Daniel
Member
I have been real busy lately. Almost living in my shop night and day. But sadly not making pens and stuff. I have been building an aviary. For those going HUH? that is a place to keep birds so they can fly but not fly away.
I have ordered three of these.
They are called Grey Jungle Fowl. They are not a chicken but are what the chicken started out as. THey are also the bird that produces the Jungle **** Eye. SO hopefully I will be able to supply feathers that are really hard to find to some of the feather blank makers.
In the mean time I need to learn to incubate eggs, and make sure nothing can get in or out of my cage. So I needed some test subjects that if the security fails and my chickens become a racoon buffet it is not a devastating loss. In looking around at chickens, I descovered that keeping chickens as pets may now be the fastest growing hobby in America. No kidding. One site alone has 50,000 members. One of the real hot "Chicks" to have right now is called the Serama. This little bird comes from Malaysia where they have been breed as pets for centuries. They are a chcicken, but a very small chicken. in fact to qualify as a Serama a Rosster can only be about 20 oz. when it is full grown. that is barely more than 1 Lb. I make pens bigger than that. Well okay that may be stretching it. anyway here is an idea of just how itty bitty they are this is a Serama Egg next to a regular chicken egg.
I have built two incubators in the last couple of weeks and now have 15 of these cooking. I shoudl know if I get any chicks in about 2 and a half weeks. in the mean time I am gettng all involved in how to control the temperature and humidity of an incubator more accurately and reliably. doing some fiddling with Electronic themostats that need to be dead on accurate at 99.5 degrees.
Thought I would ask any of my techno friends here if they have any good ideas for a thermostat with a remote probe that woudl be accurate to one tenth of a degree at 99.5 degrees f. and have a hysteresis of one tenth of a degree. I could live with .5 degree hysteresis. i would love it to have a digital read out of the temp.
I am also looking for a Hygrometer circuit that is at least reasonably accurate or better yet could be calibrated. again with a digit read out of the Humidity.
I do have to say that hanging out at the other site has really made me miss you all around here. Real help and real friends. those other groups just have no idea what a "Good" group is like. I do drop in every day and just see what is going on. but am actually away from the computer more recently than on it. that is actually a good thing. But I miss all of ya.
I will subscribe to this thread so I don't miss any responses but am likely to forget I even posted it.
I still have to build a hatcher and a brooder, find all the stuff to feed water and otherwise keep the chicks alive. am learning hand over fist all the things that can go wrong and how to recognize it and what to do about it. i am even learning to candle eggs. sort of like loking at X-rays only in this case I am the doctor and have to figure out just what I am seeing. SO far I am real good at knowing when an egg is no good. not so good at knowing they are okay. so my eggs stay in the incubator more because I can't tell they are dead rather than i see something that means they are alive.
Wish me luck. I hope to have a wide variety of feathers eventually. some of them the most valuable feathers i know of.
I have ordered three of these.
They are called Grey Jungle Fowl. They are not a chicken but are what the chicken started out as. THey are also the bird that produces the Jungle **** Eye. SO hopefully I will be able to supply feathers that are really hard to find to some of the feather blank makers.
In the mean time I need to learn to incubate eggs, and make sure nothing can get in or out of my cage. So I needed some test subjects that if the security fails and my chickens become a racoon buffet it is not a devastating loss. In looking around at chickens, I descovered that keeping chickens as pets may now be the fastest growing hobby in America. No kidding. One site alone has 50,000 members. One of the real hot "Chicks" to have right now is called the Serama. This little bird comes from Malaysia where they have been breed as pets for centuries. They are a chcicken, but a very small chicken. in fact to qualify as a Serama a Rosster can only be about 20 oz. when it is full grown. that is barely more than 1 Lb. I make pens bigger than that. Well okay that may be stretching it. anyway here is an idea of just how itty bitty they are this is a Serama Egg next to a regular chicken egg.
I have built two incubators in the last couple of weeks and now have 15 of these cooking. I shoudl know if I get any chicks in about 2 and a half weeks. in the mean time I am gettng all involved in how to control the temperature and humidity of an incubator more accurately and reliably. doing some fiddling with Electronic themostats that need to be dead on accurate at 99.5 degrees.
Thought I would ask any of my techno friends here if they have any good ideas for a thermostat with a remote probe that woudl be accurate to one tenth of a degree at 99.5 degrees f. and have a hysteresis of one tenth of a degree. I could live with .5 degree hysteresis. i would love it to have a digital read out of the temp.
I am also looking for a Hygrometer circuit that is at least reasonably accurate or better yet could be calibrated. again with a digit read out of the Humidity.
I do have to say that hanging out at the other site has really made me miss you all around here. Real help and real friends. those other groups just have no idea what a "Good" group is like. I do drop in every day and just see what is going on. but am actually away from the computer more recently than on it. that is actually a good thing. But I miss all of ya.
I will subscribe to this thread so I don't miss any responses but am likely to forget I even posted it.
I still have to build a hatcher and a brooder, find all the stuff to feed water and otherwise keep the chicks alive. am learning hand over fist all the things that can go wrong and how to recognize it and what to do about it. i am even learning to candle eggs. sort of like loking at X-rays only in this case I am the doctor and have to figure out just what I am seeing. SO far I am real good at knowing when an egg is no good. not so good at knowing they are okay. so my eggs stay in the incubator more because I can't tell they are dead rather than i see something that means they are alive.
Wish me luck. I hope to have a wide variety of feathers eventually. some of them the most valuable feathers i know of.
Some nice material there! 
