6th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2015 Hatch-A-Long

[Dish chickens]

misfitmorgan -
Your eggs should be fine. Have faith!
Had a few heart palpitations here the other day when the thermostat to the guest wing went out (dead batteries needed replacing and I hadn't noticed) and the room was very visibly cooler to walk into... Like walking into a fridge. The bators, though, were still holding temps. Luckily I had been wrapping the old Miller styrofoam box with beach towels this hatch due to it being winter.

FeyRaine -
I think the deal should be pound-for-pound on the chickens and horses. Seems fair, right?


- - - - -
And now for some Christmas spirit....

Grandkids....PRICELESS




Deck the halls...or, at least, the incubators!

Ahhhhh she will love that picture when she gets older......precious

 

[Dish chickens]

Happy Dance!

Wooo! Halfway there!

You can make it, little guys!

x2

 

[Dish chickens]

I candled again tonight. I had a few questionable eggs during the 7 day candling, but I put them back in because I wasn't really sure what I was looking at. After watching youtube videos on candling (don't you just love youtube!), I had a better idea of what was what. So I pulled 2 more eggs that had bloodrings and of my original 8, I have 5 still in the 'bator. We were able to see the chick moving a lot in one of them, that was really cool to see!!

 

[LAChick]

Good luck training the horses. How old is the stallion? Too old to geld?

I think my horses have definitely helped with getting further into chickens...when I asked my husband if I could get some hatching eggs, he was surprisingly quick to say ok. I have been hinting for awhile that we need another broodmare (I have a small breeding business) and he has been less than thrilled with that idea. So I think he was thrilled that I was asking for something so much smaller and less expensive.

I may have to remember this tactic in the future!

FuzzyHens, what breed do you have?
We have 4 mules. Two we rescues and are old, the other two we ride
This is my husband & myself on Hitchcox & Ruby!

 

[FeyRaine]

Good luck training the horses. How old is the stallion? Too old to geld?

I think my horses have definitely helped with getting further into chickens...when I asked my husband if I could get some hatching eggs, he was surprisingly quick to say ok. I have been hinting for awhile that we need another broodmare (I have a small breeding business) and he has been less than thrilled with that idea. So I think he was thrilled that I was asking for something so much smaller and less expensive.

I may have to remember this tactic in the future!

Thanks. My DH broke his first horse about 40 yrs ago but has been away from them a long time now so he is **really** excited about this turn of events.

nevertheless he says " <unrepeatable> no chickens are not pound-for-pound = horses"
of course today he said I could put the blue egg from Princess Ann in the bator, understanding full well he was telling me to do another round of incubation after NYD HAL so clearly he knows in his heart of hearts that 1 chicken is also NOT = 1 Clydesdale , nor 1 Percheron for that matter, so chicken/horse math negotiations are ongoing here...;P

Come to think of it, if he won't go pound for pound, maybe 1 chicken for each shovel full required daily per horse, I do think I'd come out fairly well on that calculation.

 

[Aphrael]

I did not know this...it changes everything, EVERYTHING!!!! Harry Pottah and I share something? This can not be! Excuse me, I must now go on a rampage and smash stuff...

That is an awesome husband! I also mark the air cell with pencil.
Good Luck!

and then sometimes "permanent measures" aren't permanent! Believe me, that makes for an ...Interesting...conversation!

I know that one the hard way! Several years after having a tubal, I had to be rushed to the ER and very nearly died because I had an ectopic pregnancy (in the fallopian tubes) and it burst the tube. Almost bled to death by the time they discovered the problem and stopped the bleeding. Not fun.

Your taking your chicken to the store with you?

Why not? My dogs go in with me all the time. Why not chickens?

So I couldn't resist... set it too late for the NYD hatch, but what the heck.

One pigeon egg set 10/15, and one pigeon egg set today.

-Kathy

Thanks! Did you know that one can candle and see that a pigeon egg is viable in less than 24 hours? I was amazed! I'll try to get pictures of the one I just set.

-Kathy

That is cool! I hope they hatch. I can't wait to see pics of the babies.

I raised a nest of lark sparrows this past summer after a cat knocked them and their nest down. I watched and waited, hoping mom would come and reclaim them, but she never did. So I took them inside and raised them on fermented chick crumb. They did GREAT and got released after they learned to sing and eat on their own. They were in the "so ugly they're cute" category at the start. they looked like deranged fraggle muppets until they got more feathers than just the wild tuft on their head.

When my broody got into the last week, I hung a chick feeder and waterer within reach of her, which she really used a lot. She did get up to dust bathe during hatch though, which of course freaked me out (dot they know about temp and humidity!?).. But things went fine.

Once chicks began hatching, The ones who were ready had food right there while Mama kept sitting. It worked out great.

Good luck!!

I do the same. My broodies will not leave the nest at all once the eggs get ready for hatching, so I put food and water in easy reach. They really seem to appreciate it.

Pen one rooster

Pen two rooster









Just a few more won't hurt----

The blues above are the breeding pen the HAL eggs are all from. Blue on Blue

GORGEOUS!

So something aweful happened friday night. The breaker tripped that the incubator was on(no idea why) so the incubator was off while i was asleep, it also tripped the furnace so the house got cold on top of that, when i woke up the thermometer in the bator said 55F and the eggs were cold. I know the bator was off more then 3.5hrs cause the day counter didnt trip until some time after 2am last night when i couldnt stay up any longer. So i am waiting until tonight and hoping i see more veins growing in there then i did when i candled friday night. i so hope i didnt kill them all because they were doing so good even the shipped muscovy eggs.

I bet they'll be fine!

 

[darkbluespace]

I candled my eggs today and I'm glad I did because the air cells on a couple of my shipped eggs were getting BIG... ooops. The humidity was like 26 or so, I had put a little water in at some point. I try to aim for 35 with these seramas but these eggs are on the large side so I didn't think they'd loose so much so fast. Crossing fingers.

 

[FeyRaine]

FuzzyHens, what breed do you have?
We have 4 mules. Two we rescues and are old, the other two we ride
This is my husband & myself on Hitchcox & Ruby!

Very cool. It will be awhile until we're to that fun part here, but I do look forward to it. (& meanwhile I'm watching eggs incubate...)

 

[darkbluespace]

Pretty horses!!

I can dream...

 

[FeyRaine]

These are some taken today pics. of part of my flock, so my BYM HAL eggs can be mixes of these (plus a few that didn't pose for the photos)



These are the 3 SFH Roos, I pulled the 2 F3 EE Cockerals out today, but they might have been the chicken-daddy to some of my BYM eggs.

& Here is one last horse pic. Notice the size of my hand vs. the horse's ears or eye.