Quail

[Irving]

Haha, oh man. So do you have enough hens to recover and continue your flock? Do they fight a lot in that situation? What did the final ratio end up as far as male:female?

[GilpinGuy]

Yeah, I have plenty of hens to replenish the flock. I should have 50 eggs incubating within a few days. The whole thing is just a "What the hell were you thinking?" experience.

I haven't seen any battles so far and they aren't all beat up, so I think they're keeping the peace for now. I found one dead bird the day after I transferred them to the cages but the cause of death wasn't obvious. I've seen birds that got murdered by other birds and it isn't pretty. They can be pretty vicious.

The ratio for the f-ed up cages is 1-2 hens with 5-6 roosters. Exactly the opposite of what I intended. Those poor girls have to be getting pounded. Tomorrow I will combine all of the hens and keep the best looking rooster. The rest of the boys get whacked.

[rondog]

Interesting! Never seen this before. How the hell did I miss this thread for nearly a year and a half?

[GilpinGuy]

Quick update. After the debacle I posted about, I started a new batch of 50 eggs in the incubator to replenish the flock. 2 days before hatch the incubator failed - it just shut down completely. It's an IncuView and I really like this incubator a few reasons (my review), so I was disappointed that it crashed 2 weeks after warranty.

I contacted the company (Incubator Warehouse) and they sent me a new power supply even though it was out of warranty. That was the problem. Good on them for being understanding and taking care of me when they really didn't have to.

So, 50 more eggs go in tomorrow. Hatch in 17 or 18 days. It's been weird not having a GIANT surplus of eggs since I unintentionally culled so many hens. It'll be fun to give away eggs again when we get back up to speed.

[Jonsey]

Bummer! We lost a few batches with power outages one winter. I hope you have a good hatch next time!

[GilpinGuy]

I have chicks hatching. Here's a couple of videos for anyone that's interested.

[Irving]

I gave your videos ThumbsUp. You have your account monetized right?

When they are born, do you have to dip their beaks in water and food to teach them how to eat and drink like chickens?

[GilpinGuy]

I don't have it monetized. I figured I'd see if I get any views/followers first. I have almost 200 followers not and a few of videos have thousands of views, so I should probably do that at this point. I was hoping to drive some traffic to the blog, and it does do that, but maybe it's time to monetize the videos too.

When I put them into the brooder I have food and water out for them. The food I just put in a pile on the floor and I drop one or two of the chicks in the pile. They figure that out real fast. For the water, I do dip the beaks of a couple of them in the waterer. Then the rest see what's up and figure that out too.

Thanks for the thumbs up!

[Irving]

You're already missing out on money, get that done. You'll need to start an AdSense account as well.

[GilpinGuy]

Probably going to dive into this tonight.