Good news , bad news! I have 3 hens sitting on my project eggs, I have an inci with 20 due in one week and developing nicely....bad news, not one of Dick H. eggs made it. They died between day 7 and 12. I am not sure why, the air cells were large and irregular, maybe just too much rough handling with the post office. So that leaves me with no fresh reds to breed my projects to. I need expert advise here. What to you guys think about breeding cousins, brothers and sisters? My original cross of Cuckoo to reds are totally unrelated. The first cross hens I bred to new reds roosters who may be distantly related to the hens of the first cross....any thoughts?
sounds like the eggs had a little too much damage
with shipped eggs you will sometimes see where the egg starts to develop.. then the growing tissue hits a damaged area.. since it can't develop beyond that point the embryo dies.
this year I have seen a lot of "infertile" or "scrambled" eggs that don't develop at all that are being shipped to me.. I haven't had the issue of chicks starting to form and then die (though I did have a few of those last year)
as to the people I have had to deal with this year:
I had one woman assure me that her eggs were fertile and that, no she didn't have a rooster.. Her argument was that when she gets shipped eggs in they hatch.. and she doesn't have a rooster.. so there is no need to have one in the flock ...
So she was selling her eggs as "fertile" because in her mind a rooster isn't needed to (as she put it) "run over and fertilize the eggs once they are laid"
Another sent me broken and scrambled eggs with NO padding under the eggs .. stating that the postal service will drop eggs from a height of 6 feet.. so there is no reason in his mind to add extra padding around the eggs... since local people have hatched them out just fine...
I asked him that if he knows how they are treated why not add more padding to the eggs?... his reply was to give me a partial refund and to state again that the locals have no issue hatching out his eggs...
So out of 13 eggs I had 1 develop.........
as for the inbreeding question
you can breed cousin to cousin.. just watch future generations for defects and for fertility issues
cousin to cousin isn't as bad as brother to sister.. with severe inbreeding you can "fix" some traits.. unfortunately when you breed close relations you will also end up fixing bad traits (though it is a good way to see what issues may be recessive in your flock)
with dogs and horses it's pretty common to line breed (mother to son.. father to daughter).. but breeding brother to sister is looked down upon because of the risk of doubling up inferior traits and dealing with the resulting defects
chickens are easier to cull than a "cute little puppy" or a foal for most people.. so if you do feel the need to inbreed with brother to sister just remember you may have to cull heavily at hatch then outcross to a different bloodline at the breeding of the birds you decide to keep
chickens do seem to have a 'failsafe" as to inbreeding.. if a line of birds becomes too inbred many times there will be major fertility issues.. I don't know if you have noticed or not but often times you will hear where a certain line has fertility issues.. to me that's a pretty good warning flag that the flock is getting too inbred and is in need of some serious outcrossing to help resolve the issue.
I did have another batch of your eggs hatch out.. all of mine from you have had 5 toes on each foot too.
I did get a few chipmunks from this batch.. but most of the chicks were blacks or silvers
