck movement like she’s trying to move the lump or it’s uncomfortable. Any thoughts?

Sharon

69

Housing, Health & Hatching / Power outage!!!

« on: January 01, 2012, 05:41:15 PM »

I had planned to set eggs on January 1st, but since my 3 girls had each given me 7 eggs in 9 days, I figured 21 eggs were plenty and I set them a day early. When I woke up this morning, I looked at the clock and it was blank. I leaped out of bed and ran to the incubator. My husband looked at me like, “Where’s the fire?” I asked him how long had the electric been off and he said about 30 minutes. I thought, “Crap! That’s what I get for setting them a day early!” The temperature was 95. I threw a towel over the incubator (hoping to help hold in the heat) then called the electric company. They said it would be about 2 hours before it would be restored in our area.

Long story short, we borrowed a generator and had it back up and running within an hour, but not before the temperature had dropped to 85. Total time without electric was about an hour and a half. Do you think this has done any damage? And what are some helpful tips to do in the case of a power outage…other than go buy a generator, which I’ll probably do anyway. --Sharon

70

Breeding / 3 Rookie Questions

« on: December 30, 2011, 11:36:00 PM »

1. If you take one rooster out of a pen and replace him with another rooster, how many days does it take to be certain the eggs are fertile by the second rooster?

2. And when breeding blue/black/splash, are there any does and don’ts you all have learned over the years that you would like to share?

3. Has anyone had any good or bad experiences with using shredded newspaper as bedding. I keep chicks in my house for several weeks after they’re born and I was thinking paper might help with the dust. I haven\'t tried it yet.

Thanks,
Sharon