Colorado

[suncatcher]

14 out of the 18 have hatched so far. 1 more is zipping and 2 of the other 3 have pipps. The last one is doing quite a bit of rocking at the moment. I wouldnt be surprised if all 18 that made it to lockdown yesterday hatch out by tomorrow morning. One of these was an experiment from one of my friends down the street on the fertility of his eggs. His roo is apparently a little lazy. One out of three for him. So far I have 14 out of 18 hatched. I will let everyone know how many finally hatch. Its looking good so far.

There should be enough two week old chicks for Chickenfest.

Congrats on a perfect hatch!!!

 

[Pozees]

14 out of the 18 have hatched so far. 1 more is zipping and 2 of the other 3 have pipps. The last one is doing quite a bit of rocking at the moment. I wouldnt be surprised if all 18 that made it to lockdown yesterday hatch out by tomorrow morning. One of these was an experiment from one of my friends down the street on the fertility of his eggs. His roo is apparently a little lazy. One out of three for him. So far I have 14 out of 18 hatched. I will let everyone know how many finally hatch. Its looking good so far.

There should be enough two week old chicks for Chickenfest.

Outstanding! Congratulations!

 

[Chesterchook]

Are you, perhaps, a duck lover?        Do you have an insatiable desire for pekings outside of having them for dinner?   Perhaps with a pond for them to do their duckly things?  

I'd love to find a nice home for my two pekings.  They are a bonded pair.  I also have a little runner but she tends to fit well with the other hens. 

Nice try lol

 

[Pozees]

Nice try lol

Sooner or later someone who bakes will snap them up - duck eggs are supposed to be superior to chicken eggs for baking.

 

[Chesterchook]

I'm actually not planning to keep them, I was surprised to see them in the order, but they are quite cute.  They are with17 chicks, and that brooder had quite a bit more food consumed than the other two so I have to believe you on food consumption LOL.  I know duck eggs are supposed to be excellent for baking, I just don't think I have a good setup for them.  I guess if they aren't sold at the next swap or Chicken Fest I may have to think about adding some water somewhere here.  Maybe bury a wading pool or something.  Bob is panic stricken that there are poults and ducklings here, probably because I've told him ducklings can be messy and poults look for ways to die LOL.  So far those are holding their own, did lose two chicks today.  The rest appear to be eating well and just now on last check for the night all are settling in well and making night night noises   Best noise at night, isn't it?

We lost a poult today, apparently it followed the goslings into the little pool and drowned. So if you do set up a pool for the ducklings may want to keep the idiot poults away from it

 

[Pozees]

We lost a poult today, apparently it followed the goslings into the little pool and drowned. So if you do set up a pool for the ducklings may want to keep the idiot poults away from it

Sorry

Right now they are in separate brooders, and really hoping the ducklings and poults sell soon so I don't have to worry about that, if not I guess I will hope for a pair of the ducks and poults - Mayah was telling me yesterday how good Turkeys are at protecting a flock, so I guess if I am not able to sell them they might not be bad to add to the flock. The other chicks in the Hatchery Surprise are doing well, as are the Rainbow Layers - which just means a mix of pullets they had an overhatch on - and the broody hatched one RIR chick which she apparently thought she would overnight in the herb garden tonight, so I picked up the chick and hen and placed them back into the coop when I closed it up tonight. They seemed pretty happy to be back inside. My guess is the chick was not able to make it back up the ramp and the hen somehow thought being in the middle of the herb garden would hide them best? It is not inside the run. I don't think they would have survived the night there, and I know for SURE I would not have slept a wink knowing they were there.

 

[lovincolorado]

Our chooks got more air time on ice cold gold than I did. Lol

 

[samsr]

I actually started with 21, 3 being from the neighbors down the street. Two of his were not fertile and not pass the first candling. The third bad egg came from the second candling and was one of mine. I think it just gave up. So 18 went into lockdown and so far 17 have hatched. The last egg is one from my cochin. It has not pipped yet. I will remove the chicks tomorrow and place them in the brooder and keep the last egg in there until wednesday evening. Hatch day was supposed to be Monday and into Tuesday night. That was the plan anyway. The chicks had other plans, i guess. I even scheduled two days of vacation for the hatch days. Oh well, I will just have to do something else while on vacation. I hope that last little egg hatches. Right now i have a 88% hatch rate on my eggs. with the one more it could be 94%
Now all I have to do is keep these little ones occupied and kickin until the 18th so we can have a few more to give away as prizes at chickenfest.

 

[pichuris]

I actually started with 21, 3 being from the neighbors down the street.  Two of his were not fertile and not pass the first candling.  The third bad egg came from the second candling and was one of mine.  I think it just gave up.  So 18 went into lockdown and so far 17 have hatched.  The last egg is one from my cochin.  It has not pipped yet.  I will remove the chicks tomorrow and place them in the brooder and  keep the last egg in there until wednesday evening.  Hatch day was supposed to be Monday and into Tuesday night.  That was the plan anyway.  The chicks had other plans, i guess.  I even scheduled two days of vacation for the hatch days.  Oh well, I will just have to do something else while on vacation.  I hope that last little egg hatches.  Right now i have a 88% hatch rate on my eggs.   with the one more it could be 94% 
Now all I have to do is keep these little one occupied and kickin until the 18th.

Awesome hatch. What type of bator you using?

 

[samsr]

It is a farm inovations incubator. I borrowed it from my neighbor. It is a still air with a slight modification. I placed a computer fan right on the grate in the center of the bator. I had it blowing up, so as to circulate the air inside. A fan kit for this model would have worked nicely, but it wasnt my bator and the computer fan I had laying around in an old desktop computer. I used a 9 volt .23 amp charger from an old cordless phone to supply power to it. I didnt think it would work that well until the eggs started hatching like crazy. Pretty much it was redneck engineering. It did work out well though. The hardest part was keeping the humidity correct and the temperature stable once I pulled the fan out on day 18. With the fan in there the temps wew MUCH more stable. Saturday, after the fan removal, I had to watch the temps very carefully. The temp. dropped pretty drastically and I had to adjust it very regularly. My advice would be to have one of each. A forced air one for incubating and a still air for the hatching after day 18. If I buy a bator it will probably be the digital forced air, Hovabator model that came out this year. I may build one though.