Recent content by jlwquilter

Tua Thank you for your thoughts. I never see the hens picking at him but they could be as I’m not out there 24/7. I’m going to give him another check to see if his butt area has changed.

I forgot: I’m hatching eggs from my own flock. I have a RIR roo and both barred rock hens and RIR hens. I also have a Wyandotte, Easter egger and a black star hen but I try to not hatch those eggs. Both the Wyandotte and the Easter egger don’t breed often with the roo (they all don’t like each...

The first 18 days, up to lockdown are dry hatched in that I don’t add any water to the incubator at all. Humidity is whatever it is due to my overall house humidity. Right now that’s in the upper 20s. Once lockdown is reached I candle the eggs (I used to candle a few times but found I was too...

Hi. I did a complete flock butt feather check for dry clinging poop. Only a few hens needed to be hand cleaned. But when I checked the rooster I saw he had a red irritated looking patch of skin below his vent. The area around the feather follicles was raised a bit too. I did not see any lice or...

I’m doing dry hatches recently. It was too hard to maintain any consistency when I tried ‘wet’ hatches. My first dry hatch did really well. Best hatch rate ever and again, so easy. Most recent hatch rate was lower at 12 out of 16 eggs that made it to lockdown. I’ve got a new hatch just started...

I pick up large dog crates that people throw away and use as nest boxes, broody hen with eggs and then with the chicks as their home as well as chicken carriers. Someone threw away what I guess was a rabbit or Guinea pig enclosure on legs. Screened in (needed some screen replacement) with a...

She or maybe he! But yea, very cute 🥰 My daughter has named it Speckles.

The other chicks look like this:

Another picture

Hi. I ordered 10 chicks thru Tractor Supply. Female Delaware chicks. 9 chicks look like they should. The 10th looks completely different. The chicks come from Hoover’s hatchery. I contacted TSC and I’ve been credited for the chick so that’s good. Does anyone have a guess as to what this chick...

Here’s the link to space coast mealworms using egg crates to move/separate out live from dead mealworms. Works for beetles too although I haven’t don’t that yet. FYI you’ll notice his bin has little to no substrate in it. That may be key I think. I used this method when I got my purchased...

Hello! Welcome! I’m new at mealworms and have done a ton of research as well but real life is different than just reading lol. Your temp seem on the low side as does the ambient humidity. Temps should be closer to 77 degrees if you can make that happen. Low temps will slow down the egg...

Here’s a video I made about sifting frass and why the smallest mesh screen you can use gives a better result. Also a few ideas on how to sift and where you can find a cheap frass sifting screen :)

No disrespect to space coast but I think the beetle self sorting set up should be fairly easy to make oneself. What I wonder is how eager the beetles are to make the climb to begin with. What’s drawing them up the incline?

Oh I see I mixed that up. You got a gallon of mealies and beetles to keep and 2 gallons of frass with eggs mixed in. I don’t have egg experience yet so don’t know how they’ll work with the frass sifter screen (the grease splatter screen). But I stand by thinking a lot of that ‘frass’ was really...