The South Dakota Cowgirl

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Chick Hatching

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Well I’m back, and I had the most amazing time. It was more wonderful than I thought it would be. My horse got better, I got more confidence and to be really truthful, it was an honor and a privilege to ride with such a great horseman. I’m more determined than ever to make some Bridle Horses in my lifetime, beginning with Gump. If you don’t know what a Bridle Horse is, stay tuned. We’ll go over it in great detail in the coming days. There’s lots of pictures from the clinic and on the last day, Buck asked me to help him demonstrate the last drill we’d be doing in the clinic. Needless to say, I was honored. In my own opinion, I was riding one of the nicer horses in the class- next to Buck’s horses of course. They are phenomenal.

In the meantime, the 4-H Farmer Dee Dee, wrote another post for us, this time about chicken hatching! If you’ll remember from a few weeks back she wrote about her ewe project with her sheep, Savannah Mae.
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Hey all,

Jenn, thanks for letting me guest blog post again. This time I’m going to talk about our chick incubation experience. The eggs are from the coop at the farm. They are all Americauna crosses because the one and only rooster in the coop is an Americauna.

We set the eggs in the incubator March 7th. The chicks stay there and develop from little minuscule dots to full grown chicks! The humidity and temperature stay perfect the entire time. The humidity stays at about 40% the first 18 days then on “lock-down” the last 18 days the humidity goes to around 70%. The last 3 days they are getting ready to come out of the eggs and so you need to increase so they don’t get stuck coming out. On day 20 it started! Since day 20 which was Friday, we have had 13 healthy chicks hatch!

When you put them into the brooder which is the housing for them until they can go out into the coop… the temperature needs to stay at around 95 degrees then you decrease it 5 degrees every week to get them to the point of room temperature and then they are ready to go outside when all their feathers are developed which is about 8 weeks.

I have a Youtube video up of one of the chicks hatching if you want to check that out. The link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poS5gEL-aHg

Thanks again for letting me guest blog post. Hope your weekend went as planned!

Dee Dee

Twitter.com/4hfarmer.

About ~The South Dakota Cowgirl~

Jenn Zeller is the creative mind and boss lady behind The South Dakota Cowgirl. She is an aspiring horsewoman, photographer, brilliant social media strategist and lover of all things western.

After a brief career in the investment world to support her horse habit (and satisfy her mother, who told her she had to have a “real” job after graduating college), she finally took the leap and stepped away from a regular income; trading the business suit once and for all for cowgirl boots, a hat, and jeans. She has not looked back.

When Jenn first moved to The DX Ranch on the South Dakota plains, she never imagined she’d find herself behind a camera lens capturing an authentic perspective of ranching, and sharing it with others. Jenn has always been called to artistry, and uses music, writing, images, home improvement, and her first true love of horses to express her ranching passion.

Horses are the constant thread and much of her work centers around using her unique style of writing to share her horsemanship journey with others in publications such as CavvySavvy, the AQHA Ranching Blog, the West River Eagle, the family ranch website, and her own website.

Using photography to illustrate her stories has created other opportunities -- Jenn’s brand “The South Dakota Cowgirl” has grown to the level of social media “Influencer”. This notoriety has led to work with Duluth Trading Company, Budweiser, Wyoming Tourism, Vice, Circle Z Ranch and Art of the Cowgirl, to name a few. She also serves as a brand ambassador for Woodchuck USA, Arenus Equine Health, Triple Crown Feed and Just Strong fitness apparel. Her photography has been featured by Instagram, Apple, TIME Magazine, The Huffington Post, and Oprah Magazine. Jenn’s work has been published internationally, has been seen in several books and has graced the covers of several magazines.

Jenn became a social media influencer by accident when she started to explore Instagram as a way to share her life on the ranch with folks that don’t get to experience it. It’s grown into an incredible platform that she uses to empower women, create an environment for self improvement and share life on the ranch.

When she’s not working, she loves to drink coffee, play with her naughty border collie named Copper, start ranch colts, and run about the country chasing cans. Her mother still thinks she doesn’t have a “real” job.

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Comments

  2. Maureen@IslandRoar says

    Everyone I know out here on the Vineyard seems to raise chickens. I get lots of free eggs of every color which is very cool. Growing up, I thought all eggs were white. I’m happy to say my kids don’t think twice about their eggs being brown, green, or speckled. There are some crazy beautiful chickens out here! I had no idea before I moved here how many different kinds there are.
    Round about this time people start getting the eggs sent in the mail to start their chicks. The whole thing used to seem so strange to me, but now I’m at the point I can see doing this one day in the future.
    Interesting to hear about the humidity factor.

    Reply

  4. Heather says

    I never knew that getting chicks to the hatching point was so involved. I thought the momma sat on them till they was born! LOL!

    Great post Dee Dee!

    Reply

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