Incubators Anonymous

Been skipping pages a lot, sorry if I missed anything. Been extremely busy in the tropical nightmare weather...

I had a hatch that finished on Monday. I ended up with 7 chicks. 4 white legbar, 2 PC and a Toad 2.0. I hope that is the count as I am doing it from memory.

Turkeys hatching this coming weekend.

Great news guys! I'm actually getting those eggs!!! I sent the check in the mail yesterday so hopefully he'll get it on Friday and be able to ship them to me asap. I'll let you know when I get them! I'll probably do an unboxing video when I do.

Time for some cute chick pics! These hatched on Tuesday & had a little grass time with their adopted mama.








Trouble says, "MINE!!!! They're all MINE!"

EEK!!!! The incubator is pretty much full again. 2 different hatches. 1st are eggs I am hatching for Gotro17. When they hatch, they will go under her broody hens. No trouble there. 2nd batch.....I had them shipped to Gotro17's house. I told my family they are hers, but they are really mine. I won a raffle for 20 eggs and she sent me 26. I do have quite a few broody hens, so if I can reorganize my coops, I'll need to figure out how to admit these chicks are mine..... I am actively working on selling the last chicks I hatched, plus a few of my laying hens. If I can sell enough of them, then admitting that these chicks are going to be mine, and I WILL sell them, it might be ok.....

The two hatches are 7 days apart. So, I will have to set up a second incubator. Why, oh why am I still watching the raffle pages.......

Jessimom said:

EEK!!!! The incubator is pretty much full again.

...... and I WILL sell them, it might be ok.....

The two hatches are 7 days apart. So, I will have to set up a second incubator.

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Boy, does all that sound familiar!

I still have some chicks left from 3 misc May hatches. They are being cared for by 2 broody hens in 2 separate garage brooders. It's a game of musical chicken tractors every morning & evening as I carry them out to the grass & back inside the garage. I'm sort of strict on biosecurity & don't want the chicks in my flock unless I KNOW they're staying. I keep them separate b/c of visitors "touching them" and more importantly, it keeps the visitors out of my chicken yard. If I lose a broody due to illness it would be sad, but at least not my whole flock.

For me it's not the auctions tempting me .... but my own hens. They produce beautiful purebred orps and it seems like such a shame to eat all those potential chicks. The May hatches were planned & going to be my last hatches for the season.

But......
In addition to the May chicks for sale, I have 2 broodies sharing a big nestfull of eggs. (15 eggs, I think) One is new at being broody & I wasn't sure she'd stay the course. The other's a little silkie - a broody back-up. Those eggs should hatch at the end of this week. These eggs were started to test the broody & not exactly planned. Since they were setting anyway, I just swapped out the barnyard mix for some purebred orp eggs.

Then I have my BIG Blue orp. She went broody 1.5 weeks ago. A friend gave me 4 turkey eggs for her. I didn't want the turkeys to be alone, so I added some more orp eggs a few days ago, so they'll hatch at the same time.

We'll, my first hatches of blrw were due today. The one set was from the online raffle off lav orpingtons and blrw...I had two lavender orps develope and make it to lockdown and only 1 hatched. No blrw The second set was from the dozen I bought on eBay. They were shipped great but not one developed. I have one more set of blrw due this Friday from a trade.... Only 2 have developed. I'm really hoping they both hatch I don't think I'm meant to have this breed.

Auroradream26 said:

We'll, my first hatches of blrw were due today. The one set was from the online raffle off lav orpingtons and blrw...I had two lavender orps develope and make it to lockdown and only 1 hatched. No blrw The second set was from the dozen I bought on eBay. They were shipped great but not one developed. I have one more set of blrw due this Friday from a trade.... Only 2 have developed. I'm really hoping they both hatch I don't think I'm meant to have this breed.

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That really stinks.
Is your lav orp a "lonely only" or do you have other chicks that you can put it with?

I had 2 broody hens sitting on 8 eggs. Not sure what happened but 2 went missing in the 1st week. I tossed one clear when candling. The remaining 5 stayed put & 4 hatched Thurs-Fri. The last egg was removed & opened today. It quit around day 14-16.

Meanwhile in the incubator I had another 8 eggs. Those developed at a much slower rate & finally hatched today. Six are now with the hens.....and the mamas are much happier to share 10 chicks than only 4. The last two chicks need a little more dry off time, so they'll join the family tomorrow.
The finally tally is:
4 lav orps
2 blk/lav split orps
1 recessive white orp
2 dark blue or black (my blues are dark & lighten as they age) orps
3 silver laced orps

Here are some pics of the 1st 3 chicks



I also have a Sebright who adopted a bunch of chicks last week, so my yard is being taken over by crazy broodies!

Faraday40 said:

That really stinks.
Is your lav orp a "lonely only" or do you have other chicks that you can put it with?

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No, she's not alone. I had a few silkies hatch with her, thankfully.

OK so my brilliant idea of letting the broody hatch the last batch was a bust..... sigh the two promising looking eggs disappeared no baby no shell..... but I just set 25 quail eggs in lock down in a borrowed bator, and I put 19 turkey and 4 duck eggs in the baton so hopefully we will have more babies around July 8th