They Eat ALOT!

I find myself going to the feed store ALOT!  I have so many little mouths to feed these days, between our three dogs, two cats, 124 chickens, 20 ducks and 2 geese...I seem to constantly be going to get more feed.  I have read about fodder, sprouting grains and fermenting feed to boost the nutritional content...I have started my first batch of fermented feed.  People have been eating fermented food for ages, it is suppose to take less feed per animal and they can't spread it everywhere like with the crumbles or pellets...I am talking about poultry feed here, my dogs will eat anything.  If I sprout grains I will have to figure out a storage system and grow lights if necessary and what grains would work, fodder is really for larger animals like goats, cows or sheep.

I took two five gallon buckets and filled them 1/3 full of my Flock Raiser food crumbles...then I added the same amount of water and stirred it and placed a lid over the bucket loosely.  I am to stir it every day and add water as needed.  It gets really thick and I had to add more water after it soaked in some...kinda like thick gloppy oatmeal.  I am currently on day 3...it kinda stinks, but it started bubbling on day two so I know it is working.  The anaerobic process is suppose to basically create beneficial bacteria and it produces enzymes and such that are good for your poultry.  So far I have not had problems with mold or foam, but plan on taking my basic starter batch and starting more buckets and rotating the buckets, washing them out after I remove the last bit and place it in another bucket to start a new batch.  I am hoping this works well, it should save me about half the money I have been spending on feed do to waste.  But, my chickens and ducks and geese also have to learn to eat it.  I also started adding sunflower seeds to their scratch grains for a bit more protein...and I have been looking at catfish food as a possible additive to the fermented feed too.

Most people feed their animals twice a day...I usually fill the feeders that often so, I will probably keep up that practice...when my batch is ready.  

In the mean time, I have 5 baby Rouen ducks that are doing well in my bathroom brooder, and I have 12 chicks in my back porch brooder, Mamma hen. Brown Racer, is taking good care of her 7 babies and they seem to be doing well after the loss of one the other day.  I have eggs in the incubator that hopefully will hatch early next week...they are the eggs from my hens that recently started laying.  I found a man that I may be able to get hatching eggs from for African geese in the Spring, and the new Khaki Campbell's and Hybrid 300's are outside in the big pen with the adult Rouen ducks and doing well.  

Life is good on the farm...Oh, and I sold my first eggs!

Leaving My Babies

I finally tallied up all of my chickens...I have 124!  I think.  I also have 20 ducks now.  I had 5 duck eggs hatch the day before yesterday, the others are now about five weeks old and have gotten to big for the kiddie pool on the back porch.  We had storms and another power outage before this set of duck eggs hatched too.  I think that is why we had about a 50/50 hatch rate...that and too low of humidity.  I had to help all of the ducks out of their shells this time, I still not sure if they will all make it, they were shrink wrapped...when they get shrink wrapped the inner lining of the shell pulls away from the shell and adheres to the baby inside.  The shrink wrapping affect restricts their movement and they can't zip around the shell to get out...so basically you have to do it for them, before they die.  I actually had 6 that pipped, after the first one died...I helped the others after waiting 12 hours or so.  I opened the shells enough that they could breath and peeled the membrane off of their heads so I could see them, I waited and waited...they did not come out of the shells after 8 more hours.  At 4:00am I decided if I was going to save them I would have to help even more.

They are my babies...each and every one.  When I collect the eggs from my chickens or ducks as in this case, incubate them for 21 or 28 days...checking on the eggs, filling the incubator with water, checking the temperature several times a day, turning the eggs, making adjustments and watching them closely for signs of trouble during hatching...you betcha they are all my babies.  It seems more so when I save them like I had to this time.  We left for an overnight trip and I worried about them the whole time and they were still in the eggs.  We had storms you see...and when we have storms out in the country...a lot of the time the electricity goes out, that makes the temperature drop and if it drops too low for too long...the babies die.  I try and think about other things when I am hatching eggs, and I know it may sound a little crazy...but I love these little balls of fluff...they are in essence my babies and it hurts me when they don't make it or one dies.

Like I said, I had to help them hatch, it basically was a three day process this time for 6 eggs...I only helped the ones that pipped and then I almost waited too long to see if they could get out on their own.  Once I broke open the first eggshell and saw how shrink wrapped they were I knew I had to do more.  I candled the eggs and helped each one after it pipped...I ended up waiting 8 hours after breaking the shells open and peeling back the membrane from their faces to see if they would get out, they did not.  I took more of the shell of at that time and laid all the eggs on their side I upped the humidity and actually used an eye dropper and moistened the inside of the shell.  It seemed like they were so adhered to the inside of the shell they could not move.  I waited again...this time overnight.  None of the ducks had gotten out of the shell by the time I got up the next morning!  At this point I figured they would all die, you have a three day window during hatching...after those three days, the ducks or chicks need food and water.  They absorb the egg sack for nutrition before they hatch, that is how they survive three days without anything...that is also why they will ship day old chicks from a hatchery.

This is the hardest I have worked to save my babies, normally I have the temperature and humidity right on hatch day and have very few problems.  I had two help two of the ten that hatched from my last batch of ducks...this time six out of 8 eggs.  It was breaking my heart every time I went in and checked on their progress or lack thereof.  I upped the humidity to 85% with all the water I had added to the inner shells and wet paper towels in the incubator.  I had one duckling die overnight and I ended up taking off half of the rest of the shells and waited even more so they could kick away the bottom half to set their little legs.  I have not had to set any chick or duckling legs because of this...I waited more.  Two ducklings made it out of the shell finally, the others were barley moving and it was concerning to me.  I mixed up some poultry drench and vitamins, probiotics and electrolytes and started dripping it on their little bills trying to keep them alive to finish hatching.  After about 6 more hours 2 more ducks kicked off the shells...but the umbilical was still attached and the ducklings still had not absorbed all of the yolk sack.  I removed the two that had dried out and cleaned them...and put them in the brooder box.  I again dripped warm water into the egg shells of the remaining ducklings, then gave them all a few drops of my vitamin concoction...and waited more.

To avoid trying to help them any more I went and worked on the last bits of hardware cloth to cover the run to the chicken coop.  I stayed outside until night time.  Once my hubby got home, I checked on progress once again with the ducklings I was able to cut the umbilical of another duckling and put it in the brooder, I waited until bedtime and checked again on the remaining two ducklings.  I again gave them vitamins with the dropper, moistened the inner eggshell added water to the incubator and left them for the night.  I was half expecting them to have died by morning, but...another one had made it out of the shell!  I took that one and clipped the umbilical...gave it a warm bath and put it back in the incubator after a few drops of vitamin water.  The other duckling was still alive and moving a bit...I decided to take it, shell and all and wash it off.  It's little head was matted with goop that had dried and it's eyes could barely open.  I did not remove the shell from its backside...I filled it with warm water and gently bathed the duckling in the shell.  I put drops in its eyes that contain the same boric acid they use in the hospital for human infants when they are born.  I wrapped the duckling with a paper towel and gently laid it in the incubator gave it a few drops more of the vitamin water and hoped the next time I checked on it, that it too would be out of the shell.  I decided to move the other duckling to the brooder so I had four total in the brooder and three of them were scooting around pretty good.  I use puppy training pads in the bottom and they were having some issues with the slickness of them, I put some paper towels on top of them and it helped a little.  Again to avoid doing anything with the duckling...I decided to let nature take it's course...and I went out to do my chores and plant trees.

I did not check on the last duckling for several hours, but when I did...it had finally kicked the shell off!  Yea, I was so relieved it did not die!  The shell was still attached though and the umbilical was not dry yet...so more waiting.  The other four ducklings had started walking and I watched them and made sure they were eating and drinking.  Sometimes when I go check on them I touch them all to make sure they are alive.  This was a hard hatch for me.  Leaving all of my babies was hard and having eggs in the incubator and the storms made it worse for me.  The last ducklings umbilical finally dried out before I went to bed, I had my husband cut the cord so to speak and ended up putting the baby back in the incubator over night.  Since the other ducklings were walking, I thought it best to give this one a little more time until it could move better before putting it in the brooder with the others.  The next morning all five ducklings are up and moving around and so far so good.  I have not checked on them yet this morning, I guess I should get in there and make sure they are clean, fed and watered...just like a baby...but they are my babies.

Working On The Chicken Run

It has taken us several months of weekends but we got the chicken coop in pretty good shape.  We have built PVC pipe waterers that are connected to a 50 gallon rain barrel, and we have one inside the coop and one outside the coop on a South facing wall...hopefully it won't freeze this winter.  I still need to make the feeders but at least we have the water done.  We set all the posts for the chicken run into cement and the run is not as big as I had planned now, but the posts are set, the door is on and I have started putting up the hardware cloth on it.  The chicken run is about 13'x16' instead of 16'x16'...but I am going to convert the grow out pen to a chicken coop now too and probably a smaller movable run as well.  Chickens really need to be the same size when you integrate them into the flock, it makes things a lot easier if they are.  They also tend to hang around together if they were raised together and sometimes hang around with the other chickens that look more like them.  My Blue Andalusians will hang out with my Blue Splash Marans...they are very similar looking...but the Marans have feathered legs and feet.  The Black Copper Marans will hang out with the black Sex-links and the Cream Legbars will hang out with the other barred chickens.

It takes me a lot longer to get projects like the coop and run built, I have to rest a lot and take care of the animals too.  I got the baby ducks set up on the back porch now, they are in a kiddie pool with cage wire around it, they have learned to drink out of the nipple waterers now too.  I moved the chicks that were in the house to the back porch brooder now too.  The chicks that were in those brooders are now in the run.

I put hardware cloth and boards to attach it to up 8 feet so far on one side of the chicken run and got hardware cloth hung on the other two sides and currently it is just attached to the 4"x4" posts and the 2"x6" boards at the bottom of the run.  There is a slight gap in the middle at the moment, but the chicks out there can't fly very well yet and I hope to get the 2"x4"'s up today and finish attaching the wire with heavy duty staples.  The main thing is keeping the grown chickens away from the youngest ones.  I tried to put a few in the chicken coop, but the roosters chased them and grabbed them and picked them up or tried to mate with them.  There is a pretty good size difference between a five and a half month old chicken and a 7 week old chicken...so at this point, they will stay separated.

It is starting to get cool at night, so I will have to come up with a smaller shelter inside of the run for the littles so they can huddle up and stay warm.  I went and picked up a bunch of dry grass and put a tote on it's side with grass in it and put a bunch of grass on the ground for them to snuggle into, if they want.  The ground is very sandy out here and they picked a corner and were really getting into dust bathing when we were watching them.  It is funny watching them interact.  We took the Cream Legbar chicks out of the chicken coop and put them and the Blue Splash Maran out in the run with the smaller chicks too.  They had been hiding a lot and seemed afraid to go outside with the other chickens.

We have a cold front on the way and it is suppose to get down in the mid 50's this week at night and the highs will be in the seventies and 80's instead of the upper 90's...good for me while I am working outside...but a bit cool for my youngest chickens.