Cross breeding New hampshires with Sussex light with Rhode island whites

[DIGGIN CHICKEN]

cheep ... south of JHB ...Henley-on-Klip . Assuming you talking about 16 eggs a month ... if it were per day they'd be well worth their weight in gold and rather stretched out !! Tried letting my Hammies hatch their own but they such bad mothers ...had the SPCA here complaining and quoting fetal laws !!!

Where you from ?

 

[Cheep-cheep]

cheep ... south of JHB ...Henley-on-Klip . Assuming you talking about 16 eggs a month ... if it were per day they'd be well worth their weight in gold and rather stretched out !! Tried letting my Hammies hatch their own but they such bad mothers ...had the SPCA here complaining and quoting fetal laws !!!

Where you from ?

Yes in a month ( hahaha ) I'm in pietermaritzburg kzn ! In the beginning they were bad mothers so took the eggs away and they kept laying until one day the first one chased me away and after that they started to sit

 

[DIGGIN CHICKEN]

Ok so plan is well one its way ...had a few hiccups .... 1st batch of eggs ...none hatched ...sure it was bad old eggs .... second batch only had 4 hatch from 66 ... fans stop working and i didn't notice ...but that's been repaired now ... 3rd batch looking very promising ...day 20 ( 3 hatched 10 pipped so far) ...seems my homemade bator just needed some tweeking! Kept temp at 37.6 and humidity 60-65 from day one ,,, may have to play around with these figures after i see the result from batch 4 and maybe 5 ...

I cheated a bit and went and bought some sussex (4 hens and 1 rooster) .... built some enclosures ( 6 by 8 meters each)for them that are about 80 percent complete ! got two seperate enclosures ... one for hammies and one for sussex ... each with 4 hens and one rooster .... once i got all the probs with the bator sorted ... start sex linking ...just swop the roosters around or focus on keep them as is to keep blood lines ... will post updates in a few days ..

 

[Lady of McCamley]

Do be aware that you should isolate hens from a rooster for a month to be certain the right rooster is fertilizing.

LofMc

 

[DIGGIN CHICKEN]

well to be honest Lady.... got rid of all my roosters barring the two needed .... roosters will be isolated in their encampments permanently .... all the ladies will be left free ranging (free of men) and introduced to the gentlemen if and when needed .... I'll be selecting two more roosters (one of each breed) at a later stage for ''backups'' .... i imagine that the ladies (choose the best layers) will be sampled from the flock and will serve as concubines for no more than 3 weeks at a time ... I'll have total control over either breeding parent stock or sex linked ... all the sex linked will be taged once leaving the brooder so i'll know ages etc ... and will only keep the sex linked for a single generation !

Checked the bator this morning .. 14 hatched ... counted another 8 or so that have pipped (can really see properly ) ... these aren't sex linked ...just plain old hammies ... dont want too many of them .. so after batch 5 .... i'll give the bator a rest and start putting the roosters in their respective mansions .. wait a few weeks .... then the experiment begins!

 

[DIGGIN CHICKEN]

here's the incubator with many little ones ..

 

[DIGGIN CHICKEN]

The enclosures ...

 

[DIGGIN CHICKEN]

New coop made from old drums i revamped ..... should end up with 40 nest boxes .... this can wait till later to be completed ...

 

[DIGGIN CHICKEN]

Upto 24 now ..... another 9 and ive hit 33 ..50 percent !

 

[DIGGIN CHICKEN]

Final tally ...31 ... just below 50 percent .... got the new batch expected in 3 days so cleared out the old and positioned the new .... crack quite a few of the old ones ....just yolk ...non starters ...seems my boys aren't doing their jobs ... comes down to flock management ... incubator working fine !!! With my new encampments almost done ... that prob should be sorted soon!