Cream Legbars

[lonnyandrinda]

I heard of someone setting their box of turkey eggs up on their hot water tank as they were unexpectedly given some eggs and didn't have an incubator. They only got one egg to hatch, but I still think that's a miracle!

 

[HaplessRunner]

Well - this is the voice of frustration. I am really starting to get frustrated with trying to hatch cream legbar eggs.

I have now gone through 3 horrible hatches.

Hatch #1 - 2/8 shipped eggs hatch. Neither of these chicks survive for more than a week.
Hatch #2 - 2/20 shipped eggs hatch. These two pullets are doing fine.
Hatch #3 - 0/5 hand carried/not shipped eggs hatch. Four of these were fully developed and all failed to pip internally. The 5th was a late quitter.

I have hatched ameraucanas, Swedish flower hens, and EOs (basque hens) with reasonable success, not great, but reasonable. I try to follow the "dry hatch" protocol as referenced on BYC. I use multiple temperature and humidity monitors with local and remote read out.

I currently have two nicely crested 5 week old pullets and three 4 week old roos that I purchased. I like this breed for many reasons but I am beginning to question my commitment. Has anyone else experienced difficulties in hatching cream legbars? If you have been successful, I would be interested in understanding your incubation/hatching protocol.

Frustrated in Virgina ...

 

[pineneedlefarms]

I'm fairly successful hatching my own cream legbars, but sometimes a breed can be difficult to hatch when purchasing. I always try to buy eggs that don't have to travel from one side of the country to the other. Sometimes we end up putting more money on eggs, when it would of been better off to buy chicks, but that;s hind side 20 /20.

 

[sol2go]

Thanks! I got eggs from BYC member Chicks4MyFamily

Her earlobes are definitely lime green in person, very unusual looking!

I have also noticed some with the green shimmer, mostly on the less cream more gold feathered versions. Your pullet looks more cream too me?

 

[Bama1]

Well - this is the voice of frustration.  I am really starting to get frustrated with trying to hatch cream legbar eggs.

I have now gone through 3 horrible hatches.

Hatch #1 - 2/8 shipped eggs hatch.  Neither of these chicks survive for more than a week.
Hatch #2 - 2/20 shipped eggs hatch.  These two pullets are doing fine.
Hatch #3 - 0/5 hand carried/not shipped eggs hatch.  Four of these were fully developed and all failed to pip internally.  The 5th was a late quitter.

I have hatched ameraucanas, Swedish flower hens, and EOs (basque hens) with reasonable success, not great, but reasonable.  I try to follow the "dry hatch" protocol as referenced on BYC.  I use multiple temperature and humidity monitors with local and remote read out.

I currently have two nicely crested 5 week old pullets and three 4 week old roos that I purchased.  I like this breed for many reasons but I am beginning to question my commitment.  Has anyone else experienced difficulties in hatching cream legbars?  If you have been successful, I would be interested in understanding your incubation/hatching protocol.

Frustrated in Virgina ...

I think I could do a X2 quote on what you posted. I hatched ONE chick. So 1/36 eggs. I bought a pair of chicks over in Georgia, so I have a trio that is about a month old now. BUT I currently have 9 eggs in lockdown and I am trying something different. They are due to hatch tomorrow, but I have a pip and cherping this morning!!!!!! So maybe it will work.
Here is what I have done this hatch. I dry incubated for the first 17 days, no water no nothing. I have an automatic turner too. I have dropped my lockdown humidity to 60-63%. AND kinda blocked the fan in my hovabator from blowing directly on the eggs by laying them towards the front of the incubator, furtherst from the fan nestled behind a square plastic bowl for the water that gives me exactly 60-63% humidity. Think the bowl is 4-5" square. I usually put the water in the tray but none this time.
ETA: I too have had lots of fully developed chicks that just never pipped. I have spoken with another member who said she is having the same problem with failure to pip.

 

[KPenley]

Huge hugs HaplessRunner! I had a horrific last hatch, although I did end up with three beautiful chicks out of way more than I'd like to mention...but mine was due to humidity issues. Even though CLBs have thick shells they will not all benefit from higher humidity during LD. My house has 55-60% humidity this time of year and I literally drowned more than a dozen chicks last time

Ended up the tell tale early sign for me was that 3 chicks pipped the wrong end of the shell. In the South I've been advised to keep the humidity 30-40% even during LD, so we'll see if it works this time! Of course every incubator and location is different.

Best wishes with your little girls and any future chicks!

 

[Rancher3535]

Shipped eggs and shipping eggs is a royal pain. It is always the luck of the draw as if they are going to set well. I shipped 40 eggs to MO from ID and they had 30 eggs fertile and 25 hatch. Sent about the same to another state about the same distance and they had 10 fertile and 2 hatch. My fertility has been about 85-95 % fertile. It all comes down to how they are handled more than anything. Once they are out of our hands one never knows what they will go through in the process of delivery. If we do not take the chance on hatching eggs it is about the only way that we have of getting some of the breeds we want or new blood.

Unbeknownst to us we sometimes have a bacteria growing in the incubator or on the egg. After talking to a friend who runs a commercial hatchery he suggested using a solution of one or two teaspoons of bleach in a spray bottle of water and spray the eggs before I put them in the incubator. Also spray them when moving them to the hatcher. By doing that it has really helped in my hatches a lot. I spray down the incubator with the same solution every time I set more eggs in it. I happen to have 4 sportsmen type of incubators and a hatcher.

It can be very discouraging when you set eggs and run into problems after problems. I wish you the best of luck in your future hatches…it does get better.

Rob
In Idaho

 

[Bama1]

Huge hugs HaplessRunner! I had a horrific last hatch, although I did end up with three beautiful chicks out of way more than I'd like to mention...but mine was due to humidity issues. Even though CLBs have thick shells they will not all benefit from higher humidity during LD. My house has 55-60% humidity this time of year and I literally drowned more than a dozen chicks last time Ended up the tell tale early sign for me was that 3 chicks pipped the wrong end of the shell. In the South I've been advised to keep the humidity 30-40% even during LD, so we'll see if it works this time! Of course every incubator and location is different.

Best wishes with your little girls and any future chicks!

Next batch I am doing the dry lockdown. I have had two hatch today and they still seem way too wet at 60%.

 

[KPenley]

Next batch I am doing the dry lockdown. I have had two hatch today and they still seem way too wet at 60%.

Congratulations on your 2 new babies so far!

 

[dretd]

Quote:
When I did this last hatch, I did a modified dry incubation. I say modified because we are so dry here that it drops below 25% without additional water so I aimed for 30-40% humidity then 70% at lockdown--no plugs in a hovabator with fan with a 99.5-100.4 temp range that dropped when the humidity went up at lockdown and was readjusted to be about 99.5-100. The humidity spiked to 80% when the first chick hatched, the second came about 12 hours later very quickly with another spike--then nada.

I was aiming for a total weight loss of 13% by weight at 18 days. The eggs lost between 13.9 and 19.6%. Two out of 8 hatched and those had lost 14.8 and 17%. The othersIS, failed to pip internally, did not look overly wet in the shell at eggtopsy and late failures after day 17 maybe as late as 20. None had fully absorbed the yolk.

These two cuties are quieter than other chicks I've raised but are gaining well and are feathering out super-fast. They seem to prefer slightly cooler temps in the brooder than my previous chicks of other breeds. Typically about 5 degrees cooler than expected. I had been wondering if as eggs at hatch, I should have left the temp at 98 and seen what happened, or if these two liked the lower temp and thus hatched where the DIS chicks got stressed by the temp drop. I am really not sure what to think.

I have another set of eggs due sometime this week or next depending on the seller's broody cooperation so it will be helpful to see if any tweaking results in a higher yield. It would also be nice to get input from anyone with stellar hatches on their eggs on any tips they have discovered that might be unique to the breed.