- Apr 5, 2011
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I decided (sort of late in the summer, yes) to incubate some eggs from our 8 Rhode Island Reds and 1 Ameraucana to begin replacing our layers. We have 1 roo. We saved 3 dozen eggs over the course of a week or so, keeping them in the cool basement and turning them each day. After accumulating the desired number, I placed them in the incubator on a Sunday morning around 1am, and used an automatic egg turner. My hatch was pathetic--16 surviving live chicks (2 or 3 of which I had to help out of their shell), 2 others were deformed (1 with an external brain, the other had splayed legs) and 1 other hatched but died soon after. The thing is, I disovered the first one beginning to pip when I went to remove them from the automatic egg turner, and once he hatched the others soon followed, a day or more earlier than they should have. When we figured the rest of the unhatched eggs were not going to hatch, we broke them open and found 4 or 5 infertile, 5 or 6 fully developed but dead, one was rotten, and some were in various stages of development. Not a good experience.
Anyway, the 16 seem to be doing quite well in their brooder. My question is regarding how soon they begin feathering out. It's been a couple years since I hatched any and I don't recall their wing feathers coming in this quickly. At the age of 3 days or so their wing feathers were visible, and now that they're about 4 or 5 days old those feathers are approaching 1" long! They literally appear to be longer each time I check on them during the day. Is this normal?
Anyway, the 16 seem to be doing quite well in their brooder. My question is regarding how soon they begin feathering out. It's been a couple years since I hatched any and I don't recall their wing feathers coming in this quickly. At the age of 3 days or so their wing feathers were visible, and now that they're about 4 or 5 days old those feathers are approaching 1" long! They literally appear to be longer each time I check on them during the day. Is this normal?