I have chicks!

I am now the proud owner of five chicks. Love them already and I have only had them a day!
I have 2 Light Sussex, 1 White Leghorn, 1 Rhode Rock and 1 adorable little Bluebell.

As I have baby chicks on the brain, I thought today I could go over what you do when your chicks arrive.

Now, your brooder should be perfect temperature, switched on well before the arrival of chicks to ensure they are at the right warmth as soon as possible.

Gently remove the chicks from the box and dip their beaks into the water dish. I know this seems a bit cruel dipping stressed chicks into water, but they will be dehydrated from the journey and need to know where to get a drink.

To begin with have your chicks on paper towels, this ensures they wont eat the bedding as they are learning that chick crumbs are what they should be eating. After a few days, change bedding to pine shaving or whatever you have decided to use.

As they adjust to their new home, watch them closely - they are your thermometer!
If they huddle together under the heat lamp, then the brooder is not warm enough. This is dangerous as when the huddle together in a corner and climb on top of each other, they run the risk of smothering the chicks underneath.
If they are spread out away from the lamp and panting, it's too hot. Don't let them overheat, raise the heat lamp or lower the bulb wattage. Keep a close watch on this throughout the whole first week, especially during possible heat fluctuations at night or during hot days.

Watch out for pasting up. "Pasting up" is a condition where feces builds up on the chicks' vents, blocking exit of more feces. This can kill young chicks. Causes include stress from shipping and getting chilled. Check for this at least once a day. Younger kids can have a tendency to over handle chicks, watch out for this as handling new chicks stresses them out and leads to pasting up.

Keep changing the water as soon as it gets dirty, if you feel it's too dirty, too fast, consider using a nipple feeder. They are very simple to use and prevents accidental drowning, wet bedding and dirty water.

Each week, lower the temperature by 5 degrees until the temperature reaches outdoor temperatures. So for the first week, keep them at 95 degrees F. The second week: 90 degrees F. Third week: 85 degrees F. Adjust this as necessary so that they are comfortable - not huddling under the lamp (too cold) or scattering to the edges (too hot).


Starting at around 2-3 weeks of age, if the temperatures are warm (over 65 degrees F), you can bring them outside for short periods of sun and foraging. Make sure to add grit to their feed if they will be eating anything other than chicken feed. Grit is small stones that chickens keep in their crop to help them grind up bugs, grass and other food.

By 4-5 weeks of age the chicks are ready to move to their main coop full-time, or if the brooder is in the main coop, for the heat lamp and brooder to be removed. When you move them, keep them closed in the coop for a day or two (rather than letting them free-range) so that they learn that the coop is "home." Once there, follow basic chicken care to keep them growing strong! They will start laying eggs at around four to six months of age.

Well, i'm off to fix the garden , not long till these guys will be too big to stay indoors!

Eggtopsy

So i opened up the eggs up and all but three were fully grown, the rest were not fertile or stopped developing early. I still don't know if the last three are dead or not, so they are still in the incubator.

 I only opened the air-cells so the membrane is still intact, just moistened to ensure it doesn't dry up. There is no movement at all, so as usual im being pessimistic and guessing they are dead.

 I think i will wait till Wednesday to give you another update, at least then I will have some live chicks in the brooder. Bye.

Day 20 - Nothing

It's day 20,
No pips, no cheeps, no movement at all...

Arghhhrhh!

What on earth is going on? I candled them last night to see what was going on, there is a big black mass toward the air cell, and possibly feet or blood vessels or something around the bottom.  A big amount of the egg isn't filling though...

At first I though - "okay, it must be yolk that hasn't be absorbed yet" but it's not getting any smaller.

It must be nearly half the egg that's yolk...i'm very worried. One of the eggs has a very small air cell as well. That night when the power went out might have set it back a few days.

I will give them till the 27 before opening them to see what the problem was. The other eggs in there are just about on lock-down, tomorrow i think. Those eggs weren't here when the power went out so they should be okay if that's the reason.

Will update you if there is any change.
Night.

LOCK DOWN TOMORROW

I candled the first two last night, 

I'm not sure if it's my imagination or if it's actually happening - but I swear I saw the chick move a little inside the big egg.

Only one of them did it, and i'm still worried about the large space that isn't shadowed..

Isn't that space supposed to be filled up with chick by now?

Well, either way, i'm not worried. I'm excited! Four days till due hatching date. So it's probably just yolk that the need to absorb. I have to say, I have back up chicks reserved in case this doesn't work, after all, a lot of things have gone wrong so far. Especially the temperature going down too much when the power went out.

The back up chicks are very local. A couple miles actually, in Dunvegan. 

Well, not exactly. The farmer i'm getting them from is picking them up from Glasgow on Friday.

I am going to let them settle for a few days after the journey up. And by then hatching will be over so I will know how many to get. I will have chicks by Tuesday for sure! 

Well I have excited myself enough for tonight, I'm off to candle again.

Night!

Great Story

I know I posted less than an hour ago, but I have to share this adorable video. A story about a very brave Silkie. It's told in such a perfect way.

Okay, that's me away this time for sure, 

Night world..

Setting the Scene

So I thought I would tell you a little about where these little chicks are going to reside.

Seeing as a large amount of my readers are not residing in Britain. I will throw a couple of my photographs in so you can get a general feel of the place.

First of all, Skye, is beautiful. I've been in and around the island all of my life, and still get chills when I see a Sunset at Neist Point, or even step outside and taking a breath of such crisp, clean air.

Skye is just a little Island of the west coast of northern Scotland.

known for our rugged mountains

Here is a few photos I've snapped to show you the type of scenery the chicks will be viewing on a daily basis.

Anyway, as you can see, the island is really pretty damn nice here.

You may have spotted a few photos of dogs in there, the big Border Collie (Cuilean) is my dog, he has been very curious around the incubator. He loves smaller animals, but not to eat - he seems to think he's a mother.. 

I'm sure the chicks won't even notice what a wonderful place they live in - as long they have a steady supply of food, they will be completely oblivious!

Night world..

I'm afraid to say...

...my first batch of eggs is destined for destruction.

My power went out last night while I was sleeping - so my incubator lost power too.
I have no idea how long the eggs were left cold, all I know is that when I found them, they felt as if they had just come out of the fridge.
I will have to dispose of them. To be honest, I had little hope for these eggs when I noticed they weren't developing fast enough.

On the bright side... my new eggs arrived today!
So space in the incubator is needed any, for these beautiful little brown eggs. I was a little cautious about ordering eggs from Ebay as I know what scams people can do. Before I ordered anything, I checked out the reliability from reviews and success rate. The seller had 100% positive feedback. I read through many reviews - all positive - about great fertility rates and perfect packaging.
I ordered 6 Cuckoo Maran Bantam eggs when my initial eggs started to go downhill. How fast was that delivery! They are beside the incubator right now and will settle till tomorrow morning before being put into the incubator.

Okay, I got distracted while writing this and have new information on the old eggs, I have two left - and keeping them.

I check all of my eggs before throwing them out. Each time I plan on doing it I crack one of them open to make sure I'm not throwing out a whole batch of developing eggs.

On day 5 with no signs of life inside the eggs when candling, I prepared to dispose of them.
I cracked one open to find this:

Right in the middle - a heart. and it's beating. (not great quality now it's online - but it is there) If you open it to fullscreen, change it to HD. Quality improves a bit.

That concludes it - the older eggs are staying, so I have 8 eggs all together. I need to figure out what to do though - they are on day 5 but appear on day 4. The new eggs are on day 1. I am going to do some research and ask some chicken experts for advice.

Night world.

Uh Oh...

DAY 4,

Possible problems are stressing me out with these eggs..

When candling my 5 eggs, i couldn't make out any blood vessels or air pockets. These things should be clearly visible on day 4.

I broke one of the eggs open and discovered that it did try to develop, but stopped between day two and day 3.

Very confusing.. here's the photo of it.

A little development

I have been recommended by the lovely people of http://www.backyardchickens.com that it might be the winter months stopping the eggs from developing any further, so they are taking a trip to the desert for a week or so. I think a good idea is to put them with my bearded dragon for a while - it has a temp of 100 degrees and a humidity of 50%. Ideal for egg incubation. He is tiny and no harm to them, except snuggling into them at night (he likes snuggling into things when he sleeps.)

 Updates in a couple days, night world.

The Life Giving Bread Bin

DAY 1,

As promised, I am back to update you on my endeavors of the day.

 I purchased some eggs from the local farm. The tough part - I have no idea if the are fertilized or not.
I candled them earlier, they were all clear and appeared completely infertile. I was disappointed sure, but I shrugged it off and ordered some fertilized hen eggs online. They should be here next Tuesday, hopefully.

I went to throw some pancakes together, and happened to use one of the new eggs. This is what I discovered.

It had a bullseye!

Now if you can't see it (it's not the best photo) I converted the same photo to black and white so that it shows up a lot clearer.

See! It's above the lamp reflection!

So of course, I decided to give the eggs another chance - well, the ones that escaped the frying pan.

The are cosy and warm in my bread box incubator. I can't wait till day eight, when I can be sure they are fertile or infertile. But there is a problem...I ordered those eggs online too! I am in a bit of a pickle. 

I have about a month until things are completely certain, so I need to get a coop prepared! I have plenty ways to get wood, I think I have chicken wire in the back garden, so it can't be that hard...can it?

Oh well, I can worry about that tomorrow, right now I am going to show you my incubator and how I made it!

I started off with a plain old wooden bread bin, as you can see below, it's not much.

Plain old boring box

This is the inside, 

• I lined it with some floor underlay to stop any chicks injuring themselves against the sides
• A soft blanket to ensure a super warm bed 
• A heat lamp to keep the eggs warm
• A water dish (not in photo) to ensure a good moisture level
• Some chicken wire to stop any chicks touching the hot bulb (not in photo)
• A thermometer as well as a thermostat to ensure exact temperature

Outside

Thermostat - i pinched from my Bearded Dragon's tank.

Cables tidied with parcel tape.

To ensure a good air flow and to reduce the temp. a wee bit I added these holes in the lid.

 It also gives me a chance to peak in at the thermometer and check how hot it is without actually opening the incubator.

Well, that's me done so far, I will update you when the next big event happens!

Night World.

The Chick And The Duck

Hi world,

After watching an episode of Friends earlier today - the one with the chick and the duck - it sparked my memory of when I attempted to incubate eggs a few years back. Now, with a much better knowledge on the subject, I'm going to try again.

 If anyone out there wants to give it a try, and like me is a complete beginner in the subject, please follow my blog version first. You will either learn from my mistakes or echo my success. Whichever it is, this will hopefully help. I'm making my own incubator - I am not spending my wages on something that has been successfully homemade for years. It is made from the bread bin that has been unused for months (the bread actually sits beside the box). 

Padded with tissue paper and a blanket, I have began to transform this into an incubator. To maintain a steady temperature of 99-101 degrees, I have fitted my bearded dragons spare heat mat underneath the blanket. This is now attached to a thermostat reading 99 and a thermometer is in where the eggs will be so there is no chance of the temperature being wrong. If I can find the right light fitting tomorrow, I will be using a heat lamp instead but for now this will do. For the humidity level, I have no humidity reader, but I think i can find one tomorrow when searching for a lamp fitting. Brooding box will be an unused drawer, it seems the perfect height for newly hatched chicks (fingers crossed they do!). 

Report back tomorrow night for another update and some photos of my homemade incubator.

Night world.