Snowy Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 Hopefully, Lulu's babies are due next Tuesday. At the moment she is in the nest box area of the eglu. Today I plan to remove the dropping tray and fill with aubiose and remove the roosting bars. Would she be better being left undisturbed on the nest box, or should I risk moving her onto the main area? I'm just wondering if the nest area may be too cramped once hatching gets underway Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dance in the dark Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 I hatched some large fowl silver laced wyandottes under a large fowl orpington in an eglu and i'll just try and explain what I did. Three days before the hatch I took her out of the nest put her in the run for her normal evening stroll, carefully put the eggs in an egg box and had a quick, but thorough clean of the eglu. Made sure it was fully dry and then piled the auboise up high, all over, even in the nest box so that the difference between the nest and the top of the plastic nest box bit was only about an inch or so. I did toy with the idea of moving her into the main house area, but I felt the eggs might be less secure there + I didn't want to upset her. I then put some non slip matting over the bit when the long roosting bars would normally go and put some food and drink there, in the little chick feeders, so they couldn't get auboise in the drinking water (as easily) placed the eggs VERY carefully back where I found them and took her out of the run (through the front of the run) and put her back through the pop hole. I did it that way so all the auboise didn't spill out because I had it piled just as high at the front door, so I knew the chicks would be able to get back in if they fell out. Obviously you keep them locked in the house for a couple of days so they learn where food and drink is, and aren't able to go out wandering When the chicks hatched they coped with the little step fine (between the nest and droppings tray area), and out of the four that pipped and hatched they have all made it to 10 weeks old with (touch wood) no problems so far. I hope this helps and wasn't too long and boring a response. Tim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snowy Posted August 1, 2012 Author Share Posted August 1, 2012 Tim that is perfect, thank you! I've had the good clean out today and put aubiose into the tray, taken out the bars, but I will put more in over the weekend and do as you suggest. I hadn't thought of keeping them shut in for the first couple of days, but that does make sense. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dance in the dark Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 Yeah, it's a good idea to keep them in. when the first on of mine hatched (on the evening of day 20, so it was a bit unexpected, it actually fell out of the nest, luckily I was checking on her quite frequently (not lifting her up, cos that is a bad idea, but just checking she was ok, and could reach water etc, so I quickly popped it back under mum, if the door had been open it would probably have fallen out of the door, and may have gone unnoticed (although it was cheeping very loudly no I think about it!) I just kept them in for two days, then let them out in the afternoon of the third day, by which point they were hopping around like "Ooops, word censored!"odies business. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
