August Hatch-A-Long

[CluckNDoodle]

Dark eggs are over rated in my opinion. Although I do have welsumers because I love the breed regardless of egg color and I have 3 Penedesencas That I just selected to fill an order out to 25 from Welp. It seems the darker the egg the longer it takes for a chicken to mature to POL. When I was breeding for darker eggs the eggs became progressively smaller down the line. Not saying that will always happen to everyone but it lead me to breeding for qualities that are so much more important.

I just like a colorful egg basket and those nice dark eggs really make it pop! Lol, As far as production I already have more chickens than I need. It's really just a hobby on my part.

 

[Compost King]

I just like a colorful egg basket and those nice dark eggs really make it pop! Lol, As far as production I already have more chickens than I need. It's really just a hobby on my part.

I like the variety in color too, I kept one Maran in my laying flock just for that. I also like to make Olive Eggers which requires a dark egger. I just do not want to breed for dark eggs anymore.

 

[ScottyGill]

I was candling twice a day to get a feel for it, see if I can pick up an eye for seeing as much details as I can. Then one slipped out of my hands and not only cracked but cracked 2 eggs below it. I felt like a Chicken murderer and now I limit to my candling to specific days marked on my calendar. However if I ever run into a situation where hatching success is important to my goals I will go back to candling every egg twice a day and seeing every detail possible.

I cracked two eggs with candling mistakes and yes I felt like a chicken murderer too!!!

 

[ScottyGill]

and we’re off again! I have weighed up pros and cons and decided to incubate another batch and integrate 6 and 10 week chicks, mainly because I feel my coop is so big, also had hoped for more than 3 out of 12, I want to have a more relaxed enjoyable experience now I have gained some actual knowledge about what I’m doing and man this is addictive. I might just offer to make babies for everyone that wants them
I have set 6 cream legbars and 6 blue/black maran eggs. Natural humidity is sitting about 45% today in incubator so will just leave that doing it’s thing till lockdown as we are high humidity naturally and interfere as little as possible. Due to murderous egg dropping tendencies I will candle at 10 days and 18 with strict supervision. No secret candling this time!! The boring first 10 days is made less boring bonding with my 3 little bundles of joy and learning how to train cockerels! Am delighted to find there are no cockerel laws in my town, just find ways to stop them crowing too early in summer. I know older hens can teach younger ones manners but last time I got 4 point of lay and they all worked it out themselves. I might be as naive about this as I was about having children

 

[Mvan42]

Waiting for my eggs to be shipped and get here is torcher, They said they couldn’t ship until today do to other orders, so I asked them to wait until Monday because I didn’t want them to sit anywhere over the weekend. And so I am waiting until next Saturday to set them because I cant to be home on a weekday hatch day, because I go back to work(Assistant in a middle school). On August 20th.

 

[ScottyGill]

Waiting for my eggs to be shipped and get here is torcher, They said they couldn’t ship until today do to other orders, so I asked them to wait until Monday because I didn’t want them to sit anywhere over the weekend. And so I am waiting until next Saturday to set them because I cant to be home on a weekday hatch day, because I go back to work(Assistant in a middle school). On August 20th.

Frustrating!!!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I might just offer to make babies for everyone that wants them

Lol! That's where my addiction led me! I have hatched an abundance of chicks for friends this year. Pretty much anything they ask if I can hatch for them I say yes.

 

[jolenesdad]

I went ahead and put my eggs in lockdown a day early. Two quitters in the last week, so my final lockdown total is 23 eggs out of 61 set.

Two really awful saddle eggs, but 21 GREAT looking eggs, including my Wheaten Marans pullet. She is joined by a Silverudd's Blue pullet, too. Only ONE of each of those breed eggs made it to lockdown.

Lots of eggs bouncing away, can't wait!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I went ahead and put my eggs in lockdown a day early. Two quitters in the last week, so my final lockdown total is 23 eggs out of 61 set.

Two really awful saddle eggs, but 21 GREAT looking eggs, including my Wheaten Marans pullet. She is joined by a Silverudd's Blue pullet, too. Only ONE of each of those breed eggs made it to lockdown.

Lots of eggs bouncing away, can't wait!

I'm sorry you had so many quitters! I hope your hatch goes smoothly!!

 

[Compost King]

I was bored and did a pre-candling on day 5 or 6. I had a suspicion that my Ayam Cemani would all be infertile, while its too easy to confirm all of them showed no signs of life. I used my 2nd rooster and found problems with him recently. He will likely have to be euthanized. I had one dead bloodline Serama, and 1 detached Air cell on my naked necks. Half my hatch is likely infertile which is fine because I need a smaller hatch anyways.
On Day 10 I will be removing all infertile ones and will have a count of how many are left and what breeds/crosses I have left.