Preliminary Results Hen Vent Temperature

My husband is a big fan of his infrared surface temperature thermometer. By pulling the trigger he can instantly know the surface temperature of oil or whatever he is cooking. Watching him, I wondered what this could tell me about hen readiness, which would surely correlate with higher vent temperature.

This hen has been laying and will be set on Tuesday. Her vent temperature was 94.1 F. Checking my skin temperature,it was a degree lower than the expected temperature inside my mouth. I expected the the incubation temperature to be 95 to 99 degrees F.

This hen was paired with a male but was not building her nest, vent temperature 88.4 F.

This hen was busy nestling down in the seed cup making me think she was ready to be set but vent temperature was 86.6 F, she was only fooling me!

Improving Egg Shells At The Last Minute - Egg Shell Trick

The Orlux Ferti-vit is feed in the water to hens until she lays her first egg. On that day switch her to Cal-D-Solve in the water for three days. She will continue to lay but the improvement in the quality of her egg shells will amaze you!

What's Wrong - Deep Nest

"What's Wrong?" ask this puzzled German Roller hen.

Yes she did most everything right, mating with "handsome dude" at least five days before laying her first egg this morning but when I took her fresh egg out, the nest was far too deep!

Deep nest make egg incubation difficult as it is so deep her abdomen may not even touch the eggs, often resulting in chicks dying in the shell during incubation.

I could either put a bunch more nesting on top or remake it and put enough in the bottom to raise the hole. Either way, I will not put the plastic egg in her nest till she fixes her nest. After laying her first egg, most will not carry nesting material to the nest but most will fix it just a bit! I like her to smooth it out so that eggs will turn easily and not be stuck in nesting material ridges on the bottom.

Tomorrow, I hope she passes inspection, if not I will re-make it for her and hold off on the plastic egg till after she lays her third egg.

Docile Hen Saga - Sweetheart Dance Today

This is the German Roller Hen whose vent was developing rapidly but was setting and setting on her perch and showing no signs of frantic flying and other pre-breeding activity. After a dose of iodine she started moving some but continues to develop anatomically without appropriate breeding behavior.

Beautiful German Roller male, from German Stock, was given to me by David Bopp at the National Cage Bird Show last November. Not only is a good looker but he also scored a 16 in hollow roll under the judge Steve Billmire!

Is he not a handsome dude?

This beautiful German Roller hen, from German Stock, was a gift last year from Almin Omic and has brothers on his winning team last year.

So far, he has fed her in the divided cage but when put together, they both have no interest in the other. I have four breeding ready cocks in a nearby cage singing the breeding song to her and have moved him to a ready hen who he mated with. If she would squat when she he hears them sing, he could do the mating!

Perhaps on Valentine's Day, after a nice nestling food dinner and dance the romance will take off.

Update Feb 15:

The most that happened was she carried some nesting material, that was it! She did not even put it in the nest.

Treat to Encourage Boys to Be Boys

Today I made up a special treat for the guys in the aviary. It is equal parts of wheat germ (had Kershmeier toasted wheat germ on hand) and brewer's yeast (had Lewis Lab brand Brewer's Yeast Flakes).

This will bring the males on a gentle bit but do not feed the hens unless they are already ready, mating and getting ready to lay as it will push them to lay whether they are ready or not.

Hitchcock The Birds: What Done It Mystery Contest

OH NO! What is wrong with Mario??

Mario is so special after all I went through last Spring with him and I so want to share him with lots of girls this year, this is terrible!!


Mario Photo about five days ago.




Mario Photo just two days before developing the dark abdomen. He has some improvement in vent development (more red) and appeared to be coming along nicely but not ready for breeding yet. He was singing and to encourage him to get with the program, I put another male of equal development in his large open cage. The second male also came down with the same dark abdomen at the same time, a little less dramatic than Mario. No other birds in the aviary came down with it.

Act fast to save Mario. Send in your analyses and treatment recommendations within the next 24 hours. Results will be posted tomorrow to this post.

Medicine Chest includes: Baytril and couple of other antibiotics, at least one parasitic drug, Ivomec, KD Powder.

More Clues:

1. Both Birds developed dark abdomens at the same time.

2. Neither bird looked sick other than the discolored abdomen. Although Mario acted less active and lost interest in singing to other cages.

3. Mario Two Days After Treatment



When I saw Mario's black abdomen, I thought of liver disease. But what can cause it. First infectious diseases including bacteria (many different ones, even Mycoplasma tuberculosis), chlamydia, viruses, parasitic infections such as trematodes and protozoa. Also noninfectious disease like metabolic disorders fatty liver, iron storage hemosiderosis, circulatory disorders and hemorrhage, and hepatotoxins often from plants or mycotoxins from molded seed and even traumatic rupture.

The suddenness of black abdomen which literally happened overnight, the lack of typical illness symptoms such as fluffing the feathers due to chilling, normal droppings and overall appearance of good health (had I not been catching Mario daily to check his vent development, it would have been advanced when I discovered it as there was not a hint that he was in trouble till I saw the abdomen). I immediately started eliminating the infectious possible causes and focused on noninfectious causes.

Mycotoxins was a possibility as he had a plain dish of chia seeds. These were nicely packaged in foil package, purchased at the health food store but only when I got to the bottom did I find a big clump which was obviously a clump on moldy chia seeds. No wonder they were marked down... Other birds also ate these same seeds so I was not convinced that was it although it could have been. But other birds ate the same stuff before I discovered the problem...

Next I thought about the herbs in my new Egg - N- Herb. Toxicity can vary by species, rapeseed is can be poisonous but canaries are not effected or Johnson Grass which does not effect canaries but can effect large animals. And again all the birds ate it and maybe it was just a consequence that I had just started it equal parts with cooked quinoa about three days before this started. Again all the birds were fed it so why Mario?

Was it fatty liver? The other bird was not overweight and he had the same black abdomen.

I have been waiting for the orlux vitamins to come in from England and rapidly my supply of both orlux Ferti-vit and omi-vit were running low. I wanted to give all the birds Ferti-vit daily but supply was such that I need to give some omi-vit which is twice a week. So cocks got ferti-vit and hens got omi-vit. The day before this happened, I was first going to give some hens the iodine treatment with vitamins but then changed my mind and went ahead with the omni-vit. I remember thinking how foolish of me to make that up and now it would be wasted. So I instead of wasting it I filled Mario's cage water with the mixture. They were the only birds who got it. This iodine also contains iron and I think that was the problem. Which also explains why they recovered so quickly.

Treatment was KD powder in the water for about a week and then it is back to ferti-vit. I am so glad I did not start them on antibiotics or heavy arsenals as they too could be toxic to an already sensitive liver. The liver has great powder to regenerate and I expect no long term effect.

Mario after a week on KD. He will be ready for breeding soon!

This Weeks Questions and Tips for Big Bird

Great Song Food mix sold by Higgins.

If you happen to have an Aldi's grocery store in your area, they have some items available for only a couple of weeks once a year. One such item is Millville Creamy Wheat. It is a bargain at $1.99 where Cream of Wheat sells for $4.50 a box in our area.

I use Creamy Wheat as one of the equal parts ingredients in the dry nestling food recipe posted on the blog by KJ and Linda Brown. Google search the blog with phrase dry nestling food and you will find the original recipe (Canary/Finch High Protein Nestling Food). I have used there dry nestling food since 2009 and it is always available in the cages feeding chicks. Some hens feed more of it than wet egg food. The Browns use it as the only nestling food and raise many canaries and finches in their large aviary.

Sunday Question:

Is there a substitute for Petamine?

Answer: Yes, Harrison's High Potency Mash is a good substitute but more expensive and it is fattening.