Hi Shaun - welcome to BYC. It was good meeting you the other day and I'm sure you'll get lots of helpfull info here
Mahonri - I posted my w/bw chicks again - 1 month old now (hatched Feb. 26th). Can you take another peek at them for me - I'm dying to know:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=3899707#p3899707
Vanessa- So some mysterious benefactor gifted several of you GFMs? Very cool! I was wondering how that could have happened accidently.
Regarding the chicks staying outside at 6 weeks - I can't wait till mine are old enough. They're all about 1 month and I'm getting tired of bringing them inside the shed at night and then back out again in the morning (they're still under the heat lamp, but at least not indoors anymore) . About 1/3 of the chicks very are easy to pick up - another 1/3 play hard to get, and that last bunch (alwasy the same chicks) seem to think I'm going to eat them. You'd think they'd be used to the routine by now. They aren't afraid of me when I'm inside their outdoor pen with them, but when it comes to reaching way back into their brooder --- argh!
Edited to add: We're on day 15 and I have 3 definite living embryos and 1 probable embryo from my carton of 12 Trader Joe's eggs. They're in my homemade incubator and after they hatch (if they hatch
), I'll give them to broody #2.
3 eggs were broken (2 by broody - 1 ?? - Shells are pretty thin
1 bloodring
1 rotten egg - it had been covered by all the egg goo from one of the broken eggs while under the broody
3 clears (never started developing)
4 good eggs? They were 11 days old when taken out of the carton, so we'll see......