Adventures in Incubating Shipped Eggs

[Cerise1924]

Meet my two bantam Cochins who have hatched... Two out of like 12... Terrible hatch rate, but I'm happy to have the two. For shipped eggs... I'll take it. The lavender one is the one I assisted, who I have named Skittles, and the beautiful little Fleur Mille baby I have named Reece's.

They are just precious!

 

[Morrigan]

Skittles!

Sounds like some rough shipped hatching, but I'm glad you got a couple of cuties out of the lot.

 

[TotallyShellyTurtle]

I plan to order more eggs to hatch, soon. In the meantime, I went ahead and picked up four week old chicks from a local area.

Congrats to those who have had hatchers!

 

[Cerise1924]

Cute!! Is that a frizzle?

 

[Cerise1924]

The last little Svart made it! Day 24, and it is resting with a few little buddies. I moved most of the chicks to the second brooder, so this little baby wouldn’t get stampeded.

Hope she’s ok when I get home from work.

 

[TotallyShellyTurtle]

Cute!! Is that a frizzle?

Yes. More pics...

 

[Zinjifrah]

To add on to the chickspam; two weeks old now.

#1, 46g - (Crybaby)
#2, 29g - (Tiny)
#3, 49g - (Blueroo)

Final names still pending. Crybaby is the one who's constantly screaming for attention, Tiny is... well, tiny, and Blueroo briefly started crowing at six days old.

 

[Morrigan]

Love all the chick pictures!

@Cerise1924 -- So glad the svart hona made it.

@TotallyShellyTurtle -- Your new chicks are really cutie-pies.

@Zinjifrah -- Look at Tiny now! So precious.

 

[Morrigan]

Day 23 and Hatch Summary

Well, it's over. I pulled the last egg this morning, water candled, and then confirmed it was dead when I egg-topsied it. It looked like it had a leg stuck over it's head and was facing away from the large saddled air sac. With it's malposition, I don't think it had the strength to make an external pip. Always sad to see, but I don't think there was much I could have done to save it, had I known. The final totals:

12 Eggs ordered -- 8 assorted orpington; 4 lavender marans

15 eggs arrived intact-- 10 assorted orpingtons; 4 lavender maran and 1 mystery maran.

6 Eggs made it to lockdown -- 2 orpington; 3 lavender and 1 mystery.

5 Eggs Hatched -- 1 orpington, all 4 of the remaining marans.

A 33% hatch rate, which seems to be in the normal range for shipped eggs. The only thing that was disappointing was how poor the hatch rate was for the orpingtons vs. the marans. That leads me to believe that at least some of the failures may have been attributable to the quality of the orpington stock, rather than shipping or my incubation practices.

Would I do it again? Yes. It was great to be able to get varieties not available at my local feed store, or without having to order large quantities of chicks. The biggest drawback is that hatch rate can vary so much, that it is tough for planning purposes to know how many to order. It's also hard to see so many incubation failures.

Would I use Papas again? It depends. The disappointing orp. hatch rate was offset by how great the marans did and how striking all the chicks are in appearance. If the chicks grow up to be hardy and beautiful chickens, I would use him again, although I would make a point of asking about the age of the eggs.

 

[Josefina]

Integrating the 3 new chicks into the brooder was easy. Chicks are so non-judgmental. "Blondie", although the littlest one, took to the brooder like she owned it.

This is my brooder set up for their first 10 days or so. You can see them under the EcoGlow. I could not agree with @Josefina more about it. They took to it immediately, and I no longer live in fear that a hot lamp will come crashing down on them.

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Then, like little superheroes they emerge from underneath.

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Here are some close-ups of Blondie, one of the Lavender Marans and the Black Maran

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Last, but not least, here is one of the buff orpington's I brought home today. It didn't take her long to find the food dish.
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Your babies are gorgeous!! Now I want lavender Marans too. #chickenmath