Breeding silkied Cochin bantams to the Standard

[fluffycrow]

I took a peek in the incubator again and, well, fertility isn't at 0% as I had thought! There's one very clear embryo in one of the eggs! Unfortunately, I saw nothing in any of the others... Tomorrow is day 7 so I'll do a more thorough check than what I have been doing. Hopefully there's at least one more--lone chicks are not fun!!

Yesterday, the group laid a whopping 4 eggs out of the 5 currently laying females. In theory that should have been plenty of time for their butt trimmings to help with fertility, too, so here's hoping! I'll either set those tonight or tomorrow, depending on how many eggs they lay today. Those turner rails do best when totally filled rather than partially so that the eggs don't shift side to side, so worst case scenario I'll just throw one or two of the eggs pre-butt-trimming in as well just to fill it out.

Yay so exciting! I definitely don't blame you for takinga peep at the eggs every five seconds, I'd be much worse!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Haha, yeah, after many hatches over the years I've learned that it's not gonna hurt them to have the incubator open for a few minutes to peek, so I don't hold back. Especially in cases like this, where, as that proved, a day or two can make a huge difference in whether an egg looks like a dud or not. Good thing I never remove eggs that early on!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Well, no big surprise, they didn't lay nearly as much yesterday as the day before, just 2 eggs. I'm going to check around midday for eggs and hope they've laid 2 more at least, and if not just put what I have in with a pre-butt-trimming egg or two to fill out the turner.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

I lost track of time a bit, so I only just went out to check for eggs about 45 minutes ago, whoops. And there was just one, of course! But Boba was eyeing the nests when I checked, so hopefully she'll lay soon, too. I'm going to set the next batch within the next hour or two, just want to give Boba a bit more time to lay and let the other egg I collected warm up to room temp since it's a bit cool out and it feels cool to the touch.


Oh, I also candled and confirmed that just one of the 8 eggs in the original batch is developing. Darn. Pretty sure that's an egg from one of the Blue girls and not from one of Gus's girls, too, so even if it does make it to hatch, it's not a keeper. Hopefully we see more development in this next batch.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Batch number 2 is in! Here's hoping fertility improves with this batch!

 

[fluffycrow]

Batch number 2 is in! Here's hoping fertility improves with this batch!

I'm here hoping with ya!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Tough couple days here. My beautiful, wicked Myrtle has passed away. I don't at the moment have the cash to spare for a necropsy, but she didn't have any alarming symptoms or anything so I'm not overly concerned with finding out the exact cause. Nothing respiratory at all. She'd gone into a second molt, a very rough molt, and just stopped eating. I tube fed her for a couple weeks, but it just wasn't enough, I guess. From my experience in the past with other birds, there must be some sort of connection between molting and metabolism that some birds just don't handle well. I was already pretty sure if she'd pulled through that I wasn't going to breed her this year anyway as a result of this, but still, she was such a gorgeous lady as Cochins go so I looked forward to what her genetics would bring to the project, and of course I hurt at the loss of one of my beloved birds regardless.

In lighter news, of course I've taken a peek at batch 2 in the incubator already, and I saw embryoS! Plural!! And the one egg I know for a fact came from Boba has one of those embryos, so that's one potential keeper! I also witnessed Gus breeding one of the pullets successfully, so hopefully that means he's starting to get some spring fever and I'll see more fertility from here on out.

Slight edit for clarity​

 

[fluffycrow]

Tough couple days here. My beautiful, wicked Myrtle has passed away. I don't at the moment have the cash to spare for a necropsy, but she didn't have any alarming symptoms or anything so I'm not overly concerned with finding out the exact cause. Nothing respiratory at all. She'd gone into a second molt, a very rough molt, and just stopped eating. I tube fed her for a couple weeks, but it just wasn't enough, I guess. From my experience in the past with other birds, there must be some sort of connection between molting and metabolism that some birds just don't handle well. I was already pretty sure if she'd pulled through that I wasn't going to breed her this year anyway as a result of this, but still, she was such a gorgeous lady as Cochins go so I looked forward to what her genetics would bring to the project, and of course I hurt at the loss of one of my beloved birds regardless.

View attachment 3432304


In lighter news, of course I've taken a peek at batch 2 in the incubator already, and I saw embryoS! Plural!! And the one egg I know for a fact came from Boba has one of those embryos, so that's one potential keeper! I also witnessed Gus breeding one of the pullets successfully, so hopefully that means he's starting to get some spring fever and I'll see more fertility from here on out.

Slight edit for clarity​

So sorry for your loss

 

[NanaK]

So sorry for your loss. Always a bit of heart break in keeping any animals it seems.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Indeed. It shouldn't be too much of a setback for my breeding program to have lost her, thankfully, but of course I hate to lose any of my birds, especially those that stand out for one reason or another.