Chat room for non religious poultry keepers! :D

[The Birb King]

Talking about roosters... I'm not sure my guy is "getting the job done" at all with the girls. And if he is, he's shooting blanks. Sigh.

Yea my Serama rooster has 3 hens he is with. He used to like them but now he doesn't mate at all and pecks them if they try to eat his food! How do I get him to be interested in the hens again?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Now is not the time for me to say, when I was a kid, our phone was hardwired into the house! It never went anywhere past as far as the cord could reach!

Ok, I said it anyway.

We had a corded phone when I was a kid, too! Then a cordless phone that was still wired to the house at the base. I actually didn't get my first cell phone until well into my teens, but my parents are more old school that way and didn't think we kids needed that. Now my niece and nephew talk about their friends at school having phones and it absolutely blows my mind that so many kids that young have them!

Anyway, my problem is less that I'm wired down with my phone, I hardly make phone calls anyway. More the problem is that my phone sort of became a convenient any-time any-where camera to whip out. Not much of anything photogenic to see in the 3 feet or so surrounding the outlets of the house, unless of course my cat happens to walk by one.

Talking about roosters... I'm not sure my guy is "getting the job done" at all with the girls. And if he is, he's shooting blanks. Sigh.

Ah, man. Maybe it's just the weather and they'll get busy once it's more consistently spring-like?

 

[Jester57]

Hey, this might be the wrong place to ask this, but, when incubating, what happens if you're fairly consistently running around 54-58% humidity? The vent is wide open all the time on the top of this little incubator of mine, but I just can't seem to get the humidity down below 50%. The temp seems steady at 99-100. Is my higher than normal humidity a deal breaker? Also, if you have any tips I'd appreciate them.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Whoops, I ran out to close coops right after I posted, apologies!

What kind of incubator? What kind of eggs and how long have they been incubating? How do the air cells look? If the air cells are small for the amount of time the eggs have been incubating, then yes, that's a problem.

This is an air cell size chart. At days 7, 14, and 18, I mark with pencil the outline of the air cell while candling so that I can keep track of their size and compare to this. I'll be honest, I don't even bother using a hygrometer anymore because this works so much more effectively for me and gives me one less number to worry over. If your eggs look about like what this chart shows, or at least aren't too much smaller than this, then I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

[Jester57]

Whoops, I ran out to close coops right after I posted, apologies!

What kind of incubator? What kind of eggs and how long have they been incubating? How do the air cells look? If the air cells are small for the amount of time the eggs have been incubating, then yes, that's a problem.

This is an air cell size chart. At days 7, 14, and 18, I mark with pencil the outline of the air cell while candling so that I can keep track of their size and compare to this. I'll be honest, I don't even bother using a hygrometer anymore because this works so much more effectively for me and gives me one less number to worry over. If your eggs look about like what this chart shows, or at least aren't too much smaller than this, then I wouldn't worry about it too much.

They are bantam eggs, and I haven’t even put them in the incubator yet. As a matter of fact, I got them today and I’m letting them go through their rest day. I’m going to try your method, as it seems like it would work pretty much universally. I’m kind of freaking out a bit because I lost my 1st hatch due to an incorrect thermometer. But I’m reasonably confident that that won’t be a problem now. Are the air cell sizes in bantam eggs similar?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Have you tested your thermometer? For that matter, did you test your hygrometer to make sure it was reading correctly? This article goes over how to: https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...incubator-thermometers-and-hygrometers.73634/ Another way to calibrate your thermometer, if it can read low enough to, is to fill a large measuring cup or bowl with crushed ice and then put just enough cold water in to fill the gaps between the ice. Put your thermometer in there and see if it reads at freezing or not. If you're using a thermometer that can't be submerged, you'll have to put it in a plastic bag and remove as much air as possible before putting it in there, of course. Some thermometers, especially for incubators, don't read low enough to do this with, though.

Yes, the air cell size should be the same in bantam eggs as in large fowl. You're pretty much just looking for the right ratio of air to egg contents, essentially what percentage of the egg is air and what isn't. So the egg is smaller, but the air cell should still look like that chart as far as how big it is compared to the egg as a whole.

Are you setting for the Easter hatchalong or just coincidental that your eggs arrived when they did? I'll be setting some eggs today, too, though as mentioned earlier I'm not super confident many will develop.

 

[Brizi]

Dang, BYC has a specific thread for every kind of person. Also, no offense, but the sad reactions to this thread make me laugh. We're fine, you don't need to be sad for us.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Hey, at least they weren't angry with us like they were with the LGBT crowd

 

[Brizi]

Hey, at least they weren't angry with us like they were with the LGBT crowd

I actually thought about that right after I posted here. I saw the LGBT thread and the angry reactions to it. My goodness. "They're turning the chickens gay!" Okay, I'm sorry, I'll stop.

 

[Jester57]

Have you tested your thermometer? For that matter, did you test your hygrometer to make sure it was reading correctly? This article goes over how to: https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...incubator-thermometers-and-hygrometers.73634/ Another way to calibrate your thermometer, if it can read low enough to, is to fill a large measuring cup or bowl with crushed ice and then put just enough cold water in to fill the gaps between the ice. Put your thermometer in there and see if it reads at freezing or not. If you're using a thermometer that can't be submerged, you'll have to put it in a plastic bag and remove as much air as possible before putting it in there, of course. Some thermometers, especially for incubators, don't read low enough to do this with, though.

Yes, the air cell size should be the same in bantam eggs as in large fowl. You're pretty much just looking for the right ratio of air to egg contents, essentially what percentage of the egg is air and what isn't. So the egg is smaller, but the air cell should still look like that chart as far as how big it is compared to the egg as a whole.

Are you setting for the Easter hatchalong or just coincidental that your eggs arrived when they did? I'll be setting some eggs today, too, though as mentioned earlier I'm not super confident many will develop.

I've calibrated my therms, but the hygrometer has been a little trickier. I'm finally getting within the margin of error on all my instruments, so I'm just going to rely on what appears to be the most accurate.

Thanks for the info on the air cells. I'm just going to try to keep track of everything, since I lost my 1st hatch and probably killed them off myself by relying on a cheap therm. The therm on the incubator is actually more accurate than that one was.

It is just a happy coincidence that I'm incubating in time for the hatchalong, but I think I'll enter it and hope things work out this time.