Arkansas Blue egg layers

[1muttsfan]

Ended up with 9 chicks that I kept, and 5 for a friend of mine. I think I had humidity issues, not as good numbers as usual and several chicks were stuck after pipping and partially zipping, and were very dry when rescued. I had 3 nice blacks, hope one is a rooster (hope I did not hex myself!)

 

[ronott1]

Ended up with 9 chicks that I kept, and 5 for a friend of mine. I think I had humidity issues, not as good numbers as usual and several chicks were stuck after pipping and partially zipping, and were very dry when rescued. I had 3 nice blacks, hope one is a rooster (hope I did not hex myself!)

I incubated this hatch at 40%. They did great!

 

[1muttsfan]

I'm glad to hear that, Ron. I shipped to 2 others as well, hope they have as much success, and let us know how things go. I'm just grateful to have a broody doing all the work.

 

[ronott1]

Picture of the chicks at 3 weeks old. I will work on getting new pictures. Maybe after I get the lawn mowed I will get some grass for them outside.

 

[Metella]

Where I am this year was RAIN basically every day until August - very bad for the broodies - I got only TWO AB to hatch out (past years was up in the 80-90%) and same with all the eggs I had - even my broodies would start with 6-8 eggs and two of them ended up with single chicks !!! To cap off the bad hatch year for me - I think that one AB is a roo and the other was a single chick so I sold to someone with a batch the same age so it could grow up with friends! ha ha - Oh well - there is always next year

 

[1muttsfan]

I did not have great hatch % either, not any better than the eggs I shipped

 

[Metella]

Must just have been the barometer and weather - since my broodies almost always knock it out of the park and even they didn't do well ... on all the different breeds - which at least makes me feel better about my breeder/parent birds - it was just the environment this year. But I do want to keep expanding my flock of blues ! the blue is holding color even as the hens are getting older - and true to heritage I am getting a reliable egg a day ! So they are doing what they were bred to do !

 

[1muttsfan]

They are very efficient little birds.

 

[Metella]

I'm pretty sure now my single AB is a roo - white with black splashes - anyone here interested in him for free? I'm in Vermont and not comfortable shipping him - but maybe anyone coming close will do a car / train ?? Anyway - he is offered here to any of you guys.

 

[1muttsfan]

Thanks for the offer. So sorry you did not have better hatching luck!