We are so excited because we are entering a new and unexplored phase of our hobby!

We have 6 chicken eggs in the box!

The egg-laying activity started last week–or to be more precise, it actually started more than a month ago.

But the first batch of eggs (yes, eggs because there were two) cracked, and the yolks disappeared into the soil.

The Hen

This is the hen. She is yet to be named for some unknown reason, but we shall call her Sasha from now on.

Meet Sasha, our motherly Texas hen.

Does she look familiar? Here is Sasha from another angle.

Lovely, isn’t she? LOL

Before the topic gets out of hand, here is the father (or one of the fathers) of our eggs. Unfortunately, all of our male Kabirs are responsible for Sasha’s pregnancy.

Cool! We Have Eggs!

The problem now is what to do next. We previously stated in our first post that we are not experts when it comes to chicken farming..but we are slowly earning our Ph.D’s.

Should we build an incubator? The obvious answer is yes, but in our hearts lay a challenge..the challenge of hatching Kabir chicken eggs the way that God intended it to be.

In other words, we want to go the full monty! Let nature take its course, and allow Sasha to incubate the eggs by herself!

Updates will be posted on a weekly basis. If you happen to know something about egg hatching, hen brooding, or raising kabir chicks, please let us know.

We will highly appreciate your thoughts and insights regarding this wonderful enterprise.

May the good Lord bless us all!

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This post is just an update on our laying texas chicken..we now have seven eggs!

It seems that seven is the lucky number for our dear Sasha!

One thing we noticed, though.

Sasha is now the ‘motherly’ type of hen.

She now spends most if her time sitting inside the nest–or to be more specific, inside the box.

A couple of days ago, all that Sasha did was to eat, drink, and lay eggs. She didn’t brood the eggs just yet, she just did what any normal mother will do after giving birth: rest, eat, and drink.

And yes, she somehow manages to start petty fights with the 45 day chickens inside the coop.

But now, Sasha is spending more time inside her nest box, brooding the eggs and generally being a good mom.

Chicken Brooding: Why is this Necessary?

In layman’s speak, the purpose of brooding is to incubate the eggs, or to help the eggs reach the desired heat that is necessary to fertilize the egg.

Not all hens are capable of brooding, and we don’t even know why some chickens eat their eggs while brooding.

Experienced breeders use either a homemade or commercially available incubator to artificially brood the eggs.

The incubator uses the right amount of heat and humidity to create the perfect brooding and hatching environment.

The image above is an example of a homemade chicken incubator. The breeder used a simple plastic container and orange light bulbs. The homemade incubator also contained small plastic basins filled with water.

Using water is essential to maintain the right amount of humidity. Too much heat will kill your eggs. You will basically fry your chicks inside the shell.

Fried eggs, not good.

We need baby kabir chicks, not fried chicks!

So what’s the secret?

Chicken eggs will hatch, provided that the temperature is maintained at approximately 37.5 degrees Celsius, up to a maximum 38.5 degrees (around 99.5 Fahrenheit.)

Chicken eggs will hatch in 21 days.

We are hoping to do the same, but without using an incubator.

Since Sasha is now brooding, local folks say that the egg laying process is temporarily over. Let us wait and see!

Update March 24: I guess we spoke to soon, because Sasha now has 9 eggs inside the box!

We are hoping to harvest our chicks within 21 days!

God bless us all!

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The initial plan was to build an incubator. Fortunately, Sasha (our Texas hen) was broody enough to hatch 4 baby Kabir chicks.

When it comes to raising kabir chickens, this is a new challenge. This was our first time to hatch baby chicks, and it was a marvelous and unforgettable experience.

Ladies and gentlemen, here are our 4 newly-hatched hybrid kabir-texas chicks.

We don’t have a lot of pics just yet, because Sasha is still very protective of her baby Kabir chicks.

They are now 3 days old, and they look healthy as ever.

Not surprisingly, the newly-hatched Kabir chicks are quite a playful bunch. They are active, alert, and strong for their age.

How to Hatch Kabir Chicken Eggs

We have to be honest here. We are not experts, and we were certainly expecting the worst. But we managed to pull it off, or to be more specific, we were lucky that Sasha is a brooding hen.

Some species might not be as motherly as Sasha, but the trick to successfully hatch kabir chicken eggs is to let nature do its own thing.

Of course, you can still use an incubator. If we had one, then we would have placed the remaining eggs inside.

Our hen had 12 eggs, and she laid another pair of eggs after the chicks hatched.

Hmm..4 chicks out of 12 eggs ain’t bad, considering that this is our first time. The sad part is that the unhatched eggs will have to be discarded–or we can cook a fancy omelette for breakfast.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, here are the simple steps on how to hatch kabir chicken eggs:

Step 1: Never touch the eggs with your bare hands. If you want the hen to brood the eggs, it is better to leave her eggs alone. Otherwise, the mere act of touching the eggs with your hands is enough to turn-off the brooding mood of your hen.

Of course, if you are just after the omelet, then you should collect the eggs every single day and place them in a cool and dry place.

Step 2: Always provide your hen with plenty of fresh food and clean water. You will notice that your hen will gain quite an appetite before she broods the eggs. She will stuff herself silly because she will spend most of her time inside the nest when brooding begins.

Step 3: Provide your hen with a clean and comfortable nest. We only used an old box lined with newspaper and empty rice sacks for the nest.

The important thing to remember is to isolate the nest from too much noise, extreme heat/cold, and wind drafts.

Step 4: When the hen sits inside the nest for more than half a day, then brooding has officially begun. The hen will most likely refuse to leave the nest, and will only do so to drink water and perhaps chomp on a few grains of food.

Now is the time to leave your hen alone, and let her do the rest.

Step 5: The kabir eggs will hatch in no more than 21 days. If you decide to gather the chicks and separate them from their mom (like we did), then you should discard the remaining eggs because she won’t be brooding again anytime soon, at least not until she lays a new batch of eggs.

Please don’t hesitate to share your knowledge! If you know something about raising kabir chickens or hatching chicken eggs, kindly leave your comments below.

We would love to hear your insights.

Thank you and God bless!

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Our kabir-texas hybrid chicks are now 14 days old! Check out their colors.

That was Mark, and it is evident that he worked hard to achieve his award-winning pose!

The hybrid chicks got their colors from their proud parents. They got their wings from Sasha, their Texas mother. The brownish coat is courtesy of their pure Kabir father.

This is Sasha and the King kabir, respectively.

The chicks are slowly showing their true colors as they grow older. Less than 2 weeks ago, the kabir-texas hybrid chicks looked like this:

After 2 weeks, they look like this:

Kabir-Texas Hybrid Chicks Diet

The kabir chickens are voracious eaters, and the hybrid chicks share the same appetite for feeds.

We give them chick booster throughout the day, and we make sure that the feeding containers are always full.

We also give them clean water that is fortified with pure crushed garlic. This will infuse the chicks with natural antibiotics that will protect them from bacteria and disease.

The funny thing is that we didn’t provide artificial light, even during the first few days since they hatched.

There was no need to provide artificial light since we are currently in the midst of summer. Temperatures are now reaching 36 degrees Celsius during the daytime, and a not-so-cool 27 degrees Celsius during the night.

Before we end this post, we would like you to meet our resident electrician and all-around computer genius. This is kuya Oliver.

Kuya Oliver is holding a 6-kilo adult Kabir chicken.

More updates are coming soon!

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Less than a month since our new Kabir-Texas chicks were hatched, Sasha managed to give birth to five new eggs this Labor Day.

We have five more eggs!

But there is a problem: we’re not sure who laid these eggs, because we have two female chickens inside the same coop. Yes, we believe that they are both ‘pregnant.’

The five eggs could either belong to Sasha:

..or to Mariel, our pure Kabir female hen:

Whatever the case, we are still happy that we have new Kabir eggs.

This is just one of the reasons why raising Kabir chickens is both fun and exciting!

Meet Manny

We would like you to meet Mr. Manny Manlapaz.

Manny is also part of the team: a team that loves chickens!

You see, Manny was the source of our first Kabir chicks. He is a certified chicken lover, and he also happens to be a pretty cool guy!

I personally went to Manny’s crib and bought three new chickens, hence the title of this blog.

This is Negra, our new pure kabir hen.

These are the new bantam chickens (which are yet to be named, LOL).

I will post detailed images of our new bantam chickens in the next post.

Manny also sells racing pigeons, like this one:

I wasn’t planning to buy bantam chickens because I was solely after the Kabir brooding hen. But after seeing Manny’s champion bantam chicken, I was blown away! Check out the looks on this baby right here.

Manny’s bantam chicken looks like a  Texas fighter, but it is smaller and more docile.

For all intents and purposes, bantam chickens are purely ornamental. You can also eat them if you like.

But I decided to breed them just for fun!

This also means that we need to build two very important things: an incubator, and a new chicken coop.

Building a New Chicken Coop

We spent a large part of Labor Day digging the soil and leveling the ground. The new chicken coop will be situated in a vacant lot right beside our home.

This is my younger brother, Arnold.

He is using a simple plastic bucket to transfer more soil into our new chicken coop.

This fellow right here is our neighbor, Kevin.

He is using a rake to distribute the soil evenly on level ground.

He also spiked our juice with a little gin. It was a very hot day, and we were all panting like horses. We naturally gulped down Kevin’s gin-juice without even knowing that it was liquor! I was definitely tipsy after that ordeal.

More updates will be posted soon! We have no more 45-day chickens at the moment because we wanted to concentrate on raising and breeding Kabir chickens.

May you have a wonderful day!

You can get in touch with Manny Manlapaz at 09164950187. He sells Kabir chicks, Kabir chickens, bantam chickens, and racing pigeons. Tell him about this blog and you will get a discount, guaranteed!

We mentioned in our previous post that we have 5 new Kabir chicken eggs.

Unfortunately, it seems that we spoke to soon. We now have 7 Kabir eggs, and we figured that we needed our very own incubator. This will allow us to hatch our own chicken eggs, even without a brooding hen.

Finally, here it is!

This incubator was built using an old microwave oven!

Remember kuya Oliver, our resident electrician and chicken lover?

Say ‘Hi!’ to kuya Oliver!

I personally asked Oliver to modify our old microwave oven and turn it into a makeshift incubator! And boy, did he succeed!

Oliver took out all the dangerous parts of the microwave oven such as the capacitor and the magnetron. He retained the built-in thermostat so the eggs will constantly be exposed to the ideal brooding temperature of 99 degrees Fahrenheit, or 37.5 degrees Celsius.

The heat is provided by a 25-watt light bulb, which is placed inside the oven. The overall result is fantastic, since the light bulb will automatically turn ON or OFF to maintain the desired temperature inside the oven.

Oliver calibrated the microwave oven’s built-in thermostat using a digital thermometer. All we have to do is to place the newly-laid eggs inside the incubator, set the temperature to 12 according to the display, and close the door!

WARNING: Oliver is an expert electrician. Do not do this at home! The microwave oven is a complex device, and it contains dangerous parts that may prove harmful to your health!

As we mentioned before, raising Kabir chickens is a fun and interesting hobby. Our new microwave incubator made it more enjoyable and worthwhile. This is also proof that technology and ingenuity can coexist without enduring unnecessary costs!

Presenting Our New Chicken Coop

We also mentioned in our previous post that we are currently in the process of building a new chicken coop.

The vacant lot on the side of our house needed a lot of soil to create a level floor. We have minor flooding issues during the monsoon season, so we needed to make sure that the new chicken coop will rest on higher ground.

But this procedure required a lot of labor and man-hours. It also meant that we will need to fork over some cash to buy new materials.

Here is a quick rundown of the costs that were incurred during the building process:

1. High-quality coarse gravel – 1,000 pesos or around $25.

2. Wooden planks, 10-feet 2 pieces – 330 pesos or around $8.

3. Metal wires, nails, and other miscellaneous materials – 400 pesos, or around $10.

Mark is not ashamed to flaunt his body for the masses!

The new chicken coop will be finished (hopefully!) this Sunday.

Kudos to Aerwin, Mark, Arnold, Kevin and the rest of the gang for a job well done!

And of course, big thanks to Oliver for building our new microwave chicken incubator!

Here are more images of our new chicken coop.

Rock n’ Roll!

May you all have a blessed and fruitful weekend!

Yesterday, we only had 7 Kabir eggs.

Now, we have 11.

Yesterday we had 7 eggs, but now we have 11 eggs!

We thought that the microwave incubator was too big–or too spacious for the intended purpose.

But if Sasha, Mariel, and Negra will continue to lay eggs then we will be inclined to build a second incubator.

We are also thinking about breeding bantam chickens and Chinese silkie chickens.

Chinese Silkie Chicken

The good news is that our new chicken coop is 80% complete.

The team did a fabulous job in leveling the floor and installing the fence.

Chico macho!

Me and the guys spent the rest of the afternoon putting the finishing touches on the new chicken coop.

Arnold is digging a hole!

We filled the ground with soil and we added a layer of fine gravel over the floor area.

This will keep things clean and tidy, since loose dirt will turn into sticky mud when it gets wet.

We live in a tropical country, and we are always expecting the worst during the monsoon season.

Glen dropped by to say Hi!

We used tarpaulin and bamboo sticks for the fence. We tried to recycle all the old materials from our old chicken coop to minimize costs.

Aerwin used his expertise in building our new chicken coop!

However, only one hurdle remains: constructing or building the roof.

This is tricky because we want to build something that can withstand strong rains, gutsy winds, and changing weather patterns.

But for now, the chicken coop is already well-equipped to handle the demands of our big Kabir chickens!

Kareem and Butterball inside the new coop!

We all hope that you had an enjoyable weekend!

Happy Sunday to all!

In our previous post, we were pondering about the roofing design of our new Kabir chicken coop.

We wanted something that was light, relatively durable, and easy to construct.

Of course, we were also looking for something that is cost-effective as well. The cheaper, the better.

And this, in my personal opinion, is the best and most obvious choice:

We bought a tent. Bring out the barbecue!

Our new chicken coop is finally complete.

The Kabir chickens are extremely happy in their new home.

The adult Kabir chickens feel at ease inside their new home!

The bantam chickens are situated in a separate cage inside the new chicken coop.

Meet our bantam chickens!

The Kabir-Texas hybrid chicks are placed beside the bantam chicken cage. Oh, and our Kabir-Texas hybrid chicks  are growing up like champions!

Kabir-Texas Hybrid chicks at 3 weeks old.

We see a bright future for this Kabir-Texas hybrid chick.

Our new chicken coop will also serve as our new place to hangout and chill.

The hybrid chicks are on the left, and the bantam chickens are on the right.

We are lucky because we live in a virtual province inside the metro, hence the presence of many fruit-bearing trees and edible vegetation.

Can you feel the breeze?

It also gives us enough expansion room for future renovations.

The important thing is that ALL our chickens are comfortable and safe from predators.

They are also safe from the heat of the sun, cold wind drafts, and hard rain.

Oh, and where else can you find a Komodo Dragon lurking in the bushes?

Look! It’s Pekto, the half-human Komodo dragon!!

We Now Have Thirteen Kabir Chicken Eggs

Barely two days had passed since our last post on our 11 Kabir eggs.

Our new microwave incubator will have to make room for more eggs, because we now have thirteen eggs!

Sasha managed to lay a single egg this morning, while our Kabir hens (still not sure which between Negra and Mariel) also laid one egg.

Here is Sasha with her new egg!

The microwave incubator now has 13 eggs. Ain’t that cool?

Check it out! We have thirteen eggs!

If the egg-laying activity continues (and it will), we either have to build another makeshift incubator or let the brooding hens take over. The latter is my personal choice, but Sasha only hatched 4 healthy chicks using the natural method.

We will soon find out if we can hatch more eggs using our microwave incubator.

More updates will be posted soon!

God bless to everyone!

Looking back on what we achieved so far, it is evidently clear that we successfully mastered the art of raising Kabir chickens and 45-day chicks.

Our adut Kabir chickens are now 6 months old. They are old enough to breed with our adult Kabir hens.

They also grew up to be as strong as a rock, and resilient to viruses and other diseases.

Our Kabir chickens are also ‘weatherproof.’

Blake is soaking wet..and kinda’ looks like a penguin, don’t you think?

Despite hard rains, the Kabir chickens remain unfazed.

The King Kabir is walking in the rain.

Rainy season will officially start in June, and is primarily the reason why we are doing our best to make our new chicken coop ‘storm-proof.’

Let me in! I’m wet!

Don’t get us wrong, though.

We will build a shelter for the adult Kabir chickens.

All of use have decided that the new chicken coop is too small.

Improvements are on the way. We are currently in the middle of building an extension for the new chicken coop.

We promise to make it bigger and better–more than enough to accomodate all our chickens.

This also means that we will be building new cages because we have new members in the family.

Meet our new Polish chickens.

This is Meg, our new Polish hen.

This is Jack, our Polish rooster.

Yes, they were named after the American rock band The White Stripes.

Polish chickens are very tame–so tame, in fact, that you can hold them in your hand or place them on your shoulder for as long as you want and they won’t mind at all!

This is my Daddy Boni watching TV with our Polish chicken, Meg.

Even my brother was surprised! He was enamored by the civility of the Polish chicken.

Arnold is a crazy-ass dude!

According to Wikipedia, the Polish breed of chickens was originally from the Netherlands, and not from Poland.

Polish chickens can easily be distinguished by the crest of feathers above their head.

They also come in a variety of colors, and they also come in bearded and non-bearded varieties.

I am personally intrigued by the Polish chicken because they can barely see what’s in front of them. The crest of feathers is covering their entire heads, similar to a Shitzu dog.

We want to add more chickens to the flock.

If you happen to know someone who owns exotic chicken breeds, then please let us know.

We are interested in acquiring Philippine native chickens, Chinese Silkies, Sasso, and any type of breed that tickles our fancy.

More to come in the next post!

God bless always, folks!

Less than 10 days ago, we noticed that our King Kabir was sneezing.

The King was not his usual self. He was generally active, and he was eating and drinking normally.

But something was different. The King was unable to crow, and he had a hoarse voice.

Soon enough, the other adult Kabir roosters were sneezing as well.

Today, none of the adult Kabir chickens seem sick..and then the inevitable happened. We noticed something weird from our hybrid Kabir-Texas chicks. They were scratching their faces on the ground, and they looked generally lethargic.

The hybrid Kabir-Texas chicks were not only sneezing, but they have watery eyes and a foul-smelling discharge from their noses.

After a brief chat with a fellow from our local poultry store, I was able to confirm that our month-old Kabir-Texas chicks are suffering from Coryza.

According to thepoultrysite.com, infectious Coryza  is caused by the bacterium Haemophilus paragallinarum and is seen in many countries especially in multi-age farms that are never depopulated. Morbidity is high but mortality low if uncomplicated although it may be up to 20%.

Notice the wet blotch of feathers on the back? Check out the image above.

The wet feathers are caused by the mucus and watery discharge from the nose and the eyes of the chicks respectively. They rub their eyes and nose at the back of their necks (like most chickens do) to remove the watery discharge from their eye and nose, hence the presence of foul-smelling feathers.

Wet feathers on the back of the neck of the kabir chick.

I sought to know more about the symptoms and treatment for Coryza, and I stumbled upon a thread from backyardchickens.com.

They said that the symptoms of Coryza include: runny nose ( sometimes just a moist clear liquid at the edge of the nostril or nostrils ) . In more severe cases the mucus will be thicker and an off white to yellow in color and the nostrils may crust over and completely plug one or both nostrils. Facial swelling may occur just under one or both eyes and may be severe enough to completely swell shut one or both eyes. This is important as usually there is a secondary bacterial infection in the eye as well.

They further added that: Something else that might tip you off as to whether this disease would be Coryza or not would be the presence of mucus soiled feathers on the back,neck and face from wiping the mucus from the nostrils on the feathers. This symptom is not always present but should play a part in your decision making. Coryza also spreads very quickly in relation to some of the other diseases, once it gets started. Last but not least mortality plays a part in Coryza, if left untreated.

What to Do if Your Kabir Chickens (or other poultry pets) are Infected with Coryza

This is our first time to deal with the Coryza infection.

Our Kabir chickens were previously infected with the Avian Pox virus, but this was the dry kind of Avian Pox that will eventually g0 away (provided that your chickens are in tip-top shape.)

Kabir chicken with dry Avian Pox.

First, we were strongly advised to isolate the sick chicks. I would rather lose 2 or 3 chickens rather than lose the entire flock, so we hurriedly set-up an isolation coop for the sick chicks.

We have 3 chicks that are infected with Coryza.

Next, you need to treat your chicks with antibiotics to address the infection.

Antibiotics will help your chickens battle Coryza.

Mix 5 grams (1 sachet) of powdered antibiotics to a gallon of water for 5 to 7 days, or until the symptoms disappear.

Ask your local veterinarian or poultry supply store if you want to buy antibiotics for Coryza.

We don’t want to use antibiotics on our Kabir-Texas chicks, but Coryza is a deadly and contagious disease. We don’t want to spread the infection to our pure Texas chicks (who are less than 5 days old) and to our cute Polish chickens.

Speaking of which, our neighbor gave us 7 pure Texas chicks, and they look lovely.

Here are our cute and cuddly pure Texas chicks!

We also added 6 Kabir chicks that are less than a week old.

Kabir chicks!

We are keeping our fingers crossed. The infected chicks are weak, but they can still eat and drink. Given the nature of the Kabir and the Texas breed of chicken (which are virtually resilient to bacteria and disease), we are hoping that our hybrid Kabir-Texas chicks will be free from Coryza in the next couple of days.

Wish us luck!

God bless! Once again, thank you for patronizing our blog.

It’s been a while since our last post.

We were busy making some much needed improvements inside our new chicken coop.

And it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, either.

It’s been a rough month. Remember our Kabir-Texas chicks that were infected with Coryza?

Well, we lost 2 chicks. But two of them managed to survive the ordeal, and they are now fully recovered.

We also lost Meg, our female Polish chicken.

She lost her appetite, lost weight, and gradually weakened until her last breath. And all of this happened in a span of 2 days.

Talk about bad luck. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

On a lighter note, we would like you to meet our family of chickens. Of course, we will be updating this blog whenever we have a new member in the family.

But allow us to introduce you to our world, and why we have gone crazy over our Kabir chickens since November 2012.

This is Jack, our lone surviving Polish chicken.

Jack’s got some new colors as well.

Here is a picture of Jack and Meg during their happier days.

Jack is on the left, and the late Meg is on the right.

Next, here are our two Kabir-Texas chicks that were cured from the Coryza infection.

No more Coryza for these two survivors!

They used to look like this.

They are now more than a month old. The bigger chick is now more than 1/2 kilo in weight.

Next, we would like to show you our egg-laying Kabir hens.

Like we previously mentioned, it’s been a pretty rough month because we were unable to hatch the eggs inside our microwave incubator.

We need to recalibrate our incubator and make some adjustments. Hopefully, we will be successful in our next batch of eggs (and there is no shortage of eggs either, since our hens are constantly laying eggs. Even our Kabir roosters are more than willing to lend a ‘helping hand’ in fertilizing the eggs, if you know what we mean.)

Next on the agenda are the pure Texas chicks. They are less than a month old. Look closely on the left and you will see a baby Kabir chick.

The Texas chicks look mature for their age, especially if you take a close inspection of their wings.

The Texas chick looks like a baby eagle!

Less than a month ago, they look similar to 45-day chicks.

Here are our cute and cuddly pure Texas chicks!

But now, they are big enough to fly inside their cage.

We have three beautiful bantam chickens. We have a rooster bantam along with two young bantam hens.

In fact, this particular bantam hen(the brown one)  just laid a couple of eggs this week.

Our adult Kabir rooster is keeping a close guard on our bantam hen!

It is now time to check out our Kabir chicks.

We placed the Kabir chicks on the ground because they are growing fast. The image below was taken a couple of days ago when they were still inside the old cage.

Last but not the least, allow us to present our pet rabbits!

Bunnies!!

We don’t only raise Kabir chickens, because we now have a diverse number of species in our collection!

Of course, our new chicken coop will never be complete without showing our adult Kabir roosters.

The King Kabir!

Storm season has officially started in our archipelago. We will post some helpful tips on how you can successfully raise chickens even during bad weather conditions.

God bless!

See you all next time!