51 LF Cornish Eggs in the Incubator

[Redhead Rae]

I just set 51 LF Cornish eggs in my incubator! 37 eggs from my LF Dark and Jubilee (white/dark cross) Cornish, and 14 shipped LF White Cornish eggs I bought. So excited to get back into hatching my own meat birds. First time hatching chickens in 4 years I think. I’ve done 2-3 batches of guineas 3 years ago but that’s it.

Edit: my goal here is to move to only having LF White Cornish. As much as I love how beautiful my Darks are, the whites/jubilee give a much cleaner looking carcass. Also I want to simplify my breeding plans by going to one color. Dealing with 5 boys 9 and under is hard enough.

 

[Redhead Rae]

Just candled my Cornish eggs, 11 of 37 of my eggs came up either infertile or early demises. 4 of them the eggsall came from one hen. I know because she lays a bigger and lighter egg than the other Cornish. I’ll be shifting her over to another rooster for my next hatch.

4 of 14 of my shipped eggs look to be infertile. I left them in the incubator just in case I just couldn’t see clearly. That is better than I expected.

All in all not too bad for my birds that are all 4+ years old.

 

[lpatelski]

Just candled my Cornish eggs, 11 of 37 of my eggs came up either infertile or early demises. 4 of them the eggsall came from one hen. I know because she lays a bigger and lighter egg than the other Cornish. I’ll be shifting her over to another rooster for my next hatch.

4 of 14 of my shipped eggs look to be infertile. I left them in the incubator just in case I just couldn’t see clearly. That is better than I expected.

All in all not too bad for my birds that are all 4+ years old.

You might look into AI with your hen. I used AI to settle my smaller or more fussy hens to my 14 pound Roo. I had very good success. Not saying it's easier, but the results were worth the extra effort. I'm looking to get back into Dark Cornish. If you are looking to place(sell) your LF dark stock please let me know, I'll come get them!

 

[Redhead Rae]

You might look into AI with your hen. I used AI to settle my smaller or more fussy hens to my 14 pound Roo. I had very good success. Not saying it's easier, but the results were worth the extra effort. I'm looking to get back into Dark Cornish. If you are looking to place(sell) your LF dark stock please let me know, I'll come get them!

I’ve never done AI and my birds are all older. Like 4-7 years old. So I’m not surprised at the low fertility rate.

I got busy with my kids and was actually considering getting out of Cornish for a while and just raising hatchery CX birds for meat but they just don’t taste as good.

I’ll keep you in mind for placing my Darks. I have one Dark cock and I think 6-8 hens. And I’ll have whatever hatched this year as well. The old girls are still laying this time of year.

 

[Redhead Rae]

The chicks all hatched Monday and Tuesday and I have a brooder full of happy little chicks.

Out of the 10 egg from the shipped eggs that went to lockdown I got 8 chicks.

Out of the 25 eggs from my chickens that made it to lockdown, I got 20 chicks and lost one due to umbilical bleeding. I watched this one hatch and a previously hatched chick plowed into the shell that was still tethered to this chick’s umbilical and pulled it off. The bleeding stopped after a bit and the chick seemed fine after a while. It looks like it went to sleep that night and didn’t wake up. It had a scab on its navel and that is how I could tell which chick it was.

So I have 27 healthy, happy chicks.

I did get three very odd colored chicks from my chicken’s eggs. They are brown with white stripes on their backs. Very odd looking. Even my dark chicks usually come out mostly yellow. I’ll be marking them to see how they turn out. They can’t be barnyard crosses, because the only other hens I have are Ameraucana and Marans and their eggs are very distinctive. When I asked on a Cornish forum the consensus was they were dark females or single laced darks due to me outcrossing with whites which may have some WLR in their history.