Broody Blue Orpington..Gave Her Day 16 Bator Eggs HATCHED/ PICs

[speckledhen]

Nora's egg hatched (Blue Ameraucana) and Meg's baby is starting to zip--another mistake, collecting Meg's egg rather than Skye's, LOL. That's happened twice here.

At least now she is out of the Blue Orp pen.

 

[walkswithdog]

Right now all mine are in the same coop, until I pen them up I'm so not sure whose pullet egg is which! Go Meg another pirate chicken hatch! Sorry about the orp baby though. New mom's just have trouble at times.

I can tell the BA eggs right now because they're somewhat larger, they've been laying four or five more weeks. I hope the rest of yours goes well.

I just checked my turkey eggs that were in there during the hatch and all weathered it well and are moving about happily so dry hatching appears to make staggered hatches possible in small bators. LOL never mind what I tried to keep them dry andsafe ... seems to have worked well enough.

Kiss their little heads for me.

 

[dancingbear]

Good luck with your hatch, it sounds like it's going well. It can be tricky sometimes, with these hens. I've had high hatch rates under broodies, only to have some of them get squashed.

And, I've had a lot of eggs get broken in the nest. I've started candling eggs before letting a hen have them, and making sure I only give them the ones with the best shells. It's amazing what shell defects you can see when you candle, that you wouldn't notice under normal light. I'm not quite as picky for 'bator eggs, since they won't have a chicken on them, less likely to break.

Somebody was asking if hens know when an egg is bad. They usually do, and yes, they will kick it out of the nest. My theory is that once the embryos have developed to a certain point, they produce heat themselves. A dead egg will stop producing heat. If you have any eggs that fail to hatch in a 'bator, or some that die at the late stages, you can feel the difference in the temp yourself. The dead ones feel much cooler, even straight out of the bator, and lose heat very quickly. They probably get stone cold in just a few minutes, when the hen gets up for her daily break. When she gets back to the nest, the live ones will still be fairly warm, dead ones would be completely cold. The hen will feel the temp difference, and push that cold, uncomfortable thing out of her nest.

Prior to that, like when you first put the eggs under her, fertile and infertile feel the same. It's not until later there will be a temp differential.

 

[speckledhen]

Sounds like a valid theory to me. I have two zipping. DH took the first baby to Dusty and put it under her wing. He'll go back and check it in a bit.

 

[speckledhen]

First pure Orp hatched, a splash. Meg's is still zipping. Anyone interested in some Orpington and Barred EE chicks?

All the chicks except maybe one left with each mama will be for sale in a few days.

 

[gumpsgirl]

Congrats on your chicks hatching Cyn!!!

 

[speckledhen]

 

[walkswithdog]

How broody do your EEs tend to be??? Incubator wrestling is a job I want to cut in half next year. Bad Cher bad bad, oh what the h e double toothpicks.

 

[speckledhen]

Well, I have never had a broody Ameraucana or EE, so far. Charlotte or her sister Silver once did sit in a nest all night and growled, but taking her off of it just once broke the spell. Charlotte is over two years old. Her daughter Gypsy is almost two yrs old and has never been broody, either. Since Snow and Nora and June are all just over a year old, I guess they could go broody, especially Nora, who is an absolute pitbull on the nest anyway. I understand that the lines of Delawares I have are extremely broody, though. I fully expect Kira to go broody soon.

 

[speckledhen]

Good morning, all! A dark blue or black Orpington hatched last night and is now with Dusty. One Orpington egg is left and it's pipped well with a chirping chick in there, so when that one hatches and dries a bit, Dusty will get chick #5. I'm happy to see Meg's red-blonde baby hatch out that color. Looks very different than it's sibling that is with my other broody.


EDITED: Last BBS Orp baby is out now. Another dark blue or black. We are having very bad weather and I'd like to get this baby under mama so we don't have to worry about power outages. The Dels in the grow-out coop are over 4 weeks old, so they'll be fine, since it isnt cold out.