Hatching Araucanas

[sunnyllama]

Hi everyone! I have something to open up for discussion so here goes

I will be putting a batch of Araucana eggs and Americuana eggs in the incubator on Friday. I have heard that these breeds of chicks are finicky and difficult to hatch but wasnt sure if this were true or not. I have hatched before, very successfully, but now am worried that I wont be able to pull this one off What do you all think and are there any tricks I should know about or advice?

Thanks!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Since no one else chimed in yet, I have limited experience but - I only have ameraucana hens (no roos) so fertilizing roos were other breeds(rocks and penedesencas) but I've had some of the best hatch rates from the Am eggs both in incy and under broodies.

 

[yinepu]

last summer I set 18 Ameraucana eggs. 10 hatched (55% hatch rate)
these were shipped eggs.. otherwise I'm sure the hatch rate would have been higher... later this summer I will set some of their eggs and should get around a 90 - 100% hatch rate

from what I have seen chickens are chickens.. at least in my experience no one breed is harder to hatch than any other

 

[sunnyllama]

Oooh, I have never done shipped eggs before but am also doing those for the first time. I got some and am not holding out too much hope for them, especially not having heard that yinepu Luckily those arent the eggs in question, though, those ones I am picking up! So you have both noticed no difference, huh? Good to hear!

 

[yinepu]

shipped eggs are always a gamble.. I have gotten as high as 90% hatch rate with them all the way down to 20 to 30%.. so ya never know..
but as far as breed... never saw any difference in hatching rates..

usually the closer the eggs are to you (as in picking them up yourself from neighbors, your own coop, and so on) the better hatch rates assuming nothing bad happens with your incubator
if you get them shipped in the distance doesn't matter nearly as much as how much rough handling they get from the postal service. I have had some from here in Texas not do a darn thing and gotten some from the east coast that had better hatch rates.... and also the other way around. Unfortunately some postal hubs treat packages worse than others do (plus I have heard horror stories of a few postal workers abusing the packages).

 

[cashdl]

I raise, show, breed, and hatch Rumpless Tufted Araucana chickens, and they are very difficult to hatch. I get about 95% fertility rate on my own eggs and a 50% to 75% hatch rate. When buying shipped Araucana eggs you can expect a 20% to 25% hatch rate if you do everything correctly. I usually sent 3 extra eggs when people order a dozen from me. So far everyone has hatched chicks from my shipped eggs. I buy hatching eggs from other breeders also and sometimes I will get a few chicks to hatch and sometimes I do not.

Some of the hatchability depends on wether the breeder breeds tufted to tufted birds in their breeding pens. Doing so will lower the hatch rate as the tufting gene is lethal in two copies. One of my breeding pens is all tufted birds and I do get a lower hatch rate out of that pen.


Lanae