April 2020 Hatch-A-Long! All are welcome!

[gmjarvi]

@2102Simm
(Whoa, quote went funky, so I deleted it.)

I tell my husband it's coyote insurance and that he can put most of the roos in the freezer lol

 

[elizabethu42]

Hey everyone!! I will be joining this hatch-a-long with some Muscovy eggs that are being put in the bator tonight! I will be putting chicken eggs in the same bator when the Muscovy have 21 days left as a little experiment! Good luck to everyone with their hatches!

 

[Jules929]

I'll jump in! I have 35 eggs from a pot luck auction (1 egg was cracked) and 15 Cream Legbars.

The pot luck breakdown:
1 Basque hens
4 Barbezieux
2 Blue Marans
1 Mixed Marans
2 Cream Legbars
3 Gold laced Orpington s
2 Golden Spitzhauben
5 Isbars
2 Liege Fighters
3 Pavlovskaya
3 Silver double laced Barnevelder
4 Blue laced red Wyandotte

 

[gmjarvi]

D8 for my duck eggs! I will start cooling them for 10 minutes a day and then misting with warm water before returning them to the bator.

 

[elizabethu42]

should i be leaving poop on the eggs or is it a better idea to wash them before putting them in the bator?

 

[Trisseh]

Going to pick up my runner eggs tomorrow! Currently the breeder has 10, hoping the 2 girls lay a couple more between now and then for an even dozen. xD haha! I was only going to get 1/2 dozen but in for a penny, in for a pound. I don’t have tons of room for eggs, but plenty of space for brooding them when they hatch, so I can get creative I think... lol.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

should i be leaving poop on the eggs or is it a better idea to wash them before putting them in the bator?

If I have a choice to leave out poopy eggs I just don't use them.

 

[gmjarvi]

If I have a choice to leave out poopy eggs I just don't use them.

(And @elizabethu42) I have heard of people gently rubbing poo off, but whenever you start messing with the eggs like that you're going to remove bloom and up the chances for bacteria to get in. Setting eggs that are already clean is definitely ideal!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Yes, if you purchased eggs or all the eggs you have to choose from are messy, you can gently brush big bits off with a dry cloth. Some people wash their eggs prior to setting them and still have good hatches. I've never done that myself, but I know it's possible. If you decide to wash the eggs just run them under water that is a warmer temperature than the egg and don't rub the egg just allow the water to do the rinsing. Warm water causes the contents of the egg to expand against the shell, helping to prevent bacteria entering the shell.

 

[legojenn]

I'm reluctantly on this ride. I love chicks, and I Iove watching a broody become a mother, then be a mother. When mothers teach foraging, I grin from ear to ear. I'm just not best prepared to deal with the consequences of going over my municipal limit and risking having a cockerel.

Last fall, a friend gave me her three favourite hens. Two were barnyard mixes that she hatched and one was bought locally RTL. She was told that the bought one was an Ameraucana. She was naive and the bird was not an Ameraucana. I'll add a photo later. She's on the small side, like a leghorn, but with greyish white feathers with grey splotches and she has a rose comb and tiny wattles. If she were human, she'd look like a tough old lady with a man's hair cut that you don't mess with. She is holed up in my birds favourite laying box. She definitely has character.

Earlier this week, she was not out like my other birds. Thursday, she was on the eggs and retrieved eggs after a couple of visits. Yesterday, she was on the eggs again. The others are going into the box with her and laying and she is bogarting the eggs. I bought four lavender Orpington eggs this morning from a hobby breeder in Ontario. I came home, Esther was still on the eggs. I took today's eggs out. She was not happy and pecked me a couple of times. She didn't growl or come close to hurt me, but I remain convinced that she's broody.

I put the marked Orpington eggs beside her and was getting ready to manipulate her to thinking I put the originals back, she was rolling the new eggs underneath her.

The most responsible thing for me to do is break her, but we are still getting temperatures below zero at night. I don't want to soak her and not give her a chance to dry off and warm up. I see two worst case scenarios. No viable eggs and I have to break her anyhow, or four cockerels and I risk losing my poultry licence. I went with basically battery-type hybrid hens because I didn't want to have to deal with this. That worked out okay.

I am at my municipal limit for hens. In fact, I'm over by two. I thought that I would have losses due to winter and predators. Even though we are fairly suburban, other chicken owners in my suburb have had losses. I haven't had that heartbreak yet.

I went with lavender Orpingtons because they are attractive and I should have no problem selling or giving away a pullet, and I might have a better chance moving a cockerel of that breed/colour. Being dual-purpose, an Orpington could also be eaten if I could find an abattoir that will process small numbers of birds.

Fingers crossed for one or two pullets.