DIary of a novice, shipped egg, broody hatch

[appps]

Just wanted to keep track of my first adventure into the world of hatching eggs so thought Id just put it in a post so I can find it later.

Back story for anyone bored enough to follow along LOL We have an 2 year old silkie called Penny who has yet again gone broody so against everything common sense tells me following our last time having to rehome a rooster (neighbour problems) we have decided to add to our little flock by letting her hatch eggs. Oh and should add, being in Australia we are about 3 weeks into spring over here.

Because of the trouble we had finding our Rooster Ed a good home where he wouldnt get eaten (family pet couldnt have that

) we are doing two things differently, first the kids have been told that they are keeping only three hens and that they are not to get attached to the others (yeah I know, good luck with that) and two I have decided to hatch eggs from a show quality breeder so that hopefully finding homes for any boys may just be a bit easier. (this is the plan anyway

)

The eggs are traveling from Perth in Western Australia all the way to NSW which is pretty close to a five hour flight. They were posted on Tuesday and I hope they arrive for pick up from the Post Office tomorrow (Friday) so they arent sitting in the PO all weekend. I have bought a dozen mixed blue, black and splash australorp eggs. I am crossing fingers that we get one girl of each colour. I am only keeping three, we are residential so have limited space and as this will also be an old folks home for chickens way past their laying days I want to keep room to add new stock every year or two so we have a good mix of egg producing and past it chickens. So am going to have to be strong and sell any extra girls we get (this is of course assuming that they actually hatch and then they dont all turn out to be boys!).

 

[appps]

And here it is!! Little peep on its first excursion out into the big wide world!

 

[Tallie]

I sooo want to hatch some chickens of my own and let one of my girls be a mama. I bet it would be so cute. Good luck!

 

[appps]

I went and checked on penny this morning and she growled at me just for getting close. Apparently all those eggs have brought out a new side in her and she is gleefully thinking " mine, mine! They're all mine!,"

Unfortunately greedy as she may be her butt is just not big enough to sit on 11 large size eggs and two were out the side of her this morning. One was warm and the other cold so rather than loosing them all because they take turns being chilled when they don't fit I've removed those two.

Seemed such a pity to throw them considering each one cost me as much as a full carton of eggs would so I figure there is nothing to be lost by trying to incubate them till I candle at 8 days and using them to replace any duds if I keep them alive that long. Since shipped eggs only seem to have a 50/50 chance of hatching I'm thinking a few spares may just come in handy.

So never having hatched before and not owning an incubator this was my MacGyver inspired attempt at an incubator.

We have hermit crabs which are happy up to 32deg c so I've raised the eggs closer to the heat lamp using a takeaway container and an old tissue box. That's giving me about 37-38 deg c so I'm just tweaking the temps to get to where it should be. Humidity is 42% at the moment.

I am not sure how I'm going to turn them. I suspect I'll just have to change their position by lifting and turning.

 

[appps]

I hope you don't end up with too many losses!!
I've learnt quite a bit from this thread already, thanks for doing this diary thing 
I understand not everyone can do this but I think the first time i'll give hatching a go, i'll use some of my own eggs from my hens + roo.. I'm not brave enough to buy eggs on the first time, cause I might make mistakes.

I think that is far wiser than shipped from the other side of the country first try lol , especially if using an incubator but we only have room for 3 more at the moment so figured I'd risk it to get the breed I wanted . It's been quite fun so far even with our less than great results on the incubated ones, am quietly confident that penny is doing a much better jab than me though lol

 

[appps]

Okay so call me hopeless lol

Was dark out and ds hadn't locked the chooks up yet so I thought stuff it, it's day 10, last chance till next week I'm gonna go take a peek under penny while we lock them up. Turns out ten is the magic number!!

While I still couldn't make out much in the way of veining in the brown eggs there was a most definates little baby bird in five of her 8 eggs!

Two others were blank as far as I could see but I've taken them and put in the incubator for now rather than just throwing, just in case but I don't think anything will come of them. The sixth one was a bit of an unsure what to think. It didn't have a definates black bub in it but is wasn't clear like the others either so for now have just marked with a little x and left with her and we will revisit it day 17.

Compared to what we just saw under penny not much doubt my last of the original three in the incubator is a dud too. I'll give all three to day 17 but will then chuck them.

Very exciting!!!

 

[CB and CG]

Fingers crossed for some babies tomorrow Appps. I will be keeping my eye on this thread

 

[appps]

Since our hatch is over, thought I might as well use this to keep track of peep as SHE grows

So here she is again at almost 1 week old.

Here she is learning from mum that we are friends and its okay to eat out of our hands. Mum chirped and called her over to try some bird seed. It was of course too big for her to do anything more than throw it around but she happily sat in the hand to try. Unfortunatly mum kept photo bombing so this was was the best photo I got, but she does sit right on your hand which is pretty cool. Mum is a very good broody it turns out and is teaching her that we aren't the slightest bit scary.






And this is her learning to scratch for bugs.

 

[K Spot]

I love your photos, Aaaps. Too cute

 

[appps]

Feeling a little bummed, last couple of days the comb seems to be going more pink than it was before and still not much of a tail to speak of

This is peep at 4 weeks and 2 days.




Only ray of hope is that this is also a 4 wk old male australorp from another thread and it has much redder comb and bigger wattles (not sure if its purebred though). Its so hard having just one so no hatch mates to compare it to. I think its the only little tufts of a tail that worries me the most
Will be very sad if it turns out to be a boy. It is just so sweet, nothing rooish in the behaviour.