December hatch along

[Matieus27]

Well while I was sleeping my ameraucauna baby hatched it looks to be lavender I told my wife that was her chicken she instantly fell in love with it

 

[Matieus27]

She has chose to name it Opal for a girl and Earl Grey for a boy

 

[Matieus27]

We are waiting on crack to hatch I chose that name because it has a crack almost the whole way around the shell the aircell shrank to right below the crack. I know your not supposed to set cracked eggs but I am certain everything will be fine as it has pipped it’s aircell and was chirping at me before I left

 

[BlueBaby]

@Matieus27 It's nice to be able to tell someone they have their own chick or chicken, even with in your case being your wife.

I have a next door neighbor that I feed the 2 dog's and 2 goats for when they go on vacation out of town. They keep buying me feed for my chicken's. Well, they finally got the coop ready that had been left behind by the previous property owners when they moved out. So, I gave them one of my cockerels and a pullet for a Christmas gift. They both seemed to settle in fine.

 

[Matieus27]

@Matieus27 It's nice to be able to tell someone they have their own chick or chicken, even with in your case being your wife.

I have a next door neighbor that I feed the 2 dog's and 2 goats for when they go on vacation out of town. They keep buying me feed for my chicken's. Well, they finally got the coop ready that had been left behind by the previous property owners when they moved out. So, I gave them one of my cockerels and a pullet for a Christmas gift. They both seemed to settle in fine.

It is great. Just seeing the smile on her face was the best. She has always been a bit iffy about chickens she wants to handle the chick but she is worried about salmonella I told her just make sure to wash your hands after and you should be just fine but since I am at work I don’t know if she has handled it yet

 

[Matieus27]

So she picked it up earlier she said it was watching her while she was in the kitchen and it’s so cute she says. She loves that little chicken and I love that she loves it

 

[Compost King]

I dropped an egg while candling. I set new rule on myself. No more extra candling. I believe I should only check on day 10, and day 18. I feel like such jerk being so selfish that I needed to see the embryonic chicks develop but they can develop just fine without me watching it.

 

[Matieus27]

I dropped an egg while candling. I set new rule on myself. No more extra candling. I believe I should only check on day 10, and day 18. I feel like such jerk being so selfish that I needed to see the embryonic chicks develop but they can develop just fine without me watching it.

It does happen I’ve come very close on several occasions so when I candle now I move a few to an egg carton and leave enough open holes so I can get a good grip on the egg so I don’t drop them I actually dropped one that was on day 19 the other day luckily I caught it in mid air and as far as I know the chick is fine as it has hatched and all is well

 

[mandelyn]

I've been extra cautious about dropping eggs, the trays that go in the cabinet don't have a bottom, so one wrong placed finger could pop an egg right on out of there.

Set another batch of eggs that will be due the 30th. After removing 3 duds from the first batch, that makes a total of 65!

Yesterday I spent time positioning the new brooders, to be built Friday using a Gladiator shelving system. Ended up splitting it in half instead of it's full stacked height, for the table space it makes for the small incubators. Less imposing in the the small hatch room too. The bottom shelf will get boxed in with a 1x6 bottom lip, hardware cloth above that, and a front access door built in. Each one is 2x4', so a total of 16 sq ft of brooder space.

Working on a row of lamps to be installed into the grow out coop, the sooner they can get out there, the better! I'm hoping I can get them out there by 2-3 weeks old... depends on what temps I can get it to. Otherwise I'll be wrapping a grow out stall in the barn in plastic, basically a building inside of a building. It's doubtful this will be a mild winter here, signs are pointing to cold/wet.

 

[Ginmary]

My 2 Serama moms sharing the box just hatched 1 of the two eggs. The other shows no sign of pipping yet. It’s pretty dark other than the air cell. I hope it’s ok.