Delawares Humming Along/ Due Feb 25th / Hatch Complete

My sweet Delaware girl, Kira, will be getting some coop mates before too long. My breeder friend shipped 20 beautiful Delaware eggs from her spectacular stock. They are on Day 10 today.

I have 16 I know are viable and growing, possibly 17, but one will have to be re-candled in a day or two. That is spectacular fertility and the P.O. wasn't too rough on them during shipping apparently. One aircell is a bit far to the side, but not that bad. So, yippee for me! I'm thrilled. Kira is a chunky, beautiful girl with a sweet personality and a fabulous layer so far.

What I want is to have six girls with a really nice rooster in that coop. Maybe, if I'm lucky and not cockerel-heavy in this hatch, I'll get that. There are two possible sires in this batch, both wonderful, one of whom was in the Pic of the Week recently.

Good luck to all of you who are hatching this month!

 

LOL, well, at least one rooster is spoken for right now by walkswithdog in TN. I hope to reserve two for myself in order to grow them out a bit, then will pick the absolute best one to keep. I'm sure I'll have more than three cockerels if most all these hatch for me. If I have more than five pullets, I think the rest will be sold, but I'm not counting my chickens before they hatch. If I do have extras to sell, this will be a great opportunity for those who want to preserve this endangered breed and have some very high quality stock.

 

Jared, I only have older pics. When I can, I'll get new ones of Kira. Right now, I only have the one girl. The rooster had a less than perfect comb plus got a bit too big for his tailfeathers and we processed him. I lost one girl to a freak heart defect, sadly. Coming into lay was too much for her heart. She was so sweet and beautiful. Here is one thread with some of the last pics I have before we culled the roosterey are 21 weeks in these:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=111068

These eggs come from two different roosters than the one who sired Kira, Cassie and Jake.

 

Well, so you did! I didn't even see that when I found it to post. Unless Tom brings me a bird up on the deck, I cant get out to the coops to take pictures. Maybe he'll do me a favor and take an updated picture of Miss Kira.