Ameraucana Breeders Club
The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club => Housing, Health & Hatching => Topic started by: mustangsaguaro on March 20, 2012, 12:28:16 PM
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In the years I have owned Ameraucana\'s none of them have ever gone broody. Up until this year I only had them for egg laying. The colors I\'ve had in the past were all LF no bantams, and they were whites and silvers and they have never gone broody on me.
Now I have a bunch of LF Lavenders and 2 Lav splits. Are the Lav\'s known for going broody over the other colors? I ask because I let my birds free range (have only 2 roos and they are both Lav Am) and one of my Lav\'s is missing. Not sure if she\'s sitting on a nest somewhere that I can\'t find or if something took her (don\'t see a lot of feathers in any one specific place). I saw her 2 days ago when everyone was fed in the morning. And haven\'t seen her since. I have gone looking for her and the nest. I am sure I have probably walked by it a ton of times by now. When I have had broodies in the past they usually come out in the morning to eat then go back. I will usually follow them to there nests to see where they are at. But this one\'s got me stumped. She hasn\'t come out when I\'ve fed and I\'m starting to get worried. I\'m wondering if she comes out when I am not around and not looking.
I\'d like to find her and her nest to see how many eggs she\'s got in there and if they are all hers or some of my barnyard mixes as well. I\'m not going to be a happy camper when she comes out w/ a bunch of chicks in 21 days as I have chicks hatching now (about 30 or more) and getting more eggs in 2 weeks. The hubby will kill me w/ that many birds.
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Yes, the Lavs are way broody!! I hope she\'s setting out there somewhere and you are able to find her, OR that she\'s well hidden enough that nothing else finds her first!!
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My lavenders aren\'t any more broody than the others.
Are your lavenders descended from some that were crossed with Orpingtons in the last few years?
My buffs have always been the most broody varieties. 3 bantam hens are trying to share a nest and 3 LF hens won\'t get off their nests.
http://ameraucana.org/abcforum/index.php?a=topic&t=117
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My lavenders aren\'t any more broody than the others.
Are your lavenders descended from some that were crossed with Orpingtons in the last few years?
My buffs have always been the most broody varieties. 3 bantam hens are trying to share a nest and 3 LF hens won\'t get off their nests.
http://ameraucana.org/abcforum/index.php?a=topic&t=117
I\'m not sure if the one who I think is missing and sitting was crossed w/ Orps or not. 2 of my females are from Jean Ribbeck lines and the rest of them are from Cindy Aultman in Tx. The one that is missing/broody is from Cindy\'s stock. Does that help any knowing where the birds came from if they were crossed w/ the Orps?
The odd thing is I was wanting to get some Orps because they are known to go broody and I prefer using a hen over an incubator. I contacted a breeder close to me that breeds Lavenders and another one about 2 hrs from me and she breeds Lavs as well as BBS. Both breeders said there Lavs don\'t seem to go broody. But the one w/ the BBS said those the BBS ones tend to go broody. I think that is kind of odd.
I tried contacting Cindy yesterday but my email didn\'t go thru. Maybe she will see this and can let me know.
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My lavender hen from Jean was perma-broody...though come to think of it, the two I had from John\'s line were not...I guess my initial response was from people on the BYC forum talking about their broody lavs all the time... ;)
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Yes my lavs are crazy broody. I have one in a nest right now that wants to sit. Hope you find her! I recently lost an F1 pullet to a fox, a devastating loss for me since she laid a gorgeous blue egg, better color than the mother. Anyway, the pullet that was taken by the fox just disappeared like that one day. I did not find any feathers. It was not until later that I found a pile of feathers about 15\' outside my fenceline. I hope yours was not taken like that. Mine go broody in the nest boxes they are used to laying in. If yours was laying routinely in a nest box, it probably is unlikely that she would suddenly seek out a different spot to nest.
I put my labrador out with the birds now when I free range them. She is an excellent fox deterrent and does not bother the birds.
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I also had a lav female who was a daughter of a split hen I hatched from eggs that Jean sent me from her 2010 splitxsplit pen. She was a very determined broody and successfully hatched a clutch of eggs for me.
I\'ve even had Paul\'s pure blacks go broody on me, so I don\'t imagine I\'ve diluted the broody tendencies by using those birds, either.
The only thing that doesn\'t go broody around here is my 2yr old hatchery production red. She is my daughter\'s pet and follows her around like a dog. When the labrador is out in the pasture, you will always find Red with the dog. I think the silly thing likes people and dogs better than her flockmates.
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My lavender hen from Jean was perma-broody...though come to think of it, the two I had from John\'s line were not...
I do think that those stains with Orpington blood added in resent years are going to be more broody. Mine are no more broody than the average black Ameraucana.
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I put my labrador out with the birds now when I free range them. She is an excellent fox deterrent and does not bother the birds.
My dog does a good job w/ chasing the birds in the sky away while outside. If she see one in her so called air space she barks at them and they usually go away. She also barks at the large commercial airplanes that fly over her space to. This is a 13-14yr old dog. Think she\'s got pretty good eyes still.
Good news. I went out hunting in places I didn\'t look the other day and found her. She has a clutch of 17 eggs. She\'s in a pretty good spot behind a metal gate w/ some fairly high grass so just going to let her do her thing. I did kind of scare her so she did come out. From the looks of her she\'s lost a lot of weight. Doesn\'t look like she\'s eaten in a few days. She is eating now and hopefully will go back to the nest.
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That\'s great news! But you jinxed me....I came home to not one but TWO broodies. Thanks !!! lol
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That\'s great news! But you jinxed me....I came home to not one but TWO broodies. Thanks !!! lol
LOL. Sorry :(. I know we want them laying instead of sitting but I prefer to use my broodies instead of an incubator. They are way more reliable.
I had a disaster last night. Our power went out for a few hours and had 19 eggs in the incubator. Not sure how many are going to end up hatching now. Have 5 that hatched and out of shell w/ 2 or 3 more pipped. Not sure how many more may or may not still be alive.
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My neice had the power go off for about 6 hrs on her sportsman incubator in Feburary. They put blankets over the incubator until the power came back on. She still had 33 hatch out of 36 eggs hatch. Eggs were about 7-8 days from hatching when the power went out.
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Kim: How\'s your hatch coming? Fingers crossed!
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Kim: How\'s your hatch coming? Fingers crossed!
Pretty horrible. Had 10 out of 19 hatch. And now I\'m having chicks die left and right and don\'t know what\'s going one. Have had 3 chicks die so far. Two that were in the bator/hatcher last night fine when I went to bed. This morning when I woke up 1 of the 2 was dead. Then I had put 3 that were dry in the brooder appeared to be doing ok I went out an hour later and one was dead. I think I have 5 chicks left. Just hoping no more die over the night. I don\'t know why they would be dying.
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I am so sorry - I know what that feels like. I\'ll spare you the details but my next to last hatch went horribly wrong. I\'m glad I didn\'t end the season on that one. I can\'t say for sure why they\'re dying, but I think sometimes when a hatch goes wrong they struggle too much and they just succumb to the stress. Small consolation, but I doubt there was anything you could have done differently - the timing of the power outage was just plain lousy luck. I hope the worst is over and the remaining ones thrive... ((hugs))
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I am so sorry - I know what that feels like. I\'ll spare you the details but my next to last hatch went horribly wrong. I\'m glad I didn\'t end the season on that one. I can\'t say for sure why they\'re dying, but I think sometimes when a hatch goes wrong they struggle too much and they just succumb to the stress. Small consolation, but I doubt there was anything you could have done differently - the timing of the power outage was just plain lousy luck. I hope the worst is over and the remaining ones thrive... ((hugs))
Well, had another one die last night. Someone came and picked up 2 last night. Waiting to her if they survived. I have 2 left, and one doesn\'t look so hot either.
I thought maybe it was marek\'s but someone w/ more experience said no couldn\'t be that.
Also, I met some that bought some eggs from me about a week ago and about a week and a half to 2 weeks ago he was hatching chicks and the same thing happened to him. Chicks made it out of shells, made it to brooder and started dying. He had 45 die on him. Only thing I can think of is there is some type of virus in the air. But my other chicks which are silkies which hatched under a broody are doing perfectly fine, so not sure.
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Kim, I don\'t think anyone can say for sure what the problem is, but here is one possibility. If incubation is not just right, chicks can hatch with unhealed navels. If there is bacteria or other germs in that warm, moist environment they are hatched in, they can get an infection in the unhealed area, and that spreads into their systems. It can take anywhere from a day to a week to finish killing them. If they make it through the first week and then die it will be from something else. I don\'t believe Marek\'s would have that kind of effect on newly hatched chicks. Try disinfecting the hatching tray thoroughly before the next hatch, and see if it doesn\'t make a difference.
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When chicks die, I would immediately think mycoplasma or pullorum.
I would send some of them in for necropsy.
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Jean, could you elaborate? I have not heard of either of those potential causes killing day-olds. Source? Experience?
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When chicks die, I would immediately think mycoplasma or pullorum.
I would send some of them in for necropsy.
Just so you know I had other chicks non Ameraucana\'s and they were shipped eggs under broodies hatching and they are all doing fine. Perhaps I had some bacteria or something going on in my incubator? I don\'t know? I had one lone Ameraucana chick that hatched a week before these guys under a broody and it is doing fine as well. So could it be the mycoplasma or pullorum or could it have been something going on inside my incubator?