Recent content by CT Coop

Comb and vent look great....but I took treats out and got him to get up and saw a definite limp. Hate to say this, but sure hoping it's an injury...I really don't want to deal with Marek's again...but I will also say it is a different kind of limp than that was. I've never had the vaccine not...

I looked for injury and made sure joints, etc were moving properly. His eyes and nose look good and his breathing sounds good. I also checked his weight, which seems good....with Marek's weight loss was prevalent and I don't see that...at least not yet. Yes, I will definitely watch him closely...

I have a 4 mo. old Bielefelder cockerel/rooster who has become quite interested in the hens...no problem there...but all of a sudden for the last 3 days all he is doing is laying around. He did get on a hen for a short time this morning, but laid right back down. I did vaccinate him for...

Thank you all...this is excellent information! I have a Sportsman cabinet incubator with it's own thermo/hygro, but I have a separate one, which I stick in the ventilation hole from time to time to ensure things are accurate. I borrowed it from my company, which is a Research and Development...

Yes, the eggs I received were quick to get here and extremely well packaged. They shipped end of February so it was still cold here, but I don't think temp could have affected them with such good packaging. Solid styrofoam surrounding the eggs and then they had individual foam around each egg...

I recently had only a 23% hatch rate on eggs shipped from Mississippi to Indiana. I am incubating for a friend who got her eggs from Texas and Florida. I just candled and one group doesn't appear fertile, but maybe damaged in shipment? The other are Welsummers, so I can't really tell progress...

OK...I candled again (Day 12), but I think the floating stuff, was actually chick movement. Some were clearly infertile and/or damaged in shipping. Most locally sourced eggs are progressing, but here's an odd one. Most air cells are a clearly defined circle and not like this one, which goes...

Isn't it sad though when they are fully formed 😢 My last batch I had 21 in the incy and only 5 hatched....I wanted to learn from the experience and found that all of them were fully formed....I think it was a humidity issue, so this time I'm being very careful.

Yes...I was so excited for the breed. They were shipped eggs and I got 4 out of 13, but I'm sure that's because they were shipped. They are now ~5 weeks old.

I just wanted to share that I had a very similar experience as MountainWoman….raised chickens for 10 years with no Mareks and then agreed to take 5 birds from a colleague who was moving. 3 of them were Silky pullets and the other 2 were adults hens. Within a few days I knew a Silky was blind...

Just a quick update that I ended up with 3 cockerels and 1 pullet even though one of the cockerels had chipmunk stripes. I learned from a breeder that a white dot on the head also means cockerel and you can see from the pic that 1 with chipmunk stripes also has a white dot. And now at week 5 I...

Well, it is dark, but I wouldn't say black. I have a new question....how often can I candle and not endanger the eggs? Today is day 12 and I was going to wait until day 14, but I would really like to take a look today and try to take pics. What do you all think?

OK...I did rearrange as I candled. Part of the problem may be that some are very dark Welsummer eggs, so hopefully I'll see more on Day 14....I really don't want to open the incy again until then. Hopefully, it will be a better picture then and I can take photos!@

They are definitely not infertile as I do see blood vessels, but I've never seen things floating before. I will try to get a pic the next time I take them out of the Incy on Day 14.

I have a GQF Sportsman and have 71 eggs in the bator on day 10. I am fairly new to candling but have pics of what things should look like to compare to, but they all look so different! Some of them appear to have the right size air cell, but things appear to be floating within the egg. I...