Greetings BYC!
I get so much great info from you guys, and I wanted to share my own solution to a problem that was making me uneasy.
I'm new to keeping chickens. We have raccoons visiting our yard every evening raiding the bird feeders, so I wanted the most secure coop I could find. I...
And they are not shy about giving you their opinion either. I get a lot of sass, for example, when I tell our gsd that she must only give the cats kisses.
me, to dog, pointing at cat, "kisses only! no teeth!"
dog, to me, grinning and wagging her tail, "Rowr rowr rarar row!"
me, to dog...
Thank you, BYC! I was able to hatch some eggs to start my small flock, largely due to all of the great information here in the BYC forums. Here are a few pics from my hatch:
Eggs in the bator
a pip!!
zipped!
newly hatched
babies in the brooder
My german shepherd is fascinated with our new additions. She lays by the pen for hours, "talking" softly - probably whispering threats to the little dinosaurs. My kids say she's making menu plans.
I must also report a less than stellar hatch. 13 little cuties out of 42 eggs. If I exclude the ones that were clear, 13/38 = 34%. If I exclude the shipped eggs; 7/14 = 50%. 6/24 shipped eggs for a whopping 25%. I'll post photos soon - they are all adorable.
I can't say for sure whether...
Congrats! I felt the same way; I had a lot of trouble keeping my temps stable. Then that first pip - so exciting!
Exactly so! Sorry you have to work during the "broadcast". Maybe they'll wait for you?
I thought the same thing when my kids and their friends were cheering the...
I'm right there with you, Neheigh. Very nervous. Lockdown is today for me. I followed Henthusiasts' cheat sheet, filling all channels with paper towel to act as a wick, then with warm water. I placed the eggs upright in trimmed down paper egg cartons: 8 welsummer, 4 bbs marans, 7 bbs...
I was showing my husband how difficult it was to see into the marans eggs when a little dark shadow popped up and danced around in the light, just to prove (s)he was there. So cute!
Candled today on day 8. Of the local wheaten ameraucana eggs, 7/8 had veining and a dancing embryo. That was fun and gratifying to see, this being my first attempt at incubating. One had a possible bloodring. The shipped BBS ameraucana eggs had larger, wiggly air cells. These eggs were...
That's a good sign! I did the same, couldn't resist checking out a couple of the "local" eggs (wanted to leave the shipped eggs alone as much as possible). In the 4 marans eggs I could only see a dark blob. This concerned me - anyone know what that could mean? In the 2 ameraucana eggs I...