Breeding silkied Cochin bantams to the Standard

[3KillerBs]

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.

Sorry that you lost that girl, but I know what you mean because the one I lost to a hawk wasn't one of my best blues.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Ah, so sorry to hear you've lost a bird, too. Hawks are so frustrating to deal with!

 

[3KillerBs]

Ah, so sorry to hear you've lost a bird, too. Hawks are so frustrating to deal with!

I know I lost one because I found her. I suspect I may have lost another, but since most of my blue hens look very similar I'm not certain. But there were feathers.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

It's tough to be sure, they make so many feathers that it's unbelievable. Hope you haven't had any trouble since, though!



Took a quick peek at the eggs again last night while topping off the water in there and I'm still only seeing 2 embryos out of 8 eggs in batch 2, rats! Looks like the lonely only in batch 1 may have quit, too, though that might be a little bit of a blessing considering. I'll look more closely tomorrow at their day 7 / day 14 candling. Batch 3 for the Easter hatchalong is ready to go in tomorrow as well, so here's hoping we're on the upswing for fertility.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Confirmed the one egg to develop in batch 1 has quit. The rest were clear, so I pulled them all.

Batch 2, at day 7 I have 2 developing and the remaining 6 are clear.

Batch 3 just went in. If I don't see any improvement in fertility with these by Wednesday or so, I think I'm going to try splitting my Blue girls out and putting them with one of the Blue cockerels for the remainder of the week for batch 4. Pretty sure Wyatt has won that battle. There's just something about him that I like just a tiny bit more than Zeke.


Shoot, I never took pictures of the birds this month! If the weather is favorable in the next few days, I'll have to get on that!



Edited because apparently when I want to write 'pulled' my muscle memory makes me write 'pullet' instead.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Ooooh, I really don't want to get my hopes up too high, but I peeked again last night and it sure looked like 6 out of the 8 eggs in the latest batch were doing something... Too early to be sure, but they definitely looked a little different than the other two in that batch, those two looking like clears at least as of last night...

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

4 out of 8 developing! There are still 2 questionable ones that may also be developing and just aren't as visible yet; based on batch 1, I'm definitely going to give them a couple more days to be sure! Looking at them compared to the one I know is Boba's egg, it looks like at least 3 of those 4 that are definitely developing are also Boba babies, so potential keepers!


If after a couple more days it's still just these 4 eggs going, then I'll go ahead and separate out the Blue pullets for a few hours and give Wyatt a little time with them, then start collecting eggs again. Ideally I'd like to set the next batch by Monday so that they aren't too far off of what has been my 'set day' of Saturday, but we'll see how things go with that. I'll also have to be checking the nests for eggs frequently after that as I'm not confident I can tell Zinnia's eggs from the Blue girls' like I can with Boba's, and I'll need to know which chicks come from which pairing.

I should be able to start building the separate pen for the Blue girls fairly soon, just waiting on the weather to break. We've got rain in the forecast for the next week or so, and then hopefully it'll clear off so we can get to work.


Oh, and it occurs to me I never updated on Jack after everything with his foot! After a few weeks, his foot went back to normal and you can't even tell anything was wrong with it now! I guess it didn't freeze as deeply as I had thought when I found him that morning, thank goodness!

I was really afraid he was going to lose toes from that.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

4 out of 8 developing! There are still 2 questionable ones that may also be developing and just aren't as visible yet; based on batch 1, I'm definitely going to give them a couple more days to be sure! Looking at them compared to the one I know is Boba's egg, it looks like at least 3 of those 4 that are definitely developing are also Boba babies, so potential keepers!


If after a couple more days it's still just these 4 eggs going, then I'll go ahead and separate out the Blue pullets for a few hours and give Wyatt a little time with them, then start collecting eggs again. Ideally I'd like to set the next batch by Monday so that they aren't too far off of what has been my 'set day' of Saturday, but we'll see how things go with that. I'll also have to be checking the nests for eggs frequently after that as I'm not confident I can tell Zinnia's eggs from the Blue girls' like I can with Boba's, and I'll need to know which chicks come from which pairing.

I should be able to start building the separate pen for the Blue girls fairly soon, just waiting on the weather to break. We've got rain in the forecast for the next week or so, and then hopefully it'll clear off so we can get to work.


Oh, and it occurs to me I never updated on Jack after everything with his foot! After a few weeks, his foot went back to normal and you can't even tell anything was wrong with it now! I guess it didn't freeze as deeply as I had thought when I found him that morning, thank goodness! View attachment 3440163 I was really afraid he was going to lose toes from that.

That's great to hear

 

[3KillerBs]

Oh, and it occurs to me I never updated on Jack after everything with his foot! After a few weeks, his foot went back to normal and you can't even tell anything was wrong with it now! I guess it didn't freeze as deeply as I had thought when I found him that morning, thank goodness!

I was really afraid he was going to lose toes from that.

YES!

That was a very worrying situation.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Yes, it certainly was! I apologize for leaving y'all hanging on that! When the pullets started laying and I got the incubator fired up, my brain filled with peeps and fluffy babies and it totally slipped my mind to update on him.