Devonviolet Acres

babsbag said:

First you need a rooster

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Yeah, fertilized eggs are a given.

I kinda figured I would need to separate the chicks. So, do I put out chick starter, like I do with mail order chicks? How long do I keep the hen & chicks separate from the other hens?

I do put out chick starter if they are in the coop. My hens that are rogue in the yard feed themselves and the chicks, I just make sure that they have water. I separate them for 2-3 weeks, a lot depends on how ferocious the mama hen is. Some will literally protect them with their life and others will throw them under the bus. I always try and make sure the little ones have a place to eat as food seems to bring out the monsters in the other hens.

Devonviolet said:

I would gladly share my nasty Marans, however I love her chocolate eggs. I would love to let a broody hen raise some chicks, however I don't have a clue how to set up for her to do that.

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I'll take your nasty Marans! When I got the 50 Delaware chicks in the spring, Dh picked up 6 Americana chicks at the feed store that were supposed to be females. Since the Delawares were so darn mean, as you know, we butchered ALL the roosters. Weeeeellllllll......one of the Americanas looks to be a rooster! I'm going to separate them from the Delawares and get an incubator. I could put your Marans with the Americana Rooster and maybe we'd get Olive Eggers! Wouldn't that be cool? I know you can cross a blue egg layer with a brown egg layer and get olive egg layers. I'm going to give the Americana roo a couple of brown egg layers just for fun!

Devonviolet said:

I would gladly share my nasty Marans, however I love her chocolate eggs. I would love to let a broody hen raise some chicks, however I don't have a clue how to set up for her to do that.

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frustratedearthmother said:

Technically - you don't really need a rooster But - you DO need fertilized eggs, lol!

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Don't need that either! I got 7 chicks from Meyer June last year and stuffed them under my broody BA at some time past Zero dark thirty. Good thing chickens aren't real smart. She "hatched" 7 chicks of 3 breeds from 3 plastic easter eggs with rocks inside. 3 of them were Easter Eggers so very appropriate

I made a brooder area in the coop using 2 adjacent sides of the coop and made the other 2 sides from wood and 1/2" hardware cloth; 2'x6' brooder. 2x4 wood framed welded wire on top. Zorra turned out to be the protective chicken mama from hell, even the "WE rule this place and don't you EVER forget it" Anconas ran scared.

I let Zorra and the kids out every day after the older girls had gone outside. She slowly increased their range but took them back to the brooder area every night for 2 weeks. Then she apparently tired of waiting on me in the morning and one evening I found she had taken the kids to a 14" x 14" nest box. The nest access perch is 18" off the ground, and by that time hitting the 2' "intermediate height" roost was no problem for them. Amazing how high those chicks can get in such a short time. At about a month that nest box was AWFULLY tight and the chicks started moving themselves over a few days time up to the 4' high roosts with the older hens. Zorra kicked them to the curb at 2 months.

For food I used non medicated chick starter. That and their water in the brooder were up on a platform about 3" high (so they wouldn't fill them with shavings) with holes to hold the bases. After they moved upstairs, I had to make a small entrance to the brooder area so only the chicks could get at the food. At some point they were jumping up into the hanging feeder and eating the layer feed so I ended up dumping about half the chick starter I had purchased into the can of layer.

Thanks Bruce, that really helps. We have had chickens for 19 months now. But, never hatched eggs.

When we still had roosters we tried putting putting 5 fertilized eggs under a broody hen. She sat on them, but we occasionally found her on different nests. When we found her off the eggs, we moved her back to the one with the fertilized eggs. Over time, she crushed one egg, pushed two out of the nest, one proved to not be fertilized and one was DOA. Not a very successful attempt. So, we haven't been very willing to try again. One of these days, we might be brave and try again, by either getting some fertilized eggs or maybe another roo. For now, we have plenty of chicks to keep us busy.

Actually, I am hoping that our Pekin drake will do his job and eventually we will increase our flock with fertilized duck eggs from our 5 female ducks. I would really rather let a broody duck hatch the eggs than use a brooder and raise them to the point we can include them in the flock.

Thanks again Bruce, for sharing your experience.

You are welcome @Devonviolet

I forgot to add:
Zorra goes broody several times a year. She had been sitting (read hogging) a nest box for a week when I ordered the chicks. I made the brooder area and moved her into it with the 3 plastic eggs (she had been sitting on nothing but shavings as all my broodies are happy to do) and she stayed. She was still parked when the chicks came about a week later so I figured she was good.

I'd never stuffed chicks under a broody before so of course I was a bit nervous. I had made a Mama Heating Pad cave for the chicks since the "stuffing" is supposed to be done when it is so dark the hen can't see and chicks arrive in the morning. They spent the day in a cardboard box in our bedroom and I tried to place them that night. I don't think it was dark enough and she was fidgety and MAYBE pecking the first chick so I retreated. BIG T-storm an hour later so the chicks spent the night and next day in our bedroom. MHP chicks are very quiet and sleep at night "Stuffing" went well the next night. If she had rejected them, I would have moved the MHP into the brooder area in the barn and kicked Zorra into the broody buster.

We are still working to get the chick/duckling area ready for putting them outside permanently.

The brooder shelters are ready, but we want to fence some runs, for the chicks & ducklings, before we put them out there. Long story short, we had a tree stump in the way, and it needed to be removed. So, today we went out there with a shovel & the chainsaw.

We dug around the stump & used the chainsaw to cut the stump below ground level. It went amazingly well.
BEFORE

AFTER

That's the stump laying on it's side.

After the ground was leveled, we decided to cut down a cedar tree, that we want to use for a couple fence posts.

We tied a long, heavy rope on to the trunk. DH did the cuts while I pulled on the rope. The tree came down exactly where we wanted it.

There was still gas in the saw, and we like to run it dry before we put it away. So, we cut another cedar tree, for fence posts.

As we cleaned up the branches, that we had cut off the trees, we realized there was a dead, rotten tree near to the one we had just cut down. We still had gas in the saw, so we decided to cut that down as well.

This time there were trees close by, and the dead tree hung up on a neighboring tree, making it harder to get down. DH, made some extra cuts while I pulled on the rope around the trunk. There was a loud crack, he jumped behind a tree & down came the dead tree.

Here is a shot of all 3 trees on the ground.


I told DH I'm going to start calling him Lumber Jack!

Curious to why take the stump out?
We leave the stumps, as they decay there are lots of tasty bugs that are aiding in the process that chickens love to eat.

Great job on taking the trees down!

Thanks. This particular stump just happened to be smack dab in the way of the fence & a gate, that we are putting in for the chicken run.

This turned out to be a lot easier than renting a stump grinder.

I'd take the stump out too, it would be my luck to stumble over it and fall down in chicken poop. Since ya'll are so enthused about cutting down trees, come on over and I'll fill up the chainsaw!