Sounds like you have done your research! Hope you get a breeding pair of MW!
March would work well for me. Thanks! Local eggs do so much better than shipped; Makes we wonder if those packages are not X rayed along with every other package, even thought the PO says they don;t, I have a feeling they do. Seems no one is having very good hatchings with shipped eggs anymore, not even the pros. My best resultsI had were with very fresh eggs, foil around the egg carton, and shipped from one state over.
As to sexing Silkies, do the boys, have "streamers" coming off their heads??? Just happened on a thread here where she said this is how she sexes her silkeis.
Trst, Nice coop, funny how they hate change! As do we all!!!
Have no idea on the frostbite, what are they perched on? You may have to go with a smaller board so they rest totally over their feet when perched, and no toes are exposed. I put a strip of half inch on top of my two by four, and the other are perched on 1 x1's (I think),
I have had varying luck, mainly bad, with shipped eggs, but I've also had challenges with my own eggs due to problems correctly measuring temp in my incubators. I bought the
Brinsea Eco 40 from the scratch and dent page, the turning cradle was clicking so they sent another motor and clutch, now it's creaking and has way too much play (it gets to where it should be all the way to one side, and seems to sit in one spot for a while, then suddenly swings the rest of the way). I called
Brinsea again on Friday and they are sending me a new turning cradle (and if that doesn't do the trick, I'm thinking about just returning it). After listening to another lecture about how I should have just bought the cabinet incubator in the first place, and the money I've already spent would have bought one (true), I ordered a Sportsman 1502. It almost killed me to type my card number into that ordering page, I just don't ever spend that kind of money on anything - shoot, 2.5 years ago I bought new cookware and spent $300 on it and about keeled over LOL.
Anyway, as all this has gone on, I think I finally have the styros at the right temp, and have eggs headed to the hatcher tomorrow scheduled to hatch New Year's Day that are coming out of the
Brinsea (Mayah's and mine), so I guess I'll be finding out whether the turning cradle problems negatively affected those eggs in a few days. Thursday I have a bunch headed to the hatcher for Saturday hatch, those will be all those eggs from the local keeper plus some of my own again. Those eggs (scheduled to hatch next Saturday) are divided between the
Brinsea and one of the styros, I've been checking temps and they seem to have stayed pretty stable in the 99.5 - 100 degree range, so this should give me more information.
When the Sportsman incubator arrives I'll fire it up and check temps, and set some eggs. If it works as it has for everyone else I've touched base with that has one, I'll probably either store the styros and
Brinsea for emergencies, or sell them used to cover some of the cost of the new one. If it doesn't work as I hope, I will crawl into a hole and feel sorry for myself for a while, while Bob figures out why it doesn't work right LOL - he's the one who took apart the clutch we replaced on the
Brinsea and said, "That wasn't the problem, you still have a problem with your turner" and sure enough, he was 100% right.
I'm hoping it also gives me at least a slight improvement in hatch rate on shipped eggs - there are more and more breeds available locally, but some things we still have to ship in to get them.
Also, I know you were looking at Midget White Turkeys, have you looked into the Beltsville Turkey? Or the Jersey Buff? They are a smaller heritage turkey. Just came across them on my internet travels. Urch/Turnland has the Beltsville listed in their order form, the Buffs not so easy to find......
