First Time Hatching Anything! (Seramas!)

MadChickenMama

Songster
Apr 14, 2018
279
333
156
North Carolina
So after all my lengthy posts and whatnot it is finally closing in on the beginning of day 1 of incubation! I just got back from a trip to the beach and from getting my Serama hatching eggs! I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am!! I will be putting the eggs in the incubator tomorrow after I drop my son off at school.

I paid for 12 but the woman always gives 18 and she even gave me 4 extra so I have 22 eggs! Thankfully the incubator I bought is a 22 egg one, lol. This whole past week and weekend has been one thing after another of things happening that work out just right, it's so weird (like how we ended up being in the right place at the right time to spot a 5 week old kitten in a field next to a grocery store just minutes before we left for the beach for the weekend).

I am going to document as much as I can because I love learning everything about most stuff and if, for some reason, this fails I will have detailed info that may help for next time.

So here is the first two pictures. I believe all the writing is supposed to be the color hen the egg came from. Not sure, though, and the woman hasn't gotten back to me on it.

The first picture is just to roughly show size. I have refrained from touching the eggs directly. I used the paper towel or a sterile glove to handle them. The egg my fingers are around is the 2nd smallest. The one with the W on itnis the smallest. I really hope that one hatches (well I'd love for all to hatch), but I know smaller eggs don't tend to do well.
20180520_163744.jpg
20180520_220051.jpg
 
I love Seramas:lovethey are such a fun and characteristic breed! Best of luck too you and please post pics of when they hatch. I’ll pray for them and keep my fingers crossed! :fl
Also I foster kittens and I would like to hear more about what happened to it. I know this is a post about your growing baby’s but if you don’t mind please tell me about it I’d love to hear the story. ;):) :D
 
I love Seramas:lovethey are such a fun and characteristic breed! Best of luck too you and please post pics of when they hatch. I’ll pray for them and keep my fingers crossed! :fl
Also I foster kittens and I would like to hear more about what happened to it. I know this is a post about your growing baby’s but if you don’t mind please tell me about it I’d love to hear the story. ;):) :D


Well my sister knows a woman who fosters kittens. So she called her up and the woman had just gotten home from getting 2 kittens from somewhere else. She took the baby in for the weekend until we got back.

When we got to her place last night we find out that minutes before we got there she already found a home for the little one. Someone had been looking for a calm, female, black cat which was perfect as that's what we had found. I never heard her meow and she was content to just sit in my arms when we were taking her to my sister's friend's place. So we didn't have to foster the kitten, which is probably a good thing as I would have gotten attached, lol.
20180518_232952.jpg
 
Don't want to start a new thread elsewhere so just putting my little rant here.

My sister just informed we she lost another chicken. I'm so upset. This one was one of our favorites because she was so fat and watching her run was hilarious. Her name was Ginger as she was a Buff Orpington.

This time whatever took her didn't bother taking her out of the yard. My sister said the feathers are everywhere. I asked how something got her and my sister said she doesn't close the door on the coop. Um...what!?

That's how the animal got one of the Isa Browns!!! I am so livid right now. She knows we have fox, raccoons, and possums in the woods around the property and that there's a few holes in the fence. Why wouldn't she close the coop door?!

Now she's down to 5 of her chickens she has for eggs. *heavy sigh*

Edit: Found out it was not Ginger, but yet another of the Isa Browns :( My sister is really heartbroken/angry. She doesn't have a lot that's just hers and she doesn't really have any hobbies. These chickens were her first, her babies.

I found the chicken's body. Head gone, breast meat eaten. It was dragged all over the yard towards my house. From what I've read and what I know that lives near my house that likes chickens it's the raccoon. This giant thing is about the size of a Corgi, probably a bit taller. Thinking it's a mom as I saw it outside in the vacant yard next door and it didn't try to attack my sister's cat who was in my yard, staring at it, at the time.

Could tell this thing scrambles up over the fence between my yard and my sister's as that part is all bent and whatnot. I need to fix the hole in the fence in my yard.

My sister said she will just start shutting them in again and not letting them out until the sun is up decently as she knows they like to come out when it's still pretty dark.
 
Last edited:
I’m sorry:( the same exact thing happened to our favorite buff Orpington hen Big Yellow. The coon made it over our two fences surrounding the chicken coop and got her eating the same parts as your hen. I’m very protective of my hens so I stayed outside till 1am watching my girls. After that I sprayed Cayanne pepper on my fences and played the radio. I also set some traps with dog food and marshmallows and caught 5 coons. P.s. I’ve had a few go out in the day time as well as cyotes.
Best of luck to you and sorry about losing one of your hens. :( :( :(
 
I’m sorry:( the same exact thing happened to our favorite buff Orpington hen Big Yellow. The coon made it over our two fences surrounding the chicken coop and got her eating the same parts as your hen. I’m very protective of my hens so I stayed outside till 1am watching my girls. After that I sprayed Cayanne pepper on my fences and played the radio. I also set some traps with dog food and marshmallows and caught 5 coons. P.s. I’ve had a few go out in the day time as well as cyotes.
Best of luck to you and sorry about losing one of your hens. :( :( :(

I'll have to do the cayenne spray. I'm not sure if the trap my granddad has is big enough for the raccoon I saw lumbering about in the vacant yard the other week. She was huge! I'm guessing 'she' as I've heard it's either a mama coon getting food for herself or a rabid one and seeing as it didn't try to attack the cat who was withing several feet of it, I guess mama.
 
So after all my lengthy posts and whatnot it is finally closing in on the beginning of day 1 of incubation! I just got back from a trip to the beach and from getting my Serama hatching eggs! I cannot even begin to explain how excited I am!! I will be putting the eggs in the incubator tomorrow after I drop my son off at school.

I paid for 12 but the woman always gives 18 and she even gave me 4 extra so I have 22 eggs! Thankfully the incubator I bought is a 22 egg one, lol. This whole past week and weekend has been one thing after another of things happening that work out just right, it's so weird (like how we ended up being in the right place at the right time to spot a 5 week old kitten in a field next to a grocery store just minutes before we left for the beach for the weekend).

I am going to document as much as I can because I love learning everything about most stuff and if, for some reason, this fails I will have detailed info that may help for next time.

So here is the first two pictures. I believe all the writing is supposed to be the color hen the egg came from. Not sure, though, and the woman hasn't gotten back to me on it.

The first picture is just to roughly show size. I have refrained from touching the eggs directly. I used the paper towel or a sterile glove to handle them. The egg my fingers are around is the 2nd smallest. The one with the W on itnis the smallest. I really hope that one hatches (well I'd love for all to hatch), but I know smaller eggs don't tend to do well.View attachment 1397731 View attachment 1397732

Oh my word....so teeny! I'm hatching for the first time, but my first batch are goose eggs (they're currently in lockdown....should pip any time). I can hardly imagine handling such tiny eggs. They're adorable!
 
Day 1 slowly coming to an end. The incubator has so far worked just like I read in the reviews. This thing is so close to the temp it shows, it's amazing. I really would like to get something to check the humidity so I know that's at least really close.

Harris Farms got my fan guard and anti-moisture pad for the incubator to me today. I don't understand why they don't just put those in the machine or at least in the box. I'm going to install them tomorrow. I'll be turning off the a/c and letting the house warm up beforehand. That way the eggs don't cool off too fast and the humidity stays higher in the house so I don't have to worry about those things while having to install the little pad.

Originally I was going to put the incubator in the guest bedroom so it was out of the way and wouldn't get cold or have issues with draft. But seeing as my house is old and does not have central a/c and gets hot a heck I'm glad I didn't. When I went to my sister's for a few hours I decided to turn off the a/c I had blowing into the kitchen and the two in the bedrooms. The humidity in the incubator rose from 47% to 52% during that time. I can only imagine what it'd be like in the bedroom with no a/c turned on. The room where the biggest a/c is was incredibly humid this morning so I think the guest bedroom would end up the same way.

The kitchen table seems to be the best place for it after all.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom