Recent content by halefamily_flock

  1. halefamily_flock

    BYC's 16th Annual New Year's Day Hatch-Along—2025

    Here is the brown egg group, all fluffed up. Hatched 14 of 14. Here is the white egg group. Hatched 6 of 6. The two up front are my typical Spitz-crosses. The other 4 appear to be the Sicilian Buttercup-Spitz crosses I was hoping to get in this hatch
  2. halefamily_flock

    BYC's 16th Annual New Year's Day Hatch-Along—2025

    Here is the white egg group. All 6 hatched. 2 look like buttercups and 2 more have buttercup faces and spitz bodies.
  3. halefamily_flock

    BYC's 16th Annual New Year's Day Hatch-Along—2025

    Meanwhile, in the brown egg incubator we have 3!
  4. halefamily_flock

    BYC's 16th Annual New Year's Day Hatch-Along—2025

    After 3.5 hours, my early bird in the white egg incubator finally got a friend. It’s now 3.5 hours later & they’re still waiting for #3 who has started to zip
  5. halefamily_flock

    BYC's 16th Annual New Year's Day Hatch-Along—2025

    The first one to hatch…looks like a Buttercup!
  6. halefamily_flock

    BYC's 16th Annual New Year's Day Hatch-Along—2025

    Woke up this morning with sweet soft peeps coming from the eggs and a few pips in the white egg incubator.
  7. halefamily_flock

    BYC's 16th Annual New Year's Day Hatch-Along—2025

    The 2 roosters they spend the most time with in the pen are Spitz crosses with likely colored egg genes. I've been letting them all out of their runs to free range during the day, where they meet up with a 3rd Spitz cross and my original Spitz roo. So, if I set any buttercup eggs (which I think...
  8. halefamily_flock

    BYC's 16th Annual New Year's Day Hatch-Along—2025

    There are 6 white eggs in the incubator. I'm hoping at least a couple came from my Sicilian Buttercup hens. Here's what they looked like as chicks. Here is what the Spitzes look like as chicks. This will be my first time *hopefully* seeing a cross between the Spitz and Buttercup.
  9. halefamily_flock

    BYC's 16th Annual New Year's Day Hatch-Along—2025

    They are Spitzhauben crosses. I've been working to create Spitz-crosses that lay blue eggs (from Cream Legbar), with a little bigger comb so they handle heat better, keeping the beautiful Spitz crest & gold spangling. The girl just to the right in the front row is a new breed I introduced this...
  10. halefamily_flock

    BYC's 16th Annual New Year's Day Hatch-Along—2025

    I’m testing out a couple new incubators with eggs from this flock. I have 27 brown, blue & white eggs due to hatch on Thu Jan 2
  11. halefamily_flock

    Breeding experiments for colorful eggs from predator savvy, clean leg chickens with fun combs and crests

    Sounds like a fun project! Your birds are gorgeous!! I'm hoping to get some chamois spitz chicks this year. If I do, I'm going to give up my silvers for 2025 and focus on gold base colors, with black spangling for my blue layers and white spangling for my white egg layers.
  12. halefamily_flock

    Isabel coloring

    I'm interested in hearing more about your Spitz EE project. Here's something I've been working on: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/breeding-experiments-for-colorful-eggs-from-predator-savvy-clean-leg-chickens-with-fun-combs-and-crests.1507965/post-27545969 This is the first year I got...
  13. halefamily_flock

    Give newly broody hen ready to hatch eggs from incubator, or freshly hatched chicks?

    No problem with acceptance so far. I started off trying to be sneaky getting them under the hen, but realized the hens aren't keeping track. I have 2 good broodies in the flock who are good at raising chicks, but none of them does well with the incubation for 3 weeks because there are so many...
  14. halefamily_flock

    Give newly broody hen ready to hatch eggs from incubator, or freshly hatched chicks?

    I typically incubate the majority of eggs that I want broody hens to raise. The hatch/survival rate is much higher. I have had success with putting 1-2 live eggs under the hen at lockdown, and adding the rest as newly hatched chicks. (I always put fake eggs under her until I swap them out)
  15. halefamily_flock

    Breeding experiments for colorful eggs from predator savvy, clean leg chickens with fun combs and crests

    For Spring 2024 breeding, I have more blue-laying Spitz hybrids than I expected, including 1 that looks so much like a Gold Spitz hen it took me over a week of separating hens one-at-a-time from the white-laying Spitz group to find her! This is the group where I put the younger roo from my 2023...
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