Reviews by Debbie292d

I was searching for DIY incubators and read yours. It's awesome; however, pictures tell 1000 words, is the saying. Also, any updates would be great to see.

Awesome explanation to give confidence to those of us who don't want to mess it up! Very thorough and great pictures too!

I had a chick that would pull on the toes of other chicks. Not peck, pull, and pull so hard he'd tip the other chicks off their feet. He'd go one to another, like on a mission. I would sit there for half an hour watching him, tapping his back when he'd do it, and I could tell when he was going to do it so tapped him before he did it. I'd leave for a couple hours and come back to two chicks with bleeding toes, so that wasn't working. Hubby finished building the new brooder and it wasn't that the old one was too small, but this one was double the size. That did it! Thanks for the ideas. That was about 6 months ago and I forgot to rate your article that helped me.

Thank you for such thoroughness in explaining these afflictions. I haven't had chickens with either, but was just searching for an article to help someone on here who does. I'm sharing it with them.

We've used horse bedding pellets for years in our coop. Most recently, we started using them in our brooder when chicks are just a few days old. The only difference between you and us is we don't touch the pellets in the coop for a year. Every spring, we put down about 3-4" of them in an 8x12' coop, and for 18 chickens, that lasts until next spring.

I was looking for ideas to pen silkies for breeding I'll be doing this coming spring. I like the pictures, but if you could go to edit, then go to the right side of one of the pictures and hit "return", you can then type explanations underneath them. That would be very helpful! I love it though and some great pictures!

That is cute as a bugs ear! Totally adorable!

I love it and lucky for you to adopt/adapt a coop.

This though " (tip, knock them into cold water and they’ll freeze)" referencing Japenese beetles. I heard somewhere else someone say they knock them all into cold water, freeze it, and then let the chickens have it. Is that what you mean or literally, the cold water freezes them? We have a lot of them here on some of our birch and raspberry bushes mostly.

This is a great article as I heard about this raising our own mealworms and wanted to learn. You explain it so well. A decade though? Wow, amazing!!

Quite a descriptive story about your little flock, complete with sounds! I almost thought I was reading a children's book. You should consider writing a story for a children's book, but of course, there are a few sentences in there they'd not understand.

"...that I only need chickens... And never people." -- some days, don't we all.

You could expand on what you're covering here a little bit, and I would go softer on discouraging people from using hatcheries. You've got to consider that some people have no choice but to have chicks shipped to them and cost may also be a consideration.

This statement - "If you want a show quality chicken, you should look for a poultry show near you" is great if you live where there are poultry shows. I'm just suggesting you should list other options, instead of just one. For example, I got mine from a breeder that was 30 minutes away, instead of driving 2.5 hours to a poultry show.

Just be mindful as you write that there are all kinds of people who may read this, from cities to the boonies.

I would keep going on this as it is a good topic!

You just need to add some more pictures and explain a bit about what's up with this as a coop and how it works for you where you are, how you did it, and why you did it.

I never knew there were so many varieties of finches. We have the wild ones here, but I wish I knew what I had as "pets" about 30 years ago. I had about 8 of them and they would sing so pretty every time we ran the vacuum cleaner.

I loved reading about the different types. Maybe someday I'l get them again. I still have their giant cage out in the garage. Thanks for the great information!

Very interesting information for new chicken owners and old ones like me. I get intrigued learning something new as just when you think you know everything, you learn some more.

May I suggest perhaps adding to your section about chickens passing things from generation to generation to include why we shouldn't allow the breeding of or rehome the totally psychotic roosters? I just sort of thought I'd see that and didn't and it's only a suggestion. Great job!

I love your start-to-finish and all the in-betweens. You did a great job explaining it for anyone who wants to build a coop like yours and so many good pointers even if it's going to be a different one. Cute chick!

P.S. About your light-sensitive chickens -- we use a black ceramic heat bulb in our brooder, then have an LED strip we turn off at night so they sleep in the dark with a little night light. That might help yours next time.

Wow, you thought of everything here down to power strip, cameras and thermometer/hygrometer. Excellent explanation to go with the pictures. Love it!

This is excellent advice.

I've used a couple of those ideas with great success too.

One thing, though. I'm not sure why people say Facebook Marketplace, as you can't list them there. I've seen others suggest it too, but you can't. I got rejected even trying to sell my macaw parrot's feathers she lost, as all parrots do.

I got rid of most of my roosters on Facebook, though, by joining several chicken groups. They have a group(s) for every state and sometimes dozens. People post in those groups what they are looking for and what they are getting rid of. You can't put prices in the posts, and most know that you need to have FB Messenger to be messaged or send messages about the post. If someone tells me they don't have Facebook, so make an account if only for chicken/poultry groups.

This is a great article, nicely written and illustrated, about a great coop! I have been looking for articles to help me improve mine. Yours was one of the best and a treat to read! Love it!

Great pictures. As for the formatting, I think one is referring to each explanation typed starts beside the picture on the right, and the rest is below the picture left justified. I think if you clicked at that point on the right and hit return, it would put it in line with the rest. At first, I didn't see the sentences started to the right so I thought something was missing while reading.

Also, I would take that part out about laying a towel on our incubators and, instead, advise people to place their incubators away from windows where the sun, even indirectly, could harm the eggs. You could advise them to use a room where they can close the curtains or blinds. if necessary.

Otherwise, great article!

This is ingenious if it worked, but need to know step by step how you did it. I am looking for a good article on a good DYI incubator, as I want my hubby to build me one. Pretend you're teaching someone how to build it.