challenging spring and summer

[tolmema]

I've had an unusually challenging spring and summer hatching chickens out.

1. My egg collectors were refrigerating the eggs in the beginning and not placing them correctly for incubation
2. We've had horrible power surges and brownouts all year, especially during critical times like lockdown and hatch days. I've gotten ONE hatchling from 2 separate impacted batches. Very very frustrating.
3. I'd been suspect of my rooster's potency as even unFUBARd eggs had a low hatch rate.
4. My incubators are so silly. I'm sure I am the problem there.
5. Half of my mature flock was taken by a fox, including my lav roo Leonard that i was using to build out my designer lines.

I'm really salty about losing my mature flock. They're at my brother's farm and generally safe, but he was out of town for a few days and his helpers are clearly not mindful of predators. I found so many feather piles yesterday. At least half of the flock there is gone.

Leonard went down protecting his flock which was his job. I'm proud that he went to the other side camp doing what he loved - fighting something. I kept him around because he was beautiful but also mean as hell and kept that whole barn safe while my brother's flock was maturing.

I'm also salty because now I have no lavender birds at all. This pushes my breeding lines out by 6-12 months.



Some good news, though:

1. Despite all of my incubation challenges, I was able to hatch out seven Leonard babies + whatever hatches from this final batch I have in the incubator right now. They'll be old enough to reproduce by Sept-Oct, so I may get a few lavender babies before winter hits.
2. That one single white chick that hatched in early June looks like it may be lav or lav patterned. The feathering is more of a pearl color than white. Roo was a full lav, Hen was an austra white with puffy cheeks. I'm assuming the puffy cheeks came from a lav bird which would have given her a lav copy to pass on.
3. The Ayam Cemanis were very fragile and weak at birth and I was not happy with them. However, at 4 weeks they are very chirpy healthy and good-sized for a small bird. I have a few giant ones that I'm assuming are roosters.
4. We're building a coop at the homestead and I have full control over how air-tight it is. I can ensure that no predators will get in.

Pics are of the Lav Roo and Austra White hen - parents to the chick that I'm not sure is white or lav yet.

 

[TwoCrows]

Nice flock! So sorry for all your trials and tribulations, bumps in the chicken road do happen. Hopefully things come together for you soon!

 

[N F C]

A challenging year so far indeed...hopefully things are better the rest of this year. You have a lovely chick, thanks for sharing pictures!