I never wash eggs. I separate the dirty ones and use them at home. Clean-ish ones go to egg customers. If they're gross I give them a quick rinse before I crack them. :)
We got 6! 1 assist, and 5 hatched on their own. Two others died in shell without pipping. Eggtopsy looked like they quit on day 17-18. They were both facing wrong way in the shell and did not internally pip or absorb their yolks. All 6 live hatches are looking fluffy and strong.
Our kitten...
"sloshy" is never a good adjective. That's always how I tell they're dead when they've quit midway. I'll say, "this one doesn't smell bad, but it looks sloshy".
Just stumbled across this. I know it's old.
BCM eggs really do lose less moisture. I am hatching 8 BCM eggs and the air cells on some of them are really tiny. I also incubated at about 20-25%. There seems to be a strong correlation between darker/thicker shells that are hard to see through and...
Yep. Faces, combs, and wattles look lighter whenever they are not laying. They will look redder when they are about to start laying again. It's a hormonal thing, I think.
I agree. Mine is molting right now, so it's nice to look at pictures of what she's supposed to look like. Hopefully OP will post an update in 6 months so we can see who wins the guessing game. :)
Her chick down looks a lot like my EE, Easter. She turned out light gold and silver as an adult. So yours could look something like a blue laced red wyandotte, but lighter?
I might be able to take Fluffy. I am in Coal Creek Canyon. I could provide him a nice rural life and 17 girlfriends. But only if he hasn't shown any sign of aggression yet. I have kids. :). Do you know what breeds he's a mix of?
Body shape looks right for a bobcat. I had the same happen to ducks who stopped sleeping inside. The bobcat took one a night. Things that have helped me with a bobcat are a dog who trees predators, keeping them inside the coop for a couple weeks until the predator changes their habits, and...
I use fingernail clippers on my zip ties. And never leave them on longer than 1 week, so they don't ever get tight. And I switch legs every week. Just re-banded my two identified chicks today actually. :)
Replying to my own question here. Still interested in seeing others' pictures if you have them.
I banded the one chick that hatched from an egg I thought was wheaten x BCM. Yellow band was indistinguishable from the BCMs at hatch. Now she is 16 days old, and feathering out with an interesting...
When chicks pip outside the air cell like that, they need a longer interval between pip and zip. Think of it this way: instead of an internal pip, they had to make an external pip. Internal pipping usually happens 12-24 hours prior to external pipping. So they need that extra 12-24 hours to rest...
This was several years ago, but I ordered 4 cream legbar sexed pullets from a hatchery, and got 4 cream legbar cockerels. They're auto-sexing. Cockerels look completely different. So somebody pulled from the wrong bin or something! They gave me my money back.
Here's my chickies. We still have 10, and they're 10-12 days old. I'm guessing 4 boys and 4 girls out of the marans, and who knows about the olive eggers. I'm bad at spotting EE boys.
This first one's name is macaroni.
These two are the EE mixes.
And the eggshell of the last one to...