February Broody On 14 Eggs BRR!

[crazyfeathers]

I keep forgetting to ask you, What breeds of chicks will you be hatching? My only pure breds will be EE, my other rooster is a turken. So basically for me Barnyard Mixes...

 

[LRH97]

I keep forgetting to ask you, What breeds of chicks will you be hatching? My only pure breds will be EE, my other rooster is a turken. So basically for me Barnyard Mixes...

Same for me. I do have two Speckled Sussex hens and a SS roo. He has just recently coughed up the courage to start crowing and breeding the hens. (He can only do that when my head roo is not looking!) So there is a chance I may get some pure SS, however I think that chance is very small. Big daddy roo is game/Summatra cross so most of the "children" will probably be his. I do have some eggs from my Polish hens under momma. I'm especially curious to see what comes out of those!

 

[crazyfeathers]

I candled all of Mary's eggs tonight and out of 14 eggs 13 are fertile. It did appear a few of the eggs where further developed than others. The 2 polish eggs that I thought were not fertile are!! I am seriously hoping for a polish turken mix. I also candled my incubator eggs and only 3 were bad. Exciting news for me, also have 2 polish eggs in there too so I may get my polturk yet lol.

 

[LRH97]

I candled all of Mary's eggs tonight and out of 14 eggs 13 are fertile. It did appear a few of the eggs where further developed than others. The 2 polish eggs that I thought were not fertile are!! I am seriously hoping for a polish turken mix. I also candled my incubator eggs and only 3 were bad. Exciting news for me, also have 2 polish eggs in there too so I may get my polturk yet lol.

A polturk! That should be interesting. I would very much like to see a picture of that once he/she hatches.

 

[LRH97]

Here's an update:

Eggs are a day late, but we've got one completely hatched and one pipping that I can tell. On top of that, our Murray McMurray order came in today. So today's a good chick day!

 

[crazyfeathers]

Where are the pictures?

 

[LRH97]

Where are the pictures?

Here are our hatchery babies. We've got Buff Orpington, Dorking, BLR Wyandotte, SL Wyandotte, Dark Brahma, White Leghorn, a JG roo, and a newbie for us: White Orpingtons. I'll wait to take a picture of momma and her babies as soon as they all hatch. I did go ahead and slip four of the Leghorns under her in case some of her eggs don't hatch. They seem to be hitting it off pretty well.

EDIT: And here's momma and her crew

 

[crazyfeathers]

Oh my gosh, So Adorable! The chicks all look good and healthy. Do you give your chicks medicated feed? BLR is another breed I want, well and SS too. I know where I can get some so I am going to wait until my chicks start hatching and go get a few. My luck I will get all roosters. I will have to research and see if SS are sexable when chicks. Warm weather headed our way after Thursday! We are looking at 30-40 degrees Whoo hoo, that's shorts weather in Wisconsin!! Lockdown for me is Friday - what do you turn your humidity up to I have been hovering right around 45-50 do you think 65 is good, I have the still air incubator. I am not sure if my BCM egg is fertile, it has such a dark shell its hard to tell. Good luck with your babies! Thanks for sharing.

 

[LRH97]

Oh my gosh, So Adorable! The chicks all look good and healthy. Do you give your chicks medicated feed? BLR is another breed I want, well and SS too. I know where I can get some so I am going to wait until my chicks start hatching and go get a few. My luck I will get all roosters. I will have to research and see if SS are sexable when chicks. Warm weather headed our way after Thursday! We are looking at 30-40 degrees Whoo hoo, that's shorts weather in Wisconsin!! Lockdown for me is Friday - what do you turn your humidity up to I have been hovering right around 45-50 do you think 65 is good, I have the still air incubator. I am not sure if my BCM egg is fertile, it has such a dark shell its hard to tell. Good luck with your babies! Thanks for sharing.

I use Nutrena medicated feed for my babies. We're in the middle of another winter storm now, hopefully the last one of the year. 3-6 inches of snow on top of 1/2 an inch of ice. Then upper 50's and low 60's next week. Crazy weather! Momma and the babies will take their first trip outside with that kind of weather. I love SS too. I have two hens and a roo. I think the breed puts out very handsome roos. Maybe consider keeping one, if you can. (I just hope you don't get ALL roos though!) I keep humidity around the 50-55% mark during incubation and crank it up to around 65% at lockdown. All of the babies that hatched are nice and healthy, although three more eggs were pipping and momma got off the nest to eat and must have gotten side tracked with the others and forgot to return to her eggs. Unfortunately, those must have gotten too cold and didn't make it. Oh well. Still a pretty good hatch rate. Good luck with yours too! Can't wait to see them when they hatch!

 

[crazyfeathers]

Big news Mary's chicks are hatching, so far just one but I have high hopes for her clutch. It was in the 30s today and supposed to be warmer tomorrow so I did not bring the chick inside. I did get 10 chicks from a lady who gets my fertile eggs and then just gives me chicks in return. One is a turken, he/she is so ugly it's cute. My incubator has been holding temperature 99.5 to 100 and humidity is 50 percent. I have noticed with it warming up outside the humidity does go up in the incubator, I removed a cap 2 times today as it creeped up to 60. I candled again tonight and all of my eggs are doing great, I can see movement and may lock them down a day earlier than I'm supposed to.
I love to hear the peeping in the house with the new chicks, it beats the parrot saying 50 times a day "good morning Grandma)" lol.
Can't wait to check on Mary's progress tomorrow.
On a different note, I always went by the book for temperature in my brooder, with these 10 chicks because I still had the pot bellied pig in the house didn't have as much extra space as normal so I just brought in a rabbit cage, 60 watt light bulb, and draped 3 towels around parts of the cage. The House temperature is set at 68. I know there is no way these chicks are 85 degrees (they are a week old) but they are doing great, running around, eating, and drinking. I guess it goes to show that healthy chicks are durable.