HALLOWEEN HATCH!!! Anyone

[neferset]

Quote:
I'm a pessimist. All my chicks are "He or Him" until I start to see secondary characteristics. I heard there was a risk to the chick with vent sexing also. I don't know if that's true. I would try it if there were no risks to the chick.

Josephine AKA Mean Mama bit my guy one too many times today, while we were feeding everyone. She was kicked out of her brooding pen this afternoon and her three babies went away to boarding school with my little hatchlings. If it were summer, we might have let her raise them in the yard, but it's much too cool at night right now.

I don't remember what thread it was where I told the story of Josephine chasing the black lab, Billy, but the BYCer who wanted a flock of Josephines should reconsider.

*Points to the bottom of page 100 in case Luvmybob misses the reply I made*

 

[Luvmybob]

WOW thank you neverset!

I just checked on him and there was a little blood in the hole but he is still moving along...the mom pecked at two of her eggs to the point that it was open and the chicks were dead...ONE for sure, not sure if the other hatched too early??

She left the nest again and I placed that egg that I opened back under her because I did see a little blood...UGH** !!!

Now I'm REALLY worried that I am going to have a lot of fatalities!

 

[neferset]

It's not a good time of year for broodies, I'm afraid. What part of Florida are you in? South, Central, North Central, North? My parents are in North Central. I haven't been checking on their weather lately. Where I live, it's been fairly cool in the evenings and comfy in shirt sleeves or with a light sweater during the day. It really really makes a difference.

We had a broody (Josephine) show up with 3 chicks. I have no idea how many she had on the nest. Right now I am helping my November baby hatch and I helped more of my Halloween chicks than I ever really wanted to. If seems like things are going along great, then suddenly the humidity crashes. If it's that hard in an incubator, I can't imagine what it's like for a broody.

Of course, your weather should be better than mine, I would think.

 

[Luvmybob]

It's been unseasonably warm here.... 87 yesterday and mid 80's all week, today was only 76... I live in North Central Florida, where abouts does your family live?

I placed the remaining eggs under her again...so far so good...I have to go to the store and I will check on them when I get back...I feel sorry for her because I know she's ready to get off of them, I do have other chickens but I'm fairly certain they were all about the same time...today is day 23 for us..

Thank you so much for helping me...it's my first hatch and the pullet's, she is fairly young (7 months old) so I'm sure it has something to do with our first time as well...

I'll post updates when I get back...

 

[neferset]

My parents and my brother and his wife live next door to each other in Anthony, which is just north of Ocala in north Marion County. I used to live in Gainesville, for something like 15 years and I graduated high school in Ocala.

I can remember warm days all the way through November, but I also have a big college sweat shirt collection that was bought because I left that morning dressed for the weather we were having in the morning and during the day while I was at work the temperatures dropped dramatically.

So it's probably not your weather that has been messing with her. The other thing that occurs to me, since your broody is about the same age as my Buffy...Buffy just started to lay in September and all the Orpington X chicks I hatched over Halloween were hers. I had considerable trouble too. I put it mostly down to the weather, but it's possible that being so young a lot of her chicks were not able to turn properly. After this last hatching, I am going to stop incubating her eggs until spring.

I compared one of her eggs in my fridge this morning to one of the large ones I bought at the store. Her eggs are only a little bit bigger than my bantam eggs and are much smaller than the large ones. How are your broody Buff's eggs?

 

[eggsrcool]

1 day late, but there is a pip!!

 

[evonne]

WooT!!!!!!!!!

so much to catch up on, and too many to remember individually so i'll just say one big

YaY!!!!!!!! grats on all the chickies!!!!!!!!!!

is it time to candle the next batch yet?? lol

 

[Suechick]

Quote:
Yay, come on chickie

 

[mayapooh]

Yay for more pips and chickies! Go babies, go babies..!!

Luvmybob - good luck with your almost hatched baby. I'm glad you're getting good advice - I used Neferset's Murphy method on one of mine and it worked perfectly! Thank you, Nef.

Incidentally, I've started a new thread about my babes - didn't want to keep cluttering up this thread since I'm a picture takin' fool with these guys. The little dark one with white mottled face is the one Neferset's info helped out.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=262786

 

[neferset]

Quote:
Awww, I'm glad I could help.

Murphy is thriving and is bigger than Rusty and Spooky now. He compares better in size to the week and a half old chicks. I don't think he's going to be a hen, but that's ok.

I went away for a little while to talk to my mother and see if I can get rid of my post Halloween headache (no drinks or Jello shots involved, I don't know what I did to deserve it).

I have one more little silver baby in the incubator. He's out of the egg and drying off. He's another one who didn't get the memo with his hatch date. He wasn't due until Tuesday. Or maybe he heard the Halloween chicks having so much fun and wanted to join in.

Anyway, waiting for updates from Luvmybob. I'm hoping for her little one.