Bielefelder hatch 2019

[danceswithronin]

I ordered my first incubator and after much deliberation, I decided to make my first batch of chicks a clutch of bielefelders. These chicks will be for sale locally, but I'll probably end up saving back a pullet for myself.

The incubator will arrive May 7th and the eggs should arrive May 14th or 15th. Since I've never incubated eggs before, I'll be documenting the experience here!

 

[sumi]

They are beautiful birds! Best of luck with your hatch and please do keep us posted!

 

[danceswithronin]

They are beautiful birds! Best of luck with your hatch and please do keep us posted!

Will do! I am very nervous and excited to hatch a brood myself. As soon as my Orps are old enough to go broody, I'll probably just allow them to hatch out my eggs for me instead, but it'll be nice to know how to use the incubator so I can have multiple groups going at once if I want. There is apparently a thriving market for rare breed chicks in my area so I decided to do this as a sort of hobby side hustle just to recoup some costs on feed and whatnot. Plus I just enjoy the various breeds anyway and it gives me an excuse to add to my own flock, lol.

 

[casportpony]

Wow, those are gorgeous chickens! Good luck with your hatch, I look forward to updates.

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

I ordered my first incubator and after much deliberation, I decided to make my first batch of chicks a clutch of bielefelders. These chicks will be for sale locally, but I'll probably end up saving back a pullet for myself.

View attachment 1764935

The incubator will arrive May 7th and the eggs should arrive May 14th or 15th. Since I've never incubated eggs before, I'll be documenting the experience here!

Nice! I've been looking at Bielefelders, myself...autosexing is a bonus!

Best of luck!!

 

[Trux]

I wanted Bielefelders, but am in a quarantine zone for vND so no eggs or birds can move in or out till the vND is gone.

 

[danceswithronin]

So, surprise... the incubator and hatching eggs showed up on the same day. Project Red Cuckoo Partridge is officially a go

This is gonna be a mess..

I'm gonna wait until the incubator is stabilized for several hours before setting the eggs, but sneak preview!

 

[casportpony]

 

[danceswithronin]

I didn't set the eggs last night or this morning, I wanted to give the incubator plenty of time to stabilize with water in it so the temperature and humidity are good. So far it is holding at a steady 99.5F. I still need to check the humidity. I really wasn't prepared for the eggs to show up on the same day as the incubator, I wanted a few days to read the instructions and figure out how to use the thing first. Oh well! I'm planning to mark and set the eggs tonight after I do a bit more reading about it. Hopefully waiting won't affect my hatch ratio too much.

In the meantime, here's some random bielefelders:

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

I'm fighting the urge to acquire some BF hatching eggs...will have to live vicariously through your thread for now, since I have two batches of chicken eggs in the incubator already. The problem is that I know there are spares just waiting to be filled...

Particularly interested in seeing if the auto-sexing at hatch is as easy as with Cream Legbars. And nice choice of incubator - should be a breeze to prep for your eggs.