12th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-Along

[BesideStillWaters]

We have your rattle kissing snakes and all of the other ones too. They're not very polite though. Lol, Though I have heard that copperheads smell like cucumbers when they're upset so if you randomly smell cucumber you're probably close enough to step on one...

I knew I hated cucumbers... now I know why.

 

[BesideStillWaters]

I agree wholeheartedly! I used to live on the west coast and moved to the east coast. My grandparents lived in Arizona. It's a completely different kind of hot and it's very manageable. Here it's like living in a sauna.

Here in Arkansas, it's a sauna too. Saw this a couple of years ago, describes it pretty well, I think.

 

[BesideStillWaters]

I set some chicken eggs! Due Apr 9th but there're pullet and bantam eggs so probably earlier. 22 of them, just randomly picked blue eggs, some pretty brown eggs, and a bunch of little white ones from my bantam polish. I have a blue faverolle roo so hoping for blue & green-ish layers. I also have a hamburg roo so they could just be lighter whites. Who knows? But neither of my boys seem to know what they're doing and keep making love to the girls' backs instead of their bums so I'm only expecting maybe 1/2 to be fertile.

The goose eggs look like duds, though. I'll leave them in and pray for a miracle hatch, but they were shipped in pretty rough and looked scrambled before I even put them in. I guess I'll just have to buy goslings. I'm getting my geese one way or another!

Better than one of mine. He tried to make love with her head. (He jumped on backward.) That hen was NOT happy about it either. I hope he has learned from that mistake...

Hoping all your eggs are fertile.

Sorry about those goose eggs.

 

[BesideStillWaters]

Three minimum, so you’re doing fine.

Oh wow, I did twice a day on mine. Didn't realize it needed to be more often.

 

[BesideStillWaters]

It does look like a nice cross. I personally do not want to add more mixes to the flock, but my mom has to have her Butter baby. Poor thing is already named if it hatches. Pickles. Finishes out one of her themes she's used on HER chickens. She has a Bread, Butter, and all she needs to complete it is Pickles.

I love the names.

 

[BesideStillWaters]

@BesideStillWaters the eggs are blue, the chickens are lavender.

Oohhh. I didn't know purple chickens were a thing. I need to get a few of these someday. I've had Easter Eggers, but not Ameracuana. (Though the people selling them to us told us they were Ameracuana, I see now they were Easter Eggers.)

 

[LynnaePB]

Can someone help me, so am on day 5 i today i Candle 3 eggs 1 wich was perfectly stored and 2 fridge eggs , in perfectly stored egg i saw Spider web and embrio, but in 2 eggs from fridge i saw in one just one vein and no embrio and in second one i saw some little vains and circle on yolk but not perfectly and big as i saw on perfectly stored egg.. eggs from fridge look Like they develop but Like they are days behinde normaly stored egg. I put few eggs from fride just as experiment. Because last year from two hens which eggs i used last year i got all males and this year i read somewere that keeping eggs in fridge day or two kill males ( and YES am that kind of person)
There are just few eggs from fridge other 8 are normaly stored , anyone here hatched eggs from fridge?

When I was collecting to hatch last September it was over 80 degrees in the house so I decided to store my eggs in the fridge before hatching (for up to 7 days before setting). They hatched alright though I did get more quitters than I do when eggs are stored at more optimal temperatures.

The ratio of pullets to cockerels was a bit more skewed in favor of pullets (maybe 60:40). That may have just been coincidence though.

The fridge eggs that quit seemed to develop normally for awhile before falling behind. Although some quit within the first week mostly they quit right before lockdown around day 16-19. I always eggtopsy any eggs that don't hatch and found those babies all seemed to be closer in size/development to a 12-13 day old embryo. They all had the same general abnormalities too that I'd never seen before incubating these fridge eggs. The head was bigger than it should be, the beak shorter, but the strangest looking thing was the appendages. The wings were almost square looking at the end instead of tapered like they should be and the feet resembled flippers with the toes all fused together and ill-defined. Of course I couldn't tell the sex of these quitters but I will say in my silkie line I do tend to get mostly males without vaults and mostly females with vaults. Almost all the quitters did not have vaults so maybe the males were more affected?

Given the higher incidence of late quitters and a few who couldn't hatch without assistance who didn't make it past a week I personally would rather avoid refrigerated eggs if I can help it. In a pinch they definitely are viable though! It may be the problems I ran into weren't even from being refrigerated. I'm definitely interested to hear how your refrigerator eggs do!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

But I had a similar problem. Several of mine were in fact fertile, as they had big clear blastoderms, but even on day 8-9 weren't developing, at which point I cracked em open to see. I get the same problem all the time when incubating

When incubating the blastodisc will still "grow" in size even if it isn't fertilized. It isn't actually growing, it's spreading out from the warmth. This can happen when eggs have been resting on a counter as well. I've had many eggs that looked fertilized to me but I don't have a rooster.

 

[The Cave]

my dad said no more eggs this year you can take me off the list

So...the thing with dads is....they will always say no, but then when the animal is around you will secretly notice them playing with them

 

[cppeace]

Thankyou! I always thought ,heat damage when someone said scrambled eggslike breakfast.

10 degrees Fahrenheit!? Wouldn't they freeze? .

. Maybe 3 days ago, I can't remember. 15 eggs she's a game hen. Hoping we don't get any cold snapes that tends to break their sitting .

You would think so but evidently between the shell, the packaging and them moving in transport it's rare they freeze enough to effect hatchability. Single digits are usually a no go from all the reviews on shipped eggs I've read but 10+f they usually do as fine as any other shipped eggs.