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That is certainly much hotter than ideal. And especially if the temperature drops overnight. But sometimes those chickens are surprisingly tough. (And other times not.) If I had a choice I would not choose those eggs for hatching. Do you have a cool store anywhere? Like a root cellar maybe?

@@chickensinmygarden thanks for your quick reply … I bought a dozen Maran eggs for hatching .., she told me to run40% humidity and I watched some videos that talked about the difference between dry hatch and wet hatch … next thing ya know 4 and half days slipped by …. One of the videos I watched said she usually puts her eggs on the counter for a eeek but she got some from a friend that were in a fridge and didn’t know it … 10 hatched out of 32 … here I go … hope my shade in the house is less heat than 80 …. ???

If those are all you have, then you have nothing to lose by trying. I would suggest candling them at your first opportunity (when it's dark) so you know what they look like at the beginning.

Thank you so much! Have a great day 😊

That will depend on your hen. An excellent mother hen will do better than 8 out of 21 😄 Best wishes for a great hatch!

Thanks for sharing that. I hope it works beautifully for you next year. Best wishes

Excellent! I love hearing that!

You're welcome. Thanks for watching 😊

Interestingly, you are the second person this week to have asked this question :-) You're right that hens and roosters have slightly different dietary needs - simplistically, hens need more calcium and not too much protein, while roosters need more protein and less calcium. It's usual to feed a calcium-enhanced layer feed to laying hens but also to offer free-choice soluble calcium-rich grit, such as oyster shell. The hens will help themselves to the grit while the roosters (and any non-laying hens) will leave it alone. So, grit in a separate dish (not mixed with the feed) is a good idea. But the layer feed itself has a bit much calcium for roosters, so... 1. You could feed your hens and rooster separately. This kind of works if you're hand-feeding them but it's a bit tricky and it's better for the chickens to be able to help themselves to feed throughout the day. 2. You could have a separate feeder that is too high for the hens to reach, for the high-protein rooster feed. The rooster might still eat a little of the layer feed but he will prefer the higher protein and so mostly eat his high-protein feed. The problem is that it's very difficult to arrange a feeder that he can reach and the layer hens can't. 3. You could feed them all on something like grower feed or "all-flock" feed and ensure there is plenty of calcium-rich soluble grit for the laying hens. A lot of people would recommend this because it's pretty easy, works well for the roosters and is generally ok for the hens. 4. You could mostly feed layer feed to everyone but supplement the rooster with extra high-protein feed as generous treats. The high-protein treats will replace some of the high-calcium layer feed (i.e. he will eat less layer feed because he's not hungry, being full of high-protein treats) so the calcium content is not too toxic for him. 5. You could just feed everyone layer feed and risk the calcium toxicity in the rooster. It's not like he's going to get sick and die instantly, it's just that the excess calcium puts a strain on his kidneys, so eventually, with old age or some other illness, he might die of kidney failure. What I have done has been mostly a mix of 3, 4 and 5. I feed everyone a blend of grower and layer feed, make calcium-rich grit freely available, and supplement the rooster with high-protein treats. (To be honest, he often gives his treats to the hens anyway - roosters do that.) I don't usually keep a rooster in my flock for years and years - I keep one for breeding for a year or two and then replace him with an unrelated rooster, so they never get old enough to suffer kidney problems. One thing I haven't tried is having two separate feeders, one with layer feed and one with grower feed, in the hope that the rooster would just eat the grower feed and the hens would eat layer feed plus calcium-rich grit. It would be interesting to try this and see what the rooster does eat. But I'm pretty sure the hens would eat quite a lot of the grower feed - I've noticed them doing that when I have a mix of young non-laying pullets with older laying hens. As long as they have free-choice calcium, I tend not to worry for the few weeks it takes for the pullets to come into lay. I hope that helps. You have time to think about what might work best for you and your flock :-)

@@chickensinmygarden Thank you!! Truly appreciate your suggestions 💕

Do give it a go. You can adapt the idea to whatever materials you have on hand 😊

Yes that certainly sounds like mould, and no it shouldn't happen because the lactic acid should make the mix too acid for fungi. Certainly don't feed the fungus to your chickens - not all fungi are toxic but some are. I suggest throwing it all in the compost and starting again, making sure all your equipment is clean and you keep it covered.

Ok, thank you. I don't know what went wrong. I have been doing this since March of 2024, I have gone through 2 bags of chicken scratch and this is the 3rd one. Also it is the first use from this bag of food. Used same brand of scratch and always used filtered water. It may be I may not have cleaned the jar good enough... Anyway thanks again for your help.

meal worm!

Excellent! I'm sure your chickens appreciate that!

👍

I'm not sure that molasses would make the fermentation quicker. It might start a little earlier because the sugars are already dissolved rather than being large starch molecules within the grains. But if you have added molasses to fermentation you probably know more about it than I do. Does it make it quicker? When making beer or wine, the rate of fermentation would be governed by the numbers of yeast organisms and the temperature, not the sugar concentration, until the sugar is all used up and fermentation stops. But this is not yeast fermentation, which produces alcohol, this is fermentation by lactic acid bacteria, which produce acids. There is quite a lot of literature about lactic acid fermentation using molasses but it all seems to be about making lactic acid or making feed for ruminants with a nutrient profile that minimises intestinal gases.

I was wondering why you would want to, but I see by your second comment that it's about speed. The speed of the reaction is mostly controlled by temperature and pH. The molasses can help keep the pH from getting super acid, so that might help.

That's wonderful! The world needs more chicken vets! They are almost as scarce as hens' teeth 😄 You might be interested in this very intermittent blog from Mike The Chicken Vet mikethechickenvet.wordpress.com/

My husband got it for me on-line somewhere, because "heihei" is the local Māori word for chicken. What I never knew about until I started this video was the 2016 Disney movie Moana has a chicken character whose name is Heihei and looks like this.

Thank you so much., I really appreciate that 😊

Thank you, and welcome 😊 Do check out my other videos - they never really go out of date. Do you have chickens? I hope everyone has the chance to keep chickens! Have a great day!

It is, isn't it! My husband bought it for me. On line somewhere. It inspired the chicken character that I used throughout the video.

I bet they love that breakfast mash! And so good for them too. 😊

A few extra vitamins are always good. Do be aware of the selenium levels - I'm not familiar with Nutra-balancer but they mention selenium risk on their website.

Oh, do try raising mealworms - it's really so easy on a small scale, as long as you can get the live mealworms to start.

Where do you live? Here in New Zealand there are a couple of good brands. In the UK I have heard that the "Marriages " brand is good. Sometimes the organic brands are a good place to start looking. And yes I agree, animal protein is important.

@@chickensinmygarden You have NOT told me what KINDE of animal there is in the food that you give your Chickens. I live in the mountains of Norway. I whas likely the last real chickenshepherd of realy truely free range chichens. I have followd you " a long time now". : ) So agaain, what kinde of animals is it in the food you serve your chichens in the pellets? : )

Westons brand, which I think is best, contains "meat and bone meal" and "blood meal" and "ruminant protein" so it's almost certainly beef although maybe some sheep meat. This link might be of interest chooks.co.nz/blogs/news/what-is-the-best-layer-feed I hadn't read that before I made this video but it's interesting how much aligned our views are.

Yes those mealworms in fancy packages are freeze-dried and very expensive. If you can get a few live mealworms to start a colony it's very easy. Otherwise what I have done successfully is mix the dust with water and a few other ingredients and stir it into a porridge. They liked that.😊

Great to hear! Thanks for saying so 😊

I had to sell all my chickens when we moved. Once we got settled we built my new chicken house and I started building up my flock again. I now have 9. Only one is a mottled leghorn "Pia". I had two, you can sometimes see them both in some clips, but Pippin died of an infection 😒

@@chickensinmygarden aw what infection?

It was an infection in her reproductive tract, possibly Infectious Bronchitis. It damaged her shell gland. Unfortunately she kept producing and ended up with a bellyful of unlaid eggs.

@@chickensinmygarden Oh dear. Poor you. We all have to die of something ): x

Yes. I've had very few problems in my flock, for which I'm grateful.

Thank you so much 😊

That's interesting. What do they normally eat?

Same problem! My chooks eat grains, worms, powdered meat+bones, bugs, greens, veggies, fruits and healthy kitchen scraps (plus multi-vitamin and trace minerals additives) - pretty complicated to make this mix... When they see pellets, they just don't even touch them... I have to mix them with a bit of water to soften their geometrical shape, but still - lots of it always being left behind... Could it be that pellets look similar to pine pellets (cat litter in fact), which I add to chicken run to absorb some excessive water after rain?

Oh, now that's a possibility I hadn't thought of. And it makes sense because chickens identify food more by sight than smell or taste.

I once added a little bit of water to some pellets in a dish and they still kept their same shape so they licked the same but my chickens ate them. Of course I don't use anything to absorb excess rain because my chickens run is completely covered. So the run stays nice and dry in the rain

@@meljordan220 mine is also covered and usually dry and neat. 😁But we are on clay soil and fertile highly absorbent layer is thinner than in most places. When it is pouring, soil gets so saturated with water, that water is literally everywhere (I can literally hear micro streams are flowing downhill under grass!) Torrential rains are now happening more often...

Absolutely! Have a great day 😊

Thank you so much 😊

Definitely do not feed fermented feed to day old chicks. Even at 2 weeks I think they are too young. For best health and eventual best laying of eggs when they grow up I think they should eat specific chick crumble and pullet-grower pellets until point of lay.

Oh, did you ever have chickens again?

Wow! That's fascinating!

Thank you! Have a great day 😊

I haven't tried to mix youngsters. In general the chicks don't develop the sense of pecking order until about 6 weeks so I would not expect much in the way of fighting. I would think the main issue might be the size difference. What I would do is pretty much as usual - i.e start with both lots separated but visible to each other, preferably in an area that is most familiar to the younger ones, make sure there are plenty of opportunities for eating and escaping/ hiding, and then after they are used to each other open the divider. The relative numbers will make a difference too - if you have more younger ones than older ones that's better. Fingers crossed. Do let me know how it goes 😊

Thank you! It was kind of a follow-up to this one ruclips.net/video/25yyqFKkQYA/видео.html

Thank you. This one was just a bit of fun as a follow-up to my long video about painting the inside of my hen house white ruclips.net/video/DIbBHP2EXKE/видео.html Do check it out and some of my other videos if you're interested. Thanks for watching 😊

Thank you. I appreciate that 😊

Thank you very much 😊

😃 Egg-cellent! Thank you very much!

I hope it inspired you to try it or something similar 😊

Oh, thank you so much! Have a lovely day 😊