It's good to see your project and your plans. Having raised chickens 48 years, and up to 525 at a time, which takes over a literal ton of feed to get them to butchering, laying weight. Your choice of the Barred Plymouth Rock is good, I have used the White Plymouth Rock and the RI reds all to good end. I have had to try a variety of different arrangements. A few points to consider, the meat from your birds will not have the same texture as store bought because the big processors put an additive in the water which changes texture. However the meat with no additive, I feel, is better, tastier, and healthier. Your use of a rooster is right in that the ratio of a rooster to hen should be up to 1 to 12, after that you start seeing a higher amount of unhatched eggs in the incubator, this also gives a greater gene pole. Changing roosters every 2 or 3 years and maintaining fresh stock is good, what I do is buy ten cockrels from TSC every few years raise them up and select my roosters from that, choosing the larger as breeding stock so I always have bigger birds for the freezer. Using different colored leg bands at this time is beneficial. You can let your eggs set in a cool area for up to 15 days this is what I do, basement etc., since in nature the hens will start a nest in a shaded, secluded area and after forming a clutch usually will start setting, and still have a very good hatch. It's good to use the red light so that the chicks will not peck and eat each other, I actually place an open ended box in the brooder area for the first few weeks, depending on the weather, so the chicks can get out of the direct light. They tend to sleep and rest better. I have used several methods of hatching which I have built my own incubators, preferring the air circulated best for hatching, however the broody hen is, I feel, always better, also having 3 on eggs now, duck eggs, because my rooster was killed by an opossum, it is why I like to usually try to keep a backup rooster, but since I put all my eggs in one basket so to speak this year, have not been able to get the grown rooster I wanted. There is a study out there that has good regard that eggs not turned during incubation hatch better and the points made in the study are very logical, one being that turning can damage the embryo. Using a brooder house just for chicks is also good because you can expand space as the chicks get larger until ready to incorporate them into present flock which gives time for culling older, less productive birds. Hope this helps.
I agree with all you said except getting your roosters from TSC to sustain your flock. You will never know what genes are in those roosters, and it might not show in your birds until a few generations have passed and by then it will too late. Instead you should focus on your own roosters, and keep 3 or 4, and have your hens divided equally amongst the roosters, that way each rooster will have their own flock, and once you collect eggs for reproduction from all 3 or 4 groups, then rotate the roosters to the next group, and then collect fertile eggs from those groups next time for reproduction, that way the gene pool will stay fresh and you will know what genes are in your chickens and what results to expect when hatching chicks. As the chicks hatch, for reproduction, always keep the hens in the group where the mother was, and any rooster that you want to keep, just incorporate it into the rotating reproductive cycle. For example, you could have 3 roosters, and 3 to 4 or more hens per rooster, so 12 chickens could sustain your flock with a good and healthy gene pool if going with a small amount of chickens. I hope that helps.
Love to look at the study your referencing. I can't imagine with the number of times a mother hen turns her own eggs that it would be better to leave them still. She turns them way more then what we do with automated turners actually. I've actually watched them do this myself.
this was amazing, and so inspirational. Thank you! We put an offer in on a 325 acre ranch and we are starting with heritage chickens. Your video is part ofmy learning, so THANK YOU!
325 acres? You must have about a million chickens by now. All joking aside, raise your heritage breed, but on the side, raise some White Leghorn, and try to keep them wild, they are of a skittish nature, and will do well as semi-wild chickens, and as long as you provide water and food for them, they will consider your home, theirs also. Leghorn chickens are excellent layers of white eggs, and the females don't usually sit on a clutch of eggs, but I am sure that in a wild setting, some will eventually go broody, and they will sustain themselves in the 325 acres just fine. You might be able to collect eggs from them if you provide nesting areas near your home, and if you ever want to harvest any, you will probably have to shoot them or trap them with a net, as they might not allow you to get near. Leghorn chickens raised at home will be skittish somewhat, but if you handle them a lot as chicks, they will get used to being handle and will not be as skittish when adults.
Great plan! 🥚. Suggestion: Purchase new roosters from different hatcheries or farms keeping good records of your sources. Line breeding is possible if you want certain traits but inbreeding is bad producing characteristics like curved beaks and bowed legs and infertile hens. Zeroing out expensive bag feed and growing natural feed will be a wonderful full circle design. Each generation will become more robust than the last and production longevity increases. But even in retirement old stock can become soil manufacturing workers within their own yard that you continuously add green yard and garden waste. Let it get really deep. Then sift with 1/4 inch hardware cloth. Best compost ever!
You didn't elaborate on your storage process for the fertilized eggs until incubating, but I have seen/read that you need to rotate the eggs in order to keep the yoke from attaching to the side of the egg. You can do this by elevating one side of your carton and then just switching which side is elevated once or twice a day. This will keep the yoke in motion and not stick to the side of the shell, which in the end will give you a better hatch rate. Great video though.
Put up a temporary fence in your garden area in the off season and put the chickens in this area and you'll be amazed at how much your veggies will improve. thank for sharing. great job 😀
Prob. 12:10 is our chicken-breeding and raising philosophy verse. Also, Joel Salatin’s great quote, “May all your animals live a glorious life, with just one bad day.” Really, just one bad moment if I do this thing correctly, right? 😊 ♥️
new subscriber here, shared 4 of your videos with my daughter, and 2 others with a brother and my son, daughter has or had chickens, hope she tries again, think she needs a rooster to. for protection in Wisconsin, plus your fire place videos, thank You , God Bless your desires for many many chickens :)
I prefer the incubator with a fan, I have used both. It's a fun thing. Have had good results. Some breeds are better than an another. I bred two and found out that what resulted was actually a breed that already existed. Live and learn. Hens beyond a year begin to get tough. 2yrs is about when they start off laying but the meat isn't as tender. 6mos before they begin laying is optimal at least in my experience. You really should have an egg turner as well.
Great video.. can't wait to see how the whole process works with raising them and processing some for meat and keeping your flock growing. Thanks for sharing this..
I think you have a good plan starting off providing for your family learning as you go with the hope of getting larger as time goes by. Something that would be of interest might be (if it is even possible) could you do a hatch all natural allowing a hen to hatch her eggs? may be a great video series for us viewers and a wonderful learning experience for you and the SSL family.
I see you have a really nice incubator and I found this to work with every incubator except for the cabinet size now you put underneath your incubator a heat pad set it on medium and leave it there for the whole time you would not believe the outcome will help you hatch more eggs
Do you have some of your wheat to produce Wheat flour? If not, try to make some calculations if you can by localy from your neighburs (wheat) or if you have mill in your area to purchase flour in big bags ( bulk). You can use eggs from chichens and flour to make noodles for soups and sell them in pachages of 100 to 200 grams. That is some semi-process, and you don't sell only eggs, but your own noodles. My family done that for more than 40 years.
hey airborne, good information. we are going to try to do the same thing with Barr Rocks. thank you for the information and we have been enjoying your videos for a while now.
Wow 300 chickens is alot of feed in the wintertime. That's 250 pounds a week. I pay $8.50 a bag 18 % from the Amish.Nice video! Interesting on the brooder!
yeah I am thinking it would be about $200 per month in winter for food. With the cycle of meat and egg production the goal would be to make at least twice that per month in sales.
You may have increased success if you tip your egg carton on a bowl and switch which end is up twice a day. This is especially important if you are storing them for more than a day or two.
I just hatched out 18 eggs out of 42. The lady at the feed store said there are about 5 days old when I got them so I guess it's not bad considering the age
I’m curious how you rotate the roosters. I also breed (New Hampshire Reds). I usually keep one or two main roosters for a few years, process the younger roosters and select hens, keep anything laying and younger than 2 years old. Every few years I bring in a new rooster to keep the flock DNA stable. If you don’t, eventually all of your chickens are related somehow.....and eventually will lower the quality, viability, etc of you eggs and chickens.
I was thinking about looking around every year for a new rooster and then retiring the old one. I could also order a straight run or barred rocks from various online nurseries each year and select the best rooster that way.
SSLFamilyDad That’s basically what I do, every two or three years, I get a straight run of 6 or so. There is usually a rooster or two in there to “reinfuse” the DNA. I would rather trade with someone local, but I don’t know of anyone that keeps the N.H Reds, especially pure ones.
Ziad Natsheh Well, all of my roosters are hatched by me, or ordered as day old chicks every few years to rotate the genetics. Generally I let the roosters decide which one is right. The dominant rooster will stand out. If there are no obvious defects in feathers, color, comb, etc., and he has established dominance, I will generally go with that one. If this rooster is too aggressive toward me or my family, or he is beating up on the hens, then I will move on to another rooster that takes the dominant role when he is gone. This rooster needs to be able to establish as the alpha not only to fertilize eggs and keep the flock in order, but to assist in protecting the flock when I am not around.
Thank you. Sounds pretty obvious now that you say it. One thing that was on my mind was passing any aggressive genes that will make keeping chickens a pain.
Very cool man! We're interested in starting to hatch out our own chicks too. This is our second year doing chickens and it seems to make sense to start taking advantage of our fertilized eggs. I think our next step is choosing an incubator... Do you love the one you have? We've thought of going for just a 10 egger and maybe having 2 or 3 to keep in rotation.
We swap roosters with our farmng neighbors for breeding. I don't know if it matters, but, we don't want to chance brother/mother or brother/sister breeding. After breeding we swap back for our original birds.
Hey Todd. What about hawks and such? Will they stay away if you have a rooster? Is there any concern of larger birds, swooping down and taking the hens?
@@SSLFamilyDad perfect! Thanks Todd. Happy be-lated birthday. We are “binge watching” your channel right now! Lots of cool stuff. Really enjoy the channel buddy!
I'm curious, since you have them separated in a breeding coop, with a nesting house, why are you incubating rather than allowing the hens to nest them?
@nigel cuthbertson You are correct silkies are awesome at brooding and make excellent mothers in the right conditions. However, there is one big drawback in using them for broody moms in the wrong conditions. In mixed flocks silkies are almost always very low in the pecking order. They are small, and not aggressive. I have always found, in a free range scenario, where various chickens wander around the farm, that the higher the chicken ranks in the pecking order, the more success she will have getting her clutch raised to maturity, and fitting in, and accepted with the rest of the adult birds. For example, I have one particular Buff Orpington who is particularly tuff, not something they are known for, but each bird has a personality regardless of breed. It's not a constant battle, or anything like that, but when she walks up to food, the rest knowingly step away. When she has chicks, the rest better not even look at them cross eyed. She is broody often and a good mother too. As good as any silkie, but in my case better. I've found in 50+ years around chickens, that hens that get no respect from the rest of the flock before they have chicks, won't have much authority after they do. If you have a low ranked mother hen, I'd advise that she and her clutch get an isolated pen from when she is setting until her chicks are nearly grown, then you'll still have to deal with pecking order issues when you do decide to let them co mingle. So even though silkies are famous for being such great broodies, IMHO, there are plenty of other breeds, Cochin, Brahma, Australorp, Orpington, I even find plenty of Barred Rock, that are better options. I pay more attention to rank than breed, as each of these breeds will have individual birds that outrank others. When you find a great mother like this save her for as many years as you can, and don't worry about her production. You don't have to use the baddest birds in the flock, but the top fourth will do a lot better than the bottom fourth, I guarantee it. Also any fowl that is broody will raise whatever kind of eggs she sits on, but don't make a mistake that my mother made when I was a kid, and put chicken eggs under a duck (or goose). They make good mothers too, but even if they have to wait for a thunderstorm to find a puddle, they'll take their babies swimming at first opportunity, and even though chickens and chicks can swim, they can't swim as good as a duck, or take much cold when they are little.
I seen a video on youtube the other day. And it had one by using your smart phone to see if your eggs are fertility or not. By using the flashlight and some play dow.
Question??? Do you keep birds separate for a time to aclimate with older or older getting used to babies??? I found my babies were picked at a lot when little without a mom
Yes, keep them separate but in view of or amongst the older birds for a week or so then let them together. There might be a little pecking and order being established but they should do ok
I'd really suggest that you get a better incubator with fans, auto turning and better temperature controls. Maybe a big investment, but well worth it. Lots of brands out there with good equipment, you may have already done this. I've had a Brinsea incubator in the past, a wonderful machine that works well, tho a bit expensive! Also, you should only keep hatching eggs 7-10 max, keep cool (60 degrees or so) and turning them once a day as suggested by others. Any longer and hatch rates will suffer. Remember, a hen who hides her nest will lay 6-12 eggs and only start incubation when she is finished laying, so 7-10 days is a good measure for how long you'll have good hatch rates.
Most of them don't fly over the fence (6'). However I have 2 that do almost everyday and then find their way back in. I may clip wings or run a piece of wire along the top of the fence so they can't land there.
Thanks for your video. Just curious if you wanted to do it naturally. Would you just take a few eggs to eat. Leave one or two with the chicken and hatch naturally thanks.
In regards to hatchability rates, you can leave the eggs alone for up to 10 days, and they will be fine, after the tenth day, the percentage of hatchability will start to decline, and the longer you wait, the faster it will decline, so keep the eggs up to ten day if you want to collect the maximum amount for incubation.
If you want to sell eggs, Barred Plymouth Rock is not the best breed, but you can always improve on them by keeping records and seeing which hens are the best layers. Of course, for that you will have to separate the hens for a while and keep track of how many eggs each individual hen lays per week, so you will have an idea of which ones are the better layers, and once you have that crucial information, then use those hens solely for reproduction, as their offspring most likely will also be better layers as their mothers. Chickens must be bred to do what you need out of them, otherwise they will eventually turn into mediocre chickens, once the gene pool gets all mixed up bad with good chickens. Having said that, the same process must be applied to the next generation, to continue to improve or at least sustain, the laying characteristics of the flock.
We have a very aggresive rooster that we have raised from a baby. Do you have any tips on how to calm him down? My moyher cant go into the coop without being attacked.
If anyone want to keep chickens, but can't keep a rooster because of noise or whatever, then find someone near by, who does have a rooster, so when you want to hatch your own chicks, you can take your hen/s to that rooster, let him mount the hen, and start collecting those eggs 3 days later, at which time the eggs should be fertile and the hen should continue to lay fertile eggs for 30 days or so.
Very nice. I started with 6 birds 5 years ago and now have about 1,200. I can hatch 600 chicken eggs a month and 2,000 quail eggs. total goal is 12,000 chicken, and 5,000 quail . Did i say I also have 100 rabbits. Hows your operation going now? I collect 1,000 chicken eggs a month and about 84% hatch, the quail eggs are about 80%.
Hey Bro!! I Just Moved on to some Land....I also want to Raise Barred Rocks!!! Do you have any Chicks?? Or advise on Where to get some from GOOD STOCK!! Thanks Bro!!
Two recommendations. 1) Turn the eggs while you are collecting and waiting to place in the incubator to increase hatch-ability. I just tilt the egg cartons from one side to the other three times a day. 2) As your operation grows, look into clan or family breeding to help with controlling your own genetic diversity. Can even be done with a small flock, I run three roosters and 12 hens in three family groups.
A hen won't start "incubating" (I am not an English speaker) until she finishes laying eggs (you must know how many eggs per series your hen lays) so no problem if your eggs are waiting that many days. So, another very important reason not to start incubating until your entire series of eggs are collected, is because you must keep the number of the days from when your incubation started. Why? With three or two days before hatching, you must stop rotating the eggs because in those last days, the chicken chooses a position (posture) inside the egg and starts breaking the shell. If you rotate the egg in that period, you diminish the chances to have a successful exit. This information must come with your electric incubator as it comes with ours in Romania, Also, have a hen on her eggs and watch her (maybe have a webcam installed) to see how many times a day she turns her eggs - I assure you that she does much less than an automated machine.
Getting your birds from a reputable breeder that is NPIP certified would be your best bet. Birds take longer to mature but end up healthier in the long run. BTW is that an Airborne hat youre wearing??
Thank you brother. Two questions I've really tried to resolve in my mind for planning...1)So how are you preventing line breeding if you are hatching and turning these chicks back into he coop with the rest, presumably under the same rooster. 2) How are you selecting the eggs for hatching rather than consumption? Candling them? Thanks.
The flock I use for breeding will always be separate and only have one rooster. I will get a new rooster each year from an outside source to keep genetics fresh
If you can, get a round pin for the chicks so they don't crowd and suffocate each other. I imagine it'll be more of an issue with batches larger than one or two. I pray God blesses your efforts here. You never know what will come.
A good video but I think I need one more about the basics of the "birds and the bees" of chickens. Something less than this video, but more than, "When the Daddy chicken wants to show the Mommy chicken how much he loves her ..." LL
Curiouse if you have ever looked into Quail (specifically the Jumbo variety is what I am getting ready at doing). If you wanted some good videos then look up "Slightly Redneck" as he has a bunch of good videos on the subject.
One of my children's eggs never hatch, the rooster seems to do a good job with her but the embryo dies in the second week or it doesn't hatch, what do you think it Is?
As far as I can tell there are only three factors with incubating eggs, 1. heat needs to be at 99.5, too low and they will not develop correctly, too high and they can develop too quickly and hatch early with defects. 2. humidity and air, need to have 60% humidity and fresh air circulation. 3. Make sure to turn the eggs three times day at least for the first 18 days, the last few days you can leave them alone. Only other factor really would be genetics, maybe it is a bad line some how.
I understand, I don't use an incubator because the chickens get broody, but they are good natural incubators, there seem to be only one particular breed that doesn't hatch, all the other breeds hatch correctly, I think it's genetics as you said..if it's genetics,what can we do about That? I really wanna breed those chickens.
lol, yeah that would be nice. We actually borrowed an incubator last year with a turner and none of the eggs hatched so I just don't quite trust it yet.
I keep my chicken as pets and i wanna breed them. But I don't know if i introduce a rooster to my two hen , I don't think they will get along together.
Not sure 100% yet (which is why they are still in the window sill!). Thinking about lining the edges of the property and tree lines with berry bushes but the grapes I will need to build a trellis for.
I don't know about raspberry but blackberry plants will go spread like nobody's business. My worry about that would be them growing unchecked into a neighbors property, but you would know more about that than me.
If I get a rooster but most of the time I just want eggs for eating, will all of my eggs be always fertilized? How do I separate the fertilized ones from the ones for eating, or do I separate the rooster from the chickens? 🤔
Soooo stinking CA-UTE! My confusion is between the egg laying and fertilizing. If I want fertilized eggs, do I just leave the eggs that have been laid in the coop and wait for the rooster to fertilize the hen? (that sounds so weird to me. LOL!) Do they not go bad doing that? Is that the sign to the rooster that he needs to do "the thing" with the hen? I'm so ignorant but I have a move in rooster that has become my 2nd pet but I want to get 4 or so hen chics to eventually put in a coop. I am so ignorant and don't know how to figure out the fertilized egg part because I'd want to "reproduce" on my own if I lose a hen or two to predators. (Even though my coop is going to be as predator resistant as I can make it.) I want chickens for eggs primarily but would love to understand the process for getting hatch-lings if for some reason I lose any to predators. Also, if I were to have to resort to an incubator (which I hope to not have to do to be honest) how do you know what eggs are fertilized? Once an egg or two hatches, how long do you keep those humidifier plugs out? The whole 2 hours or so that they are drying out? Also, does that affect the other eggs when you do that? I'm so sorry this is so long but this is the best video I've come across for reproducing these cutie pies. Wonderful video! Subbed even though it's an older-ish video. ;)
Lots of great questions here so I will do my best to answer. The rooster mates with the hens daily, once the rooster mates with the hen and she then lays an egg it is a fertile egg. If it is kept above 90 degrees from then on for 21 days it will hatch if all goes well. If you have a broody hen she might sit on the eggs that she lays and hatch them out for you. If not you will have to collect the eggs and incubate them yourself. Hooe that helps! I will do more videos on all the how to's in the future, thanks for following along!
I keep seeing people incubateing dirty eggs i know why you dont wash the eggs. Only put clean ones in. Most importantly when you mix the days they hatch. I have a few breeds i hatch and use clean eggs and will mix the hatch day up to five days.then start different incubator. I dont mean any disrespec keep up the good work
The theory here is that we are trying to mimic how a hen naturally incubated eggs, temps, moisture, etc. Eggs have a protective coating that can shield the chicks from disease and other issues, if you wash that off you put them at risk. The eggs are taken directly from the nest to the incubator. Not saying you can't wash them if you wanted, just not how we plan to do it
Man, one mistake there, dont put the heating lamp over the food and drink area of the brooder area. 1st the chicks will get wet and die just because they want to stay under the lamp. They will also poop on the water and the food all day long. Keep the lamp over the empty space.
Get a Cornish rooster and have it with some of your barred hens because that is how you get Cornish cross they finish in about 8 to 10 weeks for meat but do not breed second generations because they will not grow nearly as fast or nearly as big. Also don't keep the extremely big or small eggs because extremely big might not hatch because double yolk and the small eggs equal smaller chicks which equal smaller chickens usually. And keep your biggest rooster and the best laying hens and biggest to maintain the quality of your chicken flock please respond because I want to know that you read this. Oh and if you keep a second rooster make sure he has a nice build and the roosters won't fight if there is enough space and enough hens. Here is a link that I garentee you will help you it helped me ua-cam.com/video/TZaHQV22zqM/v-deo.html
It's good to see your project and your plans. Having raised chickens 48 years, and up to 525 at a time, which takes over a literal ton of feed to get them to butchering, laying weight. Your choice of the Barred Plymouth Rock is good, I have used the White Plymouth Rock and the RI reds all to good end. I have had to try a variety of different arrangements. A few points to consider, the meat from your birds will not have the same texture as store bought because the big processors put an additive in the water which changes texture. However the meat with no additive, I feel, is better, tastier, and healthier. Your use of a rooster is right in that the ratio of a rooster to hen should be up to 1 to 12, after that you start seeing a higher amount of unhatched eggs in the incubator, this also gives a greater gene pole. Changing roosters every 2 or 3 years and maintaining fresh stock is good, what I do is buy ten cockrels from TSC every few years raise them up and select my roosters from that, choosing the larger as breeding stock so I always have bigger birds for the freezer. Using different colored leg bands at this time is beneficial. You can let your eggs set in a cool area for up to 15 days this is what I do, basement etc., since in nature the hens will start a nest in a shaded, secluded area and after forming a clutch usually will start setting, and still have a very good hatch. It's good to use the red light so that the chicks will not peck and eat each other, I actually place an open ended box in the brooder area for the first few weeks, depending on the weather, so the chicks can get out of the direct light. They tend to sleep and rest better. I have used several methods of hatching which I have built my own incubators, preferring the air circulated best for hatching, however the broody hen is, I feel, always better, also having 3 on eggs now, duck eggs, because my rooster was killed by an opossum, it is why I like to usually try to keep a backup rooster, but since I put all my eggs in one basket so to speak this year, have not been able to get the grown rooster I wanted. There is a study out there that has good regard that eggs not turned during incubation hatch better and the points made in the study are very logical, one being that turning can damage the embryo. Using a brooder house just for chicks is also good because you can expand space as the chicks get larger until ready to incorporate them into present flock which gives time for culling older, less productive birds. Hope this helps.
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I agree with all you said except getting your roosters from TSC to sustain your flock. You will never know what genes are in those roosters, and it might not show in your birds until a few generations have passed and by then it will too late. Instead you should focus on your own roosters, and keep 3 or 4, and have your hens divided equally amongst the roosters, that way each rooster will have their own flock, and once you collect eggs for reproduction from all 3 or 4 groups, then rotate the roosters to the next group, and then collect fertile eggs from those groups next time for reproduction, that way the gene pool will stay fresh and you will know what genes are in your chickens and what results to expect when hatching chicks. As the chicks hatch, for reproduction, always keep the hens in the group where the mother was, and any rooster that you want to keep, just incorporate it into the rotating reproductive cycle. For example, you could have 3 roosters, and 3 to 4 or more hens per rooster, so 12 chickens could sustain your flock with a good and healthy gene pool if going with a small amount of chickens. I hope that helps.
Love to look at the study your referencing. I can't imagine with the number of times a mother hen turns her own eggs that it would be better to leave them still. She turns them way more then what we do with automated turners actually. I've actually watched them do this myself.
Getting our first set of chickens this Spring. 36 chicks! We are so e xcitied to have them join us!!
this was amazing, and so inspirational. Thank you! We put an offer in on a 325 acre ranch and we are starting with heritage chickens. Your video is part ofmy learning, so THANK YOU!
How is everything going now? 🤗
325 acres? You must have about a million chickens by now. All joking aside, raise your heritage breed, but on the side, raise some White Leghorn, and try to keep them wild, they are of a skittish nature, and will do well as semi-wild chickens, and as long as you provide water and food for them, they will consider your home, theirs also. Leghorn chickens are excellent layers of white eggs, and the females don't usually sit on a clutch of eggs, but I am sure that in a wild setting, some will eventually go broody, and they will sustain themselves in the 325 acres just fine. You might be able to collect eggs from them if you provide nesting areas near your home, and if you ever want to harvest any, you will probably have to shoot them or trap them with a net, as they might not allow you to get near. Leghorn chickens raised at home will be skittish somewhat, but if you handle them a lot as chicks, they will get used to being handle and will not be as skittish when adults.
Great plan! 🥚. Suggestion: Purchase new roosters from different hatcheries or farms keeping good records of your sources. Line breeding is possible if you want certain traits but inbreeding is bad producing characteristics like curved beaks and bowed legs and infertile hens. Zeroing out expensive bag feed and growing natural feed will be a wonderful full circle design. Each generation will become more robust than the last and production longevity increases. But even in retirement old stock can become soil manufacturing workers within their own yard that you continuously add green yard and garden waste. Let it get really deep. Then sift with 1/4 inch hardware cloth. Best compost ever!
You didn't elaborate on your storage process for the fertilized eggs until incubating, but I have seen/read that you need to rotate the eggs in order to keep the yoke from attaching to the side of the egg. You can do this by elevating one side of your carton and then just switching which side is elevated once or twice a day. This will keep the yoke in motion and not stick to the side of the shell, which in the end will give you a better hatch rate.
Great video though.
Put up a temporary fence in your garden area in the off season and put the chickens in this area and you'll be amazed at how much your veggies will improve. thank for sharing. great job 😀
I agree alot of folks don't realize just how incredible chicken manure is. I collect my birds manure and use it in my garden and it does super.
Prob. 12:10 is our chicken-breeding and raising philosophy verse. Also, Joel Salatin’s great quote, “May all your animals live a glorious life, with just one bad day.” Really, just one bad moment if I do this thing correctly, right? 😊 ♥️
new subscriber here, shared 4 of your videos with my daughter, and 2 others with a brother and my son, daughter has or had chickens, hope she tries again, think she needs a rooster to. for protection in Wisconsin, plus your fire place videos, thank You , God Bless your desires for many many chickens :)
Thank you for your service, God bless you and your family!
Very cool the footage of the baby chicks opening the eggs!
Love your channel. Wish I could convince my husband to move out of the suburbs to a farm!
So happy for you and the new SSL chicks!
Amie R Chicks R so Cute!!!🌸💕🌸💕🌸
I love the Bible verse. 🌷🌸🌷🌸🌷🌸🌷🌸
Awesome Video, Looking at homesteading and you convinced me to breed chickens myself instead of getting mail order chicks.
I prefer the incubator with a fan, I have used both. It's a fun thing. Have had good results. Some breeds are better than an another. I bred two and found out that what resulted was actually a breed that already existed. Live and learn. Hens beyond a year begin to get tough. 2yrs is about when they start off laying but the meat isn't as tender. 6mos before they begin laying is optimal at least in my experience. You really should have an egg turner as well.
Great video! very nice. just startng out my self, appreciate you putting up here.
Just in time. I was just talking about this to my son.
Great video.. can't wait to see how the whole process works with raising them and processing some for meat and keeping your flock growing. Thanks for sharing this..
I'm learning a lot from you and your family. In my nursery right now are 9 orphan chicks. I think I have their area too big.
I think you have a good plan starting off providing for your family learning as you go with the hope of getting larger as time goes by. Something that would be of interest might be (if it is even possible) could you do a hatch all natural allowing a hen to hatch her eggs? may be a great video series for us viewers and a wonderful learning experience for you and the SSL family.
Excellent i too am really interested in the self-sustaining home flock and smaller batch continual harvest - thank you.
Lots of work Bill.i have a couple hundred birds .very hard to breack even i live in Dunlap.tn
I see you have a really nice incubator and I found this to work with every incubator except for the cabinet size now you put underneath your incubator a heat pad set it on medium and leave it there for the whole time you would not believe the outcome will help you hatch more eggs
Adorable! Looks like you've got a couple of roosters there.
We are pretty sure two rooster so far
It must have been exciting for your whole family
I think you are doing fantastic!
great video thanks for sharing your experience!
Do you have some of your wheat to produce Wheat flour?
If not, try to make some calculations if you can by localy from your neighburs (wheat) or if you have mill in your area to purchase flour in big bags ( bulk). You can use eggs from chichens and flour to make noodles for soups and sell them in pachages of 100 to 200 grams. That is some semi-process, and you don't sell only eggs, but your own noodles.
My family done that for more than 40 years.
hey airborne, good information. we are going to try to do the same thing with Barr Rocks. thank you for the information and we have been enjoying your videos for a while now.
Very interesting video . Thank you !
Wow 300 chickens is alot of feed in the wintertime. That's 250 pounds a week. I pay $8.50 a bag 18 % from the Amish.Nice video! Interesting on the brooder!
yeah I am thinking it would be about $200 per month in winter for food. With the cycle of meat and egg production the goal would be to make at least twice that per month in sales.
Im a 11 year old trying to raise chickens for eggs and eventually sell the babies thanks for helping
You may have increased success if you tip your egg carton on a bowl and switch which end is up twice a day. This is especially important if you are storing them for more than a day or two.
Hi great video i love those waterers and feeders just curious how does your waterer work?
Great info as always. Do you have any plans to build a black soldier fly larvae dispenser to feed the chickens high protein for free?
What do you do with the male chicks that hatch?
I just hatched out 18 eggs out of 42. The lady at the feed store said there are about 5 days old when I got them so I guess it's not bad considering the age
I’m curious how you rotate the roosters. I also breed (New Hampshire Reds). I usually keep one or two main roosters for a few years, process the younger roosters and select hens, keep anything laying and younger than 2 years old. Every few years I bring in a new rooster to keep the flock DNA stable. If you don’t, eventually all of your chickens are related somehow.....and eventually will lower the quality, viability, etc of you eggs and chickens.
I was thinking about looking around every year for a new rooster and then retiring the old one. I could also order a straight run or barred rocks from various online nurseries each year and select the best rooster that way.
SSLFamilyDad That’s basically what I do, every two or three years, I get a straight run of 6 or so. There is usually a rooster or two in there to “reinfuse” the DNA. I would rather trade with someone local, but I don’t know of anyone that keeps the N.H Reds, especially pure ones.
How do you choose the right rooser? what qualities do you look for?
Ziad Natsheh Well, all of my roosters are hatched by me, or ordered as day old chicks every few years to rotate the genetics. Generally I let the roosters decide which one is right. The dominant rooster will stand out. If there are no obvious defects in feathers, color, comb, etc., and he has established dominance, I will generally go with that one. If this rooster is too aggressive toward me or my family, or he is beating up on the hens, then I will move on to another rooster that takes the dominant role when he is gone. This rooster needs to be able to establish as the alpha not only to fertilize eggs and keep the flock in order, but to assist in protecting the flock when I am not around.
Thank you. Sounds pretty obvious now that you say it. One thing that was on my mind was passing any aggressive genes that will make keeping chickens a pain.
Very cool man! We're interested in starting to hatch out our own chicks too. This is our second year doing chickens and it seems to make sense to start taking advantage of our fertilized eggs. I think our next step is choosing an incubator... Do you love the one you have? We've thought of going for just a 10 egger and maybe having 2 or 3 to keep in rotation.
i love those little guys!
Precious!
We swap roosters with our farmng neighbors for breeding. I don't know if it matters, but, we don't want to chance brother/mother or brother/sister breeding. After breeding we swap back for our original birds.
Hey Todd. What about hawks and such? Will they stay away if you have a rooster? Is there any concern of larger birds, swooping down and taking the hens?
As long as they have some cover in their run or where they range they are fairly protected, roosters also help to alert the hens of danger
@@SSLFamilyDad perfect! Thanks Todd. Happy be-lated birthday. We are “binge watching” your channel right now! Lots of cool stuff. Really enjoy the channel buddy!
Great video
could you tell me how long it takes for the eggs to hatch once in the incubator please?
21 days
I'm curious, since you have them separated in a breeding coop, with a nesting house, why are you incubating rather than allowing the hens to nest them?
Barred rocks aren't very broody, meaning that they rarely sit on their eggs
SSLFamilyDad oh, ok. Thank you very much. 😁
@nigel cuthbertson You are correct silkies are awesome at brooding and make excellent mothers in the right conditions. However, there is one big drawback in using them for broody moms in the wrong conditions. In mixed flocks silkies are almost always very low in the pecking order. They are small, and not aggressive. I have always found, in a free range scenario, where various chickens wander around the farm, that the higher the chicken ranks in the pecking order, the more success she will have getting her clutch raised to maturity, and fitting in, and accepted with the rest of the adult birds. For example, I have one particular Buff Orpington who is particularly tuff, not something they are known for, but each bird has a personality regardless of breed. It's not a constant battle, or anything like that, but when she walks up to food, the rest knowingly step away. When she has chicks, the rest better not even look at them cross eyed. She is broody often and a good mother too. As good as any silkie, but in my case better. I've found in 50+ years around chickens, that hens that get no respect from the rest of the flock before they have chicks, won't have much authority after they do. If you have a low ranked mother hen, I'd advise that she and her clutch get an isolated pen from when she is setting until her chicks are nearly grown, then you'll still have to deal with pecking order issues when you do decide to let them co mingle.
So even though silkies are famous for being such great broodies, IMHO, there are plenty of other breeds, Cochin, Brahma, Australorp, Orpington, I even find plenty of Barred Rock, that are better options. I pay more attention to rank than breed, as each of these breeds will have individual birds that outrank others. When you find a great mother like this save her for as many years as you can, and don't worry about her production. You don't have to use the baddest birds in the flock, but the top fourth will do a lot better than the bottom fourth, I guarantee it.
Also any fowl that is broody will raise whatever kind of eggs she sits on, but don't make a mistake that my mother made when I was a kid, and put chicken eggs under a duck (or goose). They make good mothers too, but even if they have to wait for a thunderstorm to find a puddle, they'll take their babies swimming at first opportunity, and even though chickens and chicks can swim, they can't swim as good as a duck, or take much cold when they are little.
@@bradpayn8058 Thanks for the knowledge
I seen a video on youtube the other day. And it had one by using your smart phone to see if your eggs are fertility or not. By using the flashlight and some play dow.
Question??? Do you keep birds separate for a time to aclimate with older or older getting used to babies???
I found my babies were picked at a lot when little without a mom
Yes, keep them separate but in view of or amongst the older birds for a week or so then let them together. There might be a little pecking and order being established but they should do ok
Have you thought about introducing new roosters to keep the Jean pool fresh
All the way
I'd really suggest that you get a better incubator with fans, auto turning and better temperature controls. Maybe a big investment, but well worth it. Lots of brands out there with good equipment, you may have already done this. I've had a Brinsea incubator in the past, a wonderful machine that works well, tho a bit expensive!
Also, you should only keep hatching eggs 7-10 max, keep cool (60 degrees or so) and turning them once a day as suggested by others. Any longer and hatch rates will suffer. Remember, a hen who hides her nest will lay 6-12 eggs and only start incubation when she is finished laying, so 7-10 days is a good measure for how long you'll have good hatch rates.
👍👍 Curious, I haven't started yet so this is probably a dumb question... how do you keep them from flying over the fence?
Wing clipping. Feathers, that is.
Most of them don't fly over the fence (6'). However I have 2 that do almost everyday and then find their way back in. I may clip wings or run a piece of wire along the top of the fence so they can't land there.
Thanks for your video. Just curious if you wanted to do it naturally. Would you just take a few eggs to eat. Leave one or two with the chicken and hatch naturally thanks.
Barred Rock chickens do not go broody very often. Using an incubator is a sure thing.
In regards to hatchability rates, you can leave the eggs alone for up to 10 days, and they will be fine, after the tenth day, the percentage of hatchability will start to decline, and the longer you wait, the faster it will decline, so keep the eggs up to ten day if you want to collect the maximum amount for incubation.
If you want to sell eggs, Barred Plymouth Rock is not the best breed, but you can always improve on them by keeping records and seeing which hens are the best layers. Of course, for that you will have to separate the hens for a while and keep track of how many eggs each individual hen lays per week, so you will have an idea of which ones are the better layers, and once you have that crucial information, then use those hens solely for reproduction, as their offspring most likely will also be better layers as their mothers. Chickens must be bred to do what you need out of them, otherwise they will eventually turn into mediocre chickens, once the gene pool gets all mixed up bad with good chickens. Having said that, the same process must be applied to the next generation, to continue to improve or at least sustain, the laying characteristics of the flock.
We have a very aggresive rooster that we have raised from a baby. Do you have any tips on how to calm him down? My moyher cant go into the coop without being attacked.
If anyone want to keep chickens, but can't keep a rooster because of noise or whatever, then find someone near by, who does have a rooster, so when you want to hatch your own chicks, you can take your hen/s to that rooster, let him mount the hen, and start collecting those eggs 3 days later, at which time the eggs should be fertile and the hen should continue to lay fertile eggs for 30 days or so.
Very nice. I started with 6 birds 5 years ago and now have about 1,200. I can hatch 600 chicken eggs a month and 2,000 quail eggs. total goal is 12,000 chicken, and 5,000 quail . Did i say I also have 100 rabbits. Hows your operation going now? I collect 1,000 chicken eggs a month and about 84% hatch, the quail eggs are about 80%.
Did you buy most of those birds or hatch them out from the original 6 you bought?
Thanks for sharing, very useful information. Even for pet chickens. #GoArmy #ArmyAirborne
Hey Bro!! I Just Moved on to some Land....I also want to Raise Barred Rocks!!! Do you have any Chicks?? Or advise on Where to get some from GOOD STOCK!! Thanks Bro!!
Aatw....i have the same hat..and im going to be doing this soon thanks for the info
Two recommendations. 1) Turn the eggs while you are collecting and waiting to place in the incubator to increase hatch-ability. I just tilt the egg cartons from one side to the other three times a day. 2) As your operation grows, look into clan or family breeding to help with controlling your own genetic diversity. Can even be done with a small flock, I run three roosters and 12 hens in three family groups.
A hen won't start "incubating" (I am not an English speaker) until she finishes laying eggs (you must know how many eggs per series your hen lays) so no problem if your eggs are waiting that many days.
So, another very important reason not to start incubating until your entire series of eggs are collected, is because you must keep the number of the days from when your incubation started. Why? With three or two days before hatching, you must stop rotating the eggs because in those last days, the chicken chooses a position (posture) inside the egg and starts breaking the shell. If you rotate the egg in that period, you diminish the chances to have a successful exit. This information must come with your electric incubator as it comes with ours in Romania,
Also, have a hen on her eggs and watch her (maybe have a webcam installed) to see how many times a day she turns her eggs - I assure you that she does much less than an automated machine.
Getting your birds from a reputable breeder that is NPIP certified would be your best bet. Birds take longer to mature but end up healthier in the long run. BTW is that an Airborne hat youre wearing??
Thank you brother. Two questions I've really tried to resolve in my mind for planning...1)So how are you preventing line breeding if you are hatching and turning these chicks back into he coop with the rest, presumably under the same rooster. 2) How are you selecting the eggs for hatching rather than consumption? Candling them? Thanks.
The flock I use for breeding will always be separate and only have one rooster. I will get a new rooster each year from an outside source to keep genetics fresh
Can I turn any egg into a fertilized egg, I am confused how to tell the difference. Just by looking without a light.
How old is too old to harvest an egg layer?
If you can, get a round pin for the chicks so they don't crowd and suffocate each other. I imagine it'll be more of an issue with batches larger than one or two. I pray God blesses your efforts here. You never know what will come.
How has egg selling been going? I apologize if it's mentioned in a different video
Mahine Mr Mr Khalid from Pakistan
A good video but I think I need one more about the basics of the "birds and the bees" of chickens. Something less than this video, but more than, "When the Daddy chicken wants to show the Mommy chicken how much he loves her ..." LL
I want some too!!
How old do you let you roosters get before you cull them
Can you do a maintenance vid on the ford 4000 I would like that
I will be doing that this spring!
wow that would be cool
What are you going to do with all those roosters? A lot of barbacues this summer?
Roosters will be butchered for meat as soon as they are of proper weight
andy sarles I really like the idea of family and friend barbecues but selling them off also helps to defray cost of non gmo feed.
whats the animal outside the window at 16:09
that would be one of our cats
Maybe try putting a mark on one side so you keep track of which ones are flipped, it looked like you skipped 1?
I'm curious why not just let a couple hen go broody and let them do the work naturally? Is there a down side to that approach?
Well, that is a great way to go except you have to wait for a hen to go broody and hope she does a good job
Also tough to plan for. Many breeds do not go broody, especially the productive ones. If you want to raise a lot, an incubator is the only way to go.
love it :)
Curiouse if you have ever looked into Quail (specifically the Jumbo variety is what I am getting ready at doing).
If you wanted some good videos then look up "Slightly Redneck" as he has a bunch of good videos on the subject.
For anyone watching. GET AN AUTOMATIC EGG TURNER.
One of my children's eggs never hatch, the rooster seems to do a good job with her but the embryo dies in the second week or it doesn't hatch, what do you think it Is?
As far as I can tell there are only three factors with incubating eggs, 1. heat needs to be at 99.5, too low and they will not develop correctly, too high and they can develop too quickly and hatch early with defects. 2. humidity and air, need to have 60% humidity and fresh air circulation. 3. Make sure to turn the eggs three times day at least for the first 18 days, the last few days you can leave them alone. Only other factor really would be genetics, maybe it is a bad line some how.
I understand, I don't use an incubator because the chickens get broody, but they are good natural incubators, there seem to be only one particular breed that doesn't hatch, all the other breeds hatch correctly, I think it's genetics as you said..if it's genetics,what can we do about That? I really wanna breed those chickens.
This ia my dream with orpingtons
I kinda just want to breed hybred birds. Silkies (silkie male )and a few others as hens lol
wow, I have never used an incubator and after watching how they are used, I will stick with my broody hens!
p.s. if you want to go one step farther and let broody hens do all of the work, I highly recommend a good strain of speckled Sussex
Anybody taking bets how long it will be before He buys a egg turner
lol, yeah that would be nice. We actually borrowed an incubator last year with a turner and none of the eggs hatched so I just don't quite trust it yet.
I don't think it would be the turner it's a convenient device
I keep my chicken as pets and i wanna breed them. But I don't know if i introduce a rooster to my two hen , I don't think they will get along together.
Where are you planning to plant the grapes and raspberrys?
Not sure 100% yet (which is why they are still in the window sill!). Thinking about lining the edges of the property and tree lines with berry bushes but the grapes I will need to build a trellis for.
I don't know about raspberry but blackberry plants will go spread like nobody's business. My worry about that would be them growing unchecked into a neighbors property, but you would know more about that than me.
So you were, 82nd,173rd, or 25th in Alaska?
Support for 173rd. In italy
If I get a rooster but most of the time I just want eggs for eating, will all of my eggs be always fertilized? How do I separate the fertilized ones from the ones for eating, or do I separate the rooster from the chickens? 🤔
Soooo stinking CA-UTE!
My confusion is between the egg laying and fertilizing. If I want fertilized eggs, do I just leave the eggs that have been laid in the coop and wait for the rooster to fertilize the hen? (that sounds so weird to me. LOL!) Do they not go bad doing that? Is that the sign to the rooster that he needs to do "the thing" with the hen? I'm so ignorant but I have a move in rooster that has become my 2nd pet but I want to get 4 or so hen chics to eventually put in a coop.
I am so ignorant and don't know how to figure out the fertilized egg part because I'd want to "reproduce" on my own if I lose a hen or two to predators. (Even though my coop is going to be as predator resistant as I can make it.)
I want chickens for eggs primarily but would love to understand the process for getting hatch-lings if for some reason I lose any to predators.
Also, if I were to have to resort to an incubator (which I hope to not have to do to be honest) how do you know what eggs are fertilized? Once an egg or two hatches, how long do you keep those humidifier plugs out? The whole 2 hours or so that they are drying out? Also, does that affect the other eggs when you do that?
I'm so sorry this is so long but this is the best video I've come across for reproducing these cutie pies. Wonderful video! Subbed even though it's an older-ish video. ;)
Lots of great questions here so I will do my best to answer. The rooster mates with the hens daily, once the rooster mates with the hen and she then lays an egg it is a fertile egg. If it is kept above 90 degrees from then on for 21 days it will hatch if all goes well. If you have a broody hen she might sit on the eggs that she lays and hatch them out for you. If not you will have to collect the eggs and incubate them yourself. Hooe that helps! I will do more videos on all the how to's in the future, thanks for following along!
I have the same chickens
I keep seeing people incubateing dirty eggs i know why you dont wash the eggs. Only put clean ones in. Most importantly when you mix the days they hatch. I have a few breeds i hatch and use clean eggs and will mix the hatch day up to five days.then start different incubator. I dont mean any disrespec keep up the good work
The theory here is that we are trying to mimic how a hen naturally incubated eggs, temps, moisture, etc. Eggs have a protective coating that can shield the chicks from disease and other issues, if you wash that off you put them at risk. The eggs are taken directly from the nest to the incubator. Not saying you can't wash them if you wanted, just not how we plan to do it
AATW!
Man, one mistake there, dont put the heating lamp over the food and drink area of the brooder area. 1st the chicks will get wet and die just because they want to stay under the lamp. They will also poop on the water and the food all day long. Keep the lamp over the empty space.
hatched chickens breed name??
Barred rock
Secure Socket Layer Dad?
Get a Cornish rooster and have it with some of your barred hens because that is how you get Cornish cross they finish in about 8 to 10 weeks for meat but do not breed second generations because they will not grow nearly as fast or nearly as big. Also don't keep the extremely big or small eggs because extremely big might not hatch because double yolk and the small eggs equal smaller chicks which equal smaller chickens usually. And keep your biggest rooster and the best laying hens and biggest to maintain the quality of your chicken flock please respond because I want to know that you read this. Oh and if you keep a second rooster make sure he has a nice build and the roosters won't fight if there is enough space and enough hens. Here is a link that I garentee you will help you it helped me
ua-cam.com/video/TZaHQV22zqM/v-deo.html
Why don't you let the hens hatch the chick's?
Airborne🇺🇸