Look what I got!!!
Ha Ha! What a cheeky little face!!! 2nd chick so far - 1st was yellow and not yet made an appearance when I have my phone handy!!
Our local health food market sells fertile green and blue eggs which would be from EEsSome of my EEs lay a beautiful bright green egg. Very pretty when mixed with my dark Marans egg and blue Ameraucana eggs
ThanksThey are all pullet eggs, so the shell quality is at its best. The blue eggs are the ones I am incubating right now. They are all from the same blue wheaten Ameraucana pullet.
I love my bantam BLRWs. The blues are my favorites. I wanted to hatch some eggs from them for the NYD hatch but only this one splash pullet is laying.
Here are a couple of my bantam blue laced red Wyandotte hens~
Well I took the cleanest and best eggs that I could. I had around 60 plus in the storm cellar ready. The max they was held was 10 days. Then this time I actually washed my eggs. I read that it was actually better to wash them. My last two hatches all eggs was fertile but I lost them between 7 days and hatch time. I had always heard not to wash them and then I read that if you loose them between day 7 and hatch that a bacteria gets to them and that the dirty eggs caused this. I candled them before setting to make sure they was not porous. Before touching them in the incubator to candle I wash my hands with Dial antibacterial soap. I disinfected the incubator before setting them. I made sure that they were all uniform in size. I also floated them to make sure there was no duds before setting. Added a fan to incubator. I was so disappointed last time that I researched and researched on finding a solution. Last time my temps fluctuated and I solved that by putting them in a room with an infrared heater set to a temp of 70 degrees. I have only opened the bator three times to candle and put water in the outside tray. I could have more than filled the trays with the other eggs but many was porous and not uniform. I had planned on setting two incubators full. My husbands aunt gave me her incubator but when I got it, it was old and really dirty and I just didn't trust it. It literally looked like it was from the 80's lol. Then I had complaints in the house.... Your hatching too many eggs... We don't need that many chickens. That's a lot of feed. What if you get 80% roosters and so on. So everyone agreed to 3 dozen. Not thinking I would have success with them. Now they are still telling me what if they all hatch. I said I'll give them away to family hehe. I will just keep em though.What they don't know is that I want this to turn into a small little business. The feed is cheap here and everyone seems to want fresh farm eggs. A 50lb sack of layer feed is just $9.25. I get my grit from the river down the road. We only buy 100lbs of feed a month so $18.50 for the feed. We get 11 eggs a day so around 28 dozen eggs a month and $2.00 a dozen. So $56.00 for sold eggs minus the $18.50 for the feed. We profit around $37.00 a month from them, and I still don't have enough eggs to supply our customers. One of our customers has an at home bakery and she uses our eggs in her bakery. She prefers ours over the store bought farm eggs. Then I was thinking of selling hatching eggs on a local buy sell trade website for $6.00 a dozen. Yeah I work hard to keep the chickens up but what else am I going to do in my spare time hehe. I think of it more as a hobby.
My broody is an Australorp cross mainly black with some white bits on her chest & wing tips - the chick is an Araucana - looks to have yellow/white chest and wing tips too! Not great pics but here are 2 more!!
Well I took the cleanest and best eggs that I could. I had around 60 plus in the storm cellar ready. The max they was held was 10 days. Then this time I actually washed my eggs. I read that it was actually better to wash them. My last two hatches all eggs was fertile but I lost them between 7 days and hatch time. I had always heard not to wash them and then I read that if you loose them between day 7 and hatch that a bacteria gets to them and that the dirty eggs caused this. I candled them before setting to make sure they was not porous. Before touching them in the incubator to candle I wash my hands with Dial antibacterial soap. I disinfected the incubator before setting them. I made sure that they were all uniform in size. I also floated them to make sure there was no duds before setting. Added a fan to incubator. I was so disappointed last time that I researched and researched on finding a solution. Last time my temps fluctuated and I solved that by putting them in a room with an infrared heater set to a temp of 70 degrees. I have only opened the bator three times to candle and put water in the outside tray. I could have more than filled the trays with the other eggs but many was porous and not uniform. I had planned on setting two incubators full. My husbands aunt gave me her incubator but when I got it, it was old and really dirty and I just didn't trust it. It literally looked like it was from the 80's lol. Then I had complaints in the house.... Your hatching too many eggs... We don't need that many chickens. That's a lot of feed. What if you get 80% roosters and so on. So everyone agreed to 3 dozen. Not thinking I would have success with them. Now they are still telling me what if they all hatch. I said I'll give them away to family hehe. I will just keep em though.What they don't know is that I want this to turn into a small little business. The feed is cheap here and everyone seems to want fresh farm eggs. A 50lb sack of layer feed is just $9.25. I get my grit from the river down the road. We only buy 100lbs of feed a month so $18.50 for the feed. We get 11 eggs a day so around 28 dozen eggs a month and $2.00 a dozen. So $56.00 for sold eggs minus the $18.50 for the feed. We profit around $37.00 a month from them, and I still don't have enough eggs to supply our customers. One of our customers has an at home bakery and she uses our eggs in her bakery. She prefers ours over the store bought farm eggs. Then I was thinking of selling hatching eggs on a local buy sell trade website for $6.00 a dozen. Yeah I work hard to keep the chickens up but what else am I going to do in my spare time hehe. I think of it more as a hobby.
Chicks love it too. Works very well and does its job.
I washed them with Dial antibacterial soap. I let them soak for about 30 secs in 99-100 degree water. I washed them with my hands. Just made sure all the poo was gone. I have to keep track of the cost of food to make sure that no one is upset that I am spending money instead of making it lol. Most of my customers said they would pay double for the eggs but I'm afraid they will not buy as much.
I thought about trying to ferment my feed. I did feed fodder for a while until I just got too busy to wash and rinse everyday as I didn't have room to put in a flood a drain system in the house. This is next on my list. To build an indoor system so that I water and rinse the top fodder tray and it drains down through to the next, then the next and so on until it drains out a window. Into the yard. With a complete fodder system in would cut cost by more than half. I plan on hatching lots of chicks for Easter as TSC will only sell chickens at 6 or more per transaction. That is the only place to get chicks here and I seen many people going in and asking for just one or two chicks.
