Breeding silkied Cochin bantams to the Standard

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

First batch of the year is set! 14 eggs from the corner coop (Gus III over Duckling and Priscilla). 21 days until our first babies of the year!!

(EDIT: Make that 15 eggs! I got just one more from the corner coop tonight and went ahead and set it, too. Any further collected from them will be set aside for a batch next weekend pending how fertility looks with these. )



Other notes to add real quick.

Bucky has been removed from the green pen as of a little over a week ago. The Splash fella I keep mentioning above is now named Sterling and he is in the green pen in Bucky's place as of this past weekend. The girls seem smitten and are already squatting for him, and he's been very polite with them, so things are working out great with that! I still need to pull the pullet from last year's hatch and a couple of the hens to narrow it down to just the very best for hatching, but I figure I can do that at any point before collecting eggs now, so I'm in no rush until my semester ends.

Also, we did end up losing both Morena and Delphine to their injuries from the mink attack. A real shame, as Morena especially had such nice type and would have certainly made the cut to stay in my blue pen breeding group this year. But, I still have some fairly nice birds to work from in there, including Morena's mother, Inara. Hopefully those losses won't be too much of a setback.

I still need to update the page that has my breeding groups on it to reflect who is actually going to be breeding this year, but that's something else that can wait the short 2-and-a-half or so weeks until my semester ends. We're getting close, y'all!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I realized I ought to be posting this here as well, not just in my general flock thread.

That batch I mentioned in my above post is now hatching! First, I should mention that there were 6 clears and 1 early quitter, leaving 8 eggs that made it to lock down. I realized midway through collecting these eggs that Gus III had a big clump of poo in his vent feathers that I trimmed out. All of the eggs before the day I trimmed him were clears and only one afterward was a clear, so I suspect it was impeding his ability to breed his hens. That means if you count only the eggs post-butt-trimming, fertility in that coop is at 90%!

I did not end up setting another batch from the red band coop because things got busy with finals, but I did set a batch from the blue band coop under a broody 3 days ago and I saw some development in one egg already. I have another broody that I plan to set a few more blue bander eggs under today once she's settled into the nest I moved her to.


Anyway, here are the newbies so far!

And just for fun (and especially since I haven't just posted any pictures here in a while!), here are a few pictures of the adults from over the past several weeks.

Current green band pen group. I still need to pull several of these girls out before I start collecting eggs to hatch from them.

The red band birds, parents of the chicks hatching right now:

And just a few other random shots of silkied Cochins:

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

The hatch is done! All 8 that made it to lock down hatched!

The oldest two are both Blues:

Next three are 2 Blues and a Black:

The youngest three are still fluffing so I haven't decided how many are Black, but the one in the middle is for sure a Blue. Unfortunately, this was the best shot I got of them after leg banding them because my cat decided he wanted to investigate the peeping, so I had to sweep them up and get them to the brooder real quick

They're still in that squishy, sleepy stage after hatch, so I'll get better pictures of them in a bit after they've fluffed more and found their land legs.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I think I'm officially calling it an even split of Blues and Blacks in this batch.

Here are the Blues:

And the Blacks:

I have another batch in the incubator that was under a broody hen, but she began to have a bloated crop and I decided to bust her in the interest of her health versus letting her finish that brood. These are from the blue band coop and 5 of 7 are developing strong, due around the 29th.

I also set another blue band coop batch under Opal, the Splash hen I let rear a brood last year, and 6 of her 6 are developing, due around the 1st. So fertility looks much better in that pen than last year now that Wyatt is down to 4 hens to focus on!

I still haven't moved the extra hens from the green band coop because the pen I would move them to is currently occupied by broodies that are serving their broody-jail sentence But, hopefully soon I can get the first batch set from them for the year, too.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Just a quick one-week-old check-in with the peeps! Here are the Blues:

And the Blacks:

We are not fans of leaving the brooder for pictures, if it wasn't clear

 

[NanaK]

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Two-week check in! Not the greatest picture because we are officially no longer cooperative with the idea of pictures outside of the brooder, so I had to try and get their attention within the brooder for this

I have another brood due in the next few days underneath Opal, and a brood due next weekend under Kya, both out of the blue band coop. I'm going to set one more batch from the red banders probably next weekend and stagger it with a green band hatch or two since I haven't gotten any of them set yet. I... still need to move hens out of that group before collecting eggs.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Opal's eggs are starting to draw down More peeps are on the way!



And since that would be an awfully short / empty post on its own, here's a close-up of one of the two-week-olds to go along with it

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Opal hatched all 5 of her eggs! It looks like 4 Blues and 1 Black, but I'm not sure as of yet because I'm only getting glimpses of them under her. They're still finding their land legs, so I suspect it'll be late today or early tomorrow before she takes them off the nest.

Here's a glimpse of some cute baby booties for the time being These are blue band babies from Wyatt's group.

 

[NanaK]

Opal is a very pretty mama!