5th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2014 Hatch-A-Long

[SilkieSensation]

Usually leg horns lay a lg white eggs. Occasionally lay random small. Mine r the biggest out of my production hens. Are they all small? Also if the hens just started laying they are small for a few.

That looks like a fart egg. Do you have a pic of your hens next to another that you know the breed of?

 

[AK FLOCK SWAP]

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Its for the Yellow Pages,, Some way to disable them?

 

[ronott1]

Very nice! You have 58 eggs set.

 

[ronott1]

Joining in the hatch along!! Seramas do Christmas! ! Should get so e frizzles
I also have a second set of seramas due new years day. Everyone been goin broody! Poor roos lol

I guess I have 3 leghorns and didnt know it, I just thought they were little white mutts... lol ( nothing wrong with mutts) but the eggs are tiny, I want to add white eggs to my basket but I want lg. ??? will look and try to find them in the breeds section. Thanks for all the info. Was looking at the white jersey giants and they lay awesome brn eggs, just afraid they would squish my other hens..lol

they are always that sm.

They are probably not leghorns. Can you post a picture?

cornish come in white so you may have a white one of those. They lay a whitish small egg and not too many of them a year.

 

[ronott1]

I don't want to put any more work on you Ron, but I was thinking we could do a contest to guess the number of chicks that actually hatch. If someone would like to donate some eggs or something else, this would be neat to do.

That is not a bad idea. Oddly, we could have more hatch because the final hatch will include Quail. Also, a lot of folks did not post what they set for the Hatch a long.

I do have one more egg donation....I might set up a survey to figure out what the last contest will be?

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Thee is a setting under your profile to turn off ads. It will make BYC work faster if you have slow internet too.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I have my bator running steady now. It spiked briefly but settled down to fluctuating between 97˚ and 101˚. I only have 10% humidity so I am adding water to the tray and jars of water one by one to get the humidity to come up at least 15% percent more.

This is the first time I have done quail eggs and only the second time I have done chickens. My first attempt last spring ended in disaster. Zero hatched. Too many temp spikes, etc.

This time I fixed a lot of the problems. I think after this hatch I am going to get a better thermostat.

I can't wait to hatch quail in the spring.
I fix some things each time there are no eggs in there. This time I had it apart, I replaced the incandescent lamps with metallic heat elements for more reliability. I left the sockets and wired them to switches if I want more light. I was worried with the constant cycling the incandescent wouldn't hold up.
I still have several more things to do but I moved the eggs from the LG during the night into the cabinet.

I have two questions:
I still haven't added any water for humidity, I set on the 11th and humidity is between 25% and 33%. Is that okay? The kettle is close the the incubator, when we boil it the humidity climbs just a tad. I'm attempting dry incubation since my previous hatch was a disaster, all embryos developed but only 1 hatched, the rest died between day 10 and hatch time

I turn manually 3 times a day: 07:00, 15:00 and 23:00 - That's exactly 8 hours apart each time. Will that work?

That humidity should be ok. Except for when the chicks are about to pip, precise humidity throughout isn't a big deal IMO. It is the average humidity and how much weight is lost. During incubation, mine will range be between 20 and 45. I can get the hatcher much higher. That's why I weigh the eggs rather than stress about it.
I can see how a hen may be able to keep humidity up but she can't lower the humidity when ambient is 90% like it is here frequently. She still does better than an incubator.

Manually 3 times a day at exact intervals will work perfectly. A hen isn't that precise. She'll turn more often but won't know how far each turned.

ok call me stupid but I always thought leghorns were huge??? If this is a leghorn what are the huge whit chickens? I've always stayed away cause they were too big, afraid they would hurt my smaller hen. I'm so confused...

Leghorns are among the smaller LF. That's one reason why they and the hybrids based on them are the bird of choice for commercial egg farms. Champion layers with the best feed:egg production conversion rate.
There are dozens of white varieties of chickens. If they're huge in comparison, perhaps a white rock. It depends on body type. A huge white bird with a similar body style as the leghorn and also lays a white egg is the White Minorca. They're quite rare though so probably not what you're thinking of.
Breed is the shape(among other things), color is the variety. Perhaps as many as 1/3 or 1/2 of all breeds have a white variety.
Leghorns come in something like 9 colors. When you count comb types, there are 13 varieties. White are by far the most common but I've also had black.
http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/poultry/chickens/leghorn/

going to look them up, but maybe the giants are what I'm thinking about, cause they are huge.. thanks, now maybe I will get me some leghorns. thank you

~~White Jersey Giants are pretty uncommon too so that's probably not it. Black JGs are much more common. They also come in blue. I've had all 3 and love them.
Leghorn hens run around 4 pounds, JGs should be about 10 though mine probably didn't get quite that big.
Here's a couple good breed comparison charts.
http://www.albc-usa.org/documents/chickenbreedcomparison.pdf
http://www.ithaca.edu/staff/jhenderson/chooks/chooks.html

The rule I go by: if it doesn't stink, it stays.

Mine too. Especially with dark eggs. I was staggering hatches last year and had all the eggs dated. There was one that was over a week overdue. I took it out and cracked it open in an attempt to determine when it failed. There was a live chick about to hatch in it. I have no idea how it happened but it was one of the worst feelings I've had.

I guess I have 3 leghorns and didnt know it, I just thought they were little white mutts... lol ( nothing wrong with mutts) but the eggs are tiny, I want to add white eggs to my basket but I want lg. ??? will look and try to find them in the breeds section. Thanks for all the info. Was looking at the white jersey giants and they lay awesome brn eggs, just afraid they would squish my other hens..lol

If you want a huge white egg go with Minorcas. I had White Minorcas but they come in Black and Buff. Blacks are a little bigger and much more common.
I hatched a White Minorca/Black Penedesenca cross pullet. She consistently laid the biggest eggs I've ever had. A jumbo egg is 71 grams. Once she was beyond pullet egg stage, almost all were jumbos. The last 2 eggs I got from her before I sold her were 82 and 94 grams.

For smaller birds that lay decent white eggs, I like Anconas and Jaerhons. Both are very hardy. Jaers are barely larger than a bantam and extremely cold and heat hardy.

U can buy nesting box pads on Amazon

I like the excelsior mats.
http://www.eggcartons.com/Excelsior-Nesting-Pads-p/ep1313.htm
a lot of places sell them

Usually leg horns lay a lg white eggs. Occasionally lay random small. Mine r the biggest out of my production hens. Are they all small?
Also if the hens just started laying they are small for a few.

Commercial leghorn based hybrids lay much bigger eggs. Egg farms also sometimes use ahemeral lighting to produce larger eggs.

today is candle day guys!!!!!!

im so excited!

my barometer is a nice temp, a 55%, but the one from home depot still says 45%.......
if my home depot one is right, will 5% humidity make a difference in the hatching?

my incubator instructions say 50-60% is the IDEAL humidity for incubation......if my home depot hydrometer is correct, will 5% be a difference if the instructions say IDEAL?



~Bantambury

One or both could be off. I wouldn't stress over 5%. I wish I could get that close to ideal.

they are always that sm.

That's a peewee egg.

 

[bantambury]

today is candle day guys!!!!!!

im so excited!

my barometer is a nice temp, a 55%, but the one from home depot still says 45%.......
if my home depot one is right, will 5% humidity make a difference in the hatching?

my incubator instructions say 50-60% is the IDEAL humidity for incubation......if my home depot hydrometer is correct, will 5% be a difference if the instructions say IDEAL?



~Bantambury

can anyone help?

also, just candled my eggs......some don't look to be growing at all, but ill just wait....only looked at about 8 of the 24 anyways.....but out of the 8, I saw 2 have veins! and one of the two is my silkie's first egg!!!!!!!!!!! SOOOO EXCITEDD!

 

[chick rookie]

That looks like a fart egg. Do you have a pic of your hens next to another that you know the breed of?

the white hen on the right next to my Australop is the one that lays the sm egg.

 

[AK FLOCK SWAP]

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I can not seem to find it,,is it under edit profile?

 

[Myfourladies]

can anyone help?

also, just candled my eggs......some don't look to be growing at all, but ill just wait....only looked at about 8 of the 24 anyways.....but out of the 8, I saw 2 have veins! and one of the two is my silkie's first egg!!!!!!!!!!! SOOOO EXCITEDD!

5% shouldn't make that big pf a difference in hatch rate.