Silkie thread! - Page 1726

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Originally Posted by TheChicknGarden 

Too stinking cute I can't wait till I can stick eggs under my girls...hopefully they'll all be girls lol
Just haven't figures where I'd get eggs... So when you silkies go broody how long after do you put the eggs under them? What are the tall tale signs that. They are going broody?

When she started sitting, there were 2-3 eggs in the nest from that day.

I used the eggs for her from the following day too. A total of 5.

With my other hens, I just let a few eggs pile up, and with my free rangers, someone will always take over and sit.

I guess the most obvious sign is they stay on the nest all day and night - only getting off to eat.

And when they get off to eat, they usually cluck around and puff up.

Glad you all liked the pictures!

I so love having silkie babies around.

2 more born today. 1 egg left.

SOOOOOO jealous .... <sigh>

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChickensXOXO 

 

Adorable

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChickensXOXO 

 

I'll be putting some silkie eggs in the Hovabator 1602N (with fan) next week - are there any insights I should know?  Are there things to do differently for silkie eggs?  Last time we hatched some shipped silkie eggs I had 40+ eggs and only 3 hatched - but I was also hatching out LOs at the same time and I wonder if that somehow made the hatch rate poor. 

Is the temperature still 99.5F?  Is the humidity level still 60-65% for Days 1-18 and 80-85% for lockdown? 

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobbieschicks 

I'll be putting some silkie eggs in the Hovabator 1602N (with fan) next week - are there any insights I should know?  Are there things to do differently for silkie eggs?  Last time we hatched some shipped silkie eggs I had 40+ eggs and only 3 hatched - but I was also hatching out LOs at the same time and I wonder if that somehow made the hatch rate poor. 

 

Is the temperature still 99.5F?  Is the humidity level still 60-65% for Days 1-18 and 80-85% for lockdown? 

 

Yes, temp is 99.5 (it's critical to check your themometer for accuracy). Lot's of varying opinions on humidity levels but they are the same for all breeds. I prefer 35 - 40 % for first 18 then 65 -70% but the main thing is that shipping is extremely hard on eggs and many or most do not mature. When hatching my own home grown eggs I get 80 - 95 % hatch. When hatching shipped eggs I often get zero and occasionally as much as half. It depends so much on how they are packaged and how well the P.O. people treat them.

Sorry, I meant shelled, brain isn't working corectly today..Mine must be really picky then... lol ..they don't like the layer pellets either, I have to get them crumbles...Adorable broody and babes, I woke to find 2 of my silkie eggs in the bator pipped this morning...so now the waiting...

I am going to try to see if I can talk one of my hens in to hatching some eggs. My splash boy has been getting the job done, so if she will I will get Super Splash (my boy's name) babies!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hawkeye95 

 

 

Sounds like a vitamin deficiency she had.  I bet some Vitamin E might have cleared that up.  I like to give powder probiotics as a top dressing in their feed now and then to keep them balanced-- it is for goats and it has a lot of great vitamins in it, including Vit E.  I bought it at TSC, it comes in a tub for $11.  Totally worth it.  I know a lot of people buy the Vit E capsules and break those open and give it to their birds that are having troubles like you described.  But yeah, pretty sure that wasn't seizures she was having, or at least, not what you were thinking.  Sorry she was taken by a hawk, that is sad.  

You learn something new every day. I feel like such a moron that I didn't think to try to do more research on her condition. I'll remember this if I ever see a chicken do the same thing. Those were my first chickens ever back at the Mo-days. I just didn't know any better.  Poor Mo.

I will take a trip to the feed store down the road and see if they have any. Otherwise I'll just order it online or something.

Candling eggs???!

I tried to candle our eggs today. Never done this before but I'm pretty sure my flash light wasn't bright enough and it wasn't dark enough in the coop. But. Most of the eggs seemed to be very dark so to say. I couldn't see through them. Some had those little empty areas at one end of the egg (can't remember what those are called). And a few eggs I found that seemed to have nothing in them, which would make them infertile?

If I did everything right and saw what I think was a chick in an egg, we should have about 25 eggs hatching in a day or two! I'm way excited, but we really don't need 25 chicks. lol I'll be looking for new homes soon!

How do you know what a bad egg looks like? One of those that might blow up under the hen?

When this little one hatched out it looked partridge, but now its a dark smokey grey with gold on its chest and wing tips. Any idea on color?

And this one hatched out the same time, sibling to the one above. They looked identical as chicks (partridge looking) and now this one is blue?