Hatching with 2 broodies

[16 paws]

Candled my Del eggs and there are 8 embryos in 9 eggs. I opened the other one and it was non fertile. put the rest back under Jamie Lee who pecked me for my trouble. This is day 9 12 more to go Yippee!

Oh and I got an egg from Gracie Belle today! Her first since she came to us.

Sounds like a good day, way to go Gracie Belle! So exciting to have littles on the way again!
Marie

 

[randerson846]

Ok i have a question, so today i put my 45 hen eggs in with my 3 duck eggs (as u know) which have been developing nicely i want them to hatch on the same day so i decided to put the duck eggs in a week earlier, so the humidity has been around 50- 60 which i read is ok for duck eggs, but when i put my hen eggs in, i couldn't really get it down, i tried putting in less water, but that didn't work, so i thought it may be to high for them, so i was wondering is it to late to do a dry hatch, I've never done this before so if u have any ideas or tips please help thanks

 

[16 paws]

So glad to hear she is doing okay

these little silkies are just the cutest little fuzz balls

Thanks Lesa Mae,

Yes they are too cute. I have never had a silkie so I am looking forward to learning about them. I was wondering if they roost at night and from what I have read only about half do. I believe Teila said hers doesnt roost if I remember right. Curious as to why. When these babies sleep they look like they kind of flatten out like a pancake Lol.
Take care,
Marie

 

[16 paws]

Hey there, strangers!

I finally caved, and checked in. What has it been, a little over a week? There is no way I can catch up on all of these posts or respond to everyone!!! But, I did see enough to be able to say: so many cute bubbies!!!! And Teila, I'm so happy to hear you found a good home for Tommy, and yay for frizzles!!! Welcome, Lulu!!

So, I was on a local homesteading listserve, which I finally dropped off of because there were way too many emails taking over my life (sound familiar?), but the day before I dropped, I responded to an email from someone looking for fertile eggs for her kids' preschool, just to answer questions, and then we realized we worked together at camp 20 years ago! Long story short, she came by today to buy a dozen eggs to hatch at the preschool! I have many mixed feelings about this! I feel very guilty sending my girls' eggs off to someone's incubator while breaking my broodies (Grace is broody again. but looks almost broken), and I know I'm going to wind up helping them look for rooster homes, and I don't want to hear about the ones who don't make it, and I'll be jealous about not keeping the ones who do . . . BUT, I'm also kind of excited. The preschool is right down the street from me, so I'll be able to see any grandchicks that make it!

In the meantime, I'm holding out for August - someone is bound to be broody then. My regular egg customer decided he wasn't paying me enough, and now gives me $12 a dozen. Totally weird, right?

Not much else to report. Life is busy, springtime is beautiful, work is depressing.
Miss y'all! Anyone ever hear from TGG and her exponentially increasing flock?

Hello Liz,
Eggcited to hear from you!

Congrats on becoming a grandchickmama lol....That will be fun to be close enough to follow along. Make sure you keep us updated!
(Sneaky way to bring you back in huh?) haha

Tell your egg customer if he needs any extra eggs I am looking for a rich customer.

Work is depressing me too lately, guess I just want to spend more relaxing time with the animals.
Guess I am going to need two jobs soon if I keep adding more chicks. Springtime chicken math is really getting to me...
Take care....
Marie

 

[Teila]

Howdy 16 paws

Not busy at work today so I am lurking

To be honest, I am not 100% sure why the Silkies tend not to roost. I believe it is related to their inability to fly very well or jump very high. Even if they are going to roost, the roosts need to be very low off the bottom of the coop.

Lots of people on the Silkie thread have commented about how their Silkies sleep in a pile, all cuddled up together. It could also be a comfort related thing.

Only 2 of my 5 girls roost and only 1 of the three that sleep in the nest box is a Silkie

 

[Lesa Mae]

Thanks Lesa Mae,

Yes they are too cute. I have never had a silkie so I am looking forward to learning about them. I was wondering if they roost at night and from what I have read only about half do. I believe Teila said hers doesnt roost if I remember right. Curious as to why. When these babies sleep they look like they kind of flatten out like a pancake Lol.
Take care,
Marie

I have all silkies the hens consist of a pure white, columbian, and a buff and my roo is a buff as well and none of them roost they sleep together on the floor I guess mine are just too lazy to get up onto the roost I have never seen anyone up on it and it's only about a foot off the ground

 

[Teila]

The roost I have for my one Silkie is pretty much the same height as the top of nest box; Tina jumps onto the roost and then jumps from it into the nest box

She is definitely a snuggler

There is another roost in the same coop, higher up and both Tina and Lulu totally ignore it; never been used.

There is not an actual roost in the Chateau and Dusty sleeps in the nest box with Cilla and Blondie on top of the door

I gave up a long time ago trying to teach them to sleep where I thought they should; they now get to sleep wherever they want and I just make sure I clean any poops first thing in the morning before any eggs are laid

 

[ItalyChickie]

IC, I guess I was wondering about the ACV as after reading up on the FF it should provide the majority of the benefits which ACV is reported to provide. I was probably just a little concerned about overkill.

Oh okay, I was just worried that I was missing some obvious incompatibility with those two!

Hello all,
Just a quick update on adding some little 2 day old silkies to Pennys new clutch.

NOT!!!!

I thought everything was fine, I snuck them down there at night and placed them by her, they were chirping and then silence. I thought this is going to work!

First thing the next morning I raced down to the coop to make sure all was still well.

IT WASNT!

As I was watching she started pecking the new additions. I watched for a few minutes thinking she was just training them. Then she started being down right MEAN to them. So I got them away from her as fast as I could. She really flogged one pretty bad and I thought it wasnt going to make it.
I held it next to my chest a few minutes to warm it up and then rushed it up to a box with a heat light on her. Well she wasnt moving for a good 2 or so hours and I started to beat myself up for even trying to add some more babies.

After a while my husband started checking on her, (the big chicken, me) couldnt bear to look.
Well, to make a long story short,

SHE MADE IT!

She is doing fine!

I think all that happened because they were a lot smaller than the chicks she already had. Learned a good lesson there....
Here is the brooder and the chicks I will be raising. Six little
Actually I am glad I get to have them up here in my enclosed patio because I get to see them a lot more!
Marie

Marie, I am so sorry that Penny wouldn't accept them and all the worrying about the little one, but super happy to hear she is doing well!

They are all absolutely adorable!!!!

I heard that generally broodies will accept other chicks up to day 4-5 after theirs hatch. Tested with Cenere last year on day 4, and it worked out. Haven't tried to add anyone later than that... but I suspect that as with everything, it's just a general guideline and it really depends on the chickenality in question. In any case, YAY for your little silkie babies!!!!

Candled my Del eggs and there are 8 embryos in 9 eggs. I opened the other one and it was non fertile. put the rest back under Jamie Lee who pecked me for my trouble. This is day 9 12 more to go Yippee!

Oh and I got an egg from Gracie Belle today! Her first since she came to us.

Woohoo, first Gracie Belle egg!!!

I always get super excited about the new ones too.

Counting down with you, while waiting to start my second hatch of the year (arranged to get me those Cochin eggs early next week).

Hey there, strangers!

I finally caved, and checked in. What has it been, a little over a week? There is no way I can catch up on all of these posts or respond to everyone!!! But, I did see enough to be able to say: so many cute bubbies!!!! And Teila, I'm so happy to hear you found a good home for Tommy, and yay for frizzles!!! Welcome, Lulu!!

So, I was on a local homesteading listserve, which I finally dropped off of because there were way too many emails taking over my life (sound familiar?), but the day before I dropped, I responded to an email from someone looking for fertile eggs for her kids' preschool, just to answer questions, and then we realized we worked together at camp 20 years ago! Long story short, she came by today to buy a dozen eggs to hatch at the preschool! I have many mixed feelings about this! I feel very guilty sending my girls' eggs off to someone's incubator while breaking my broodies (Grace is broody again. but looks almost broken), and I know I'm going to wind up helping them look for rooster homes, and I don't want to hear about the ones who don't make it, and I'll be jealous about not keeping the ones who do . . . BUT, I'm also kind of excited. The preschool is right down the street from me, so I'll be able to see any grandchicks that make it!

In the meantime, I'm holding out for August - someone is bound to be broody then. My regular egg customer decided he wasn't paying me enough, and now gives me $12 a dozen. Totally weird, right?

Not much else to report. Life is busy, springtime is beautiful, work is depressing.
Miss y'all! Anyone ever hear from TGG and her exponentially increasing flock?

Hi Liz, great to hear from you!

Can I borrow your weird customer? Lol!!! We usually get people trying to haggle the price down, not up! I say you have amazing customers!

The upcoming preschool hatch sounds great... sure, there are all sorts of worries that go with it, but lots of positives too. Hope they outweigh the negatives!

So, Day 4 of the FF experiment.
As mentioned, they had a side dish of lettuce and egg, the dry seed was taken away and replaced with FF.
I got home very interested to see how much, if any of the FF they had eaten. They had maybe pecked at it but it didn't look much different to when I put it in there. The side dish was all gone.

Knowing my girls and how much they do not like change, when I gave them afternoon tea, which is a much smaller portion of the breakfast held over and sprinkled in their favourite spot as opposed to in a bowl in the run, I added a couple of piles of the FF in the mix. I thought they would be hungry and chow down on the additional egg and lettuce but nope, they had a peck at it and then wandered around the garden. These chickens are definitely spoilt!

Anyway, my turn to cut a long story short ... Lulu started pecking at the egg and lettuce and then tried some of the FF, she appeared to get a taste for it and ate more of it than the egg etc. Next Tina came along and actually walked over the egg etc and had a taste of the FF, she also seemed to like it. Blondie and Dusty were next and finally Cilla. In the end, all of the FF was gone and there was still some egg etc left.

Now that they have a taste for it, I am more optimistic about tomorrow's breakfast. The side dish tomorrow is rice, corn, peas and green beans which is not their favourite, they like the corn, peas and green beans but "you know what you can do with your rice!". lol

To sum up, while not as successful as I hoped, I am definitely optimistic that tomorrow will be different now they have tasted it and associate the look and smell.

I remember when I first tried Cilla and Dusty on watermelon; wouldn't touch it, they were scared of it! When the Silkie chicks were a bit older, I thought I would try them on watermelon, they tried it straight away and as they seemed to be enjoying themselves Cilla and Dusty came over and gave it a try also, they love it now!

My girls definitely need some encouragement when it comes to change

That pretty much sums up my experiment, too... they are not very interested, though the new girls seem to like it. I did leave the regular feed out as well - maybe I should try a day without it? My chickens are completely spoiled... They want sunflower seeds and eggs, not their feed in any form or shape!

By the way, some of mine were initially afraid of watermelon too, but overcame their fear when they saw others happily chomping away.

So there was an incident i was turning the eggs and i sort of dropped on in to the incubator not from a hight height, but just enough to make a crack, and just my luck it was in of the three duck eggs i had in, it wasn't big just like hair lines, and i have heard that if u put nail varnish on the crack it should be fine so thats what i done ( straight away ) will this be okay they are 7 days into incubation, and i was developing veins, it was one of my farthest a head duck eggs (out of the three)

I really hope the egg is okay!! Other than waiting and praying, I don't think there's much else you can do... will keep my fingers crossed for you!

Thanks Lesa Mae,

Yes they are too cute. I have never had a silkie so I am looking forward to learning about them. I was wondering if they roost at night and from what I have read only about half do. I believe Teila said hers doesnt roost if I remember right. Curious as to why. When these babies sleep they look like they kind of flatten out like a pancake Lol.
Take care,
Marie

I hear they prefer silk pillows to roosts.

I don't have any either, except the roo, who does roost, but pretty much everyone who has silkies says most can roost if there is absolutely no other option, but prefer not to.

I guess they know they are special?



All is well over here, bubbies keep growing, co-parents keep happily co-parenting, two broodies are sitting on fake eggs (separately!) while waiting for those Cochin ones, along with the incubator... soon!!!

A picture that was too cute not to share:


This one is for Cenere fans.

Well, back to work - hopefully more pics tomorrow, has been raining too much lately to stalk the chickens.

 

[randerson846]

Ok i have a question, so today i put my 45 hen eggs in with my 3 duck eggs (as u know) which have been developing nicely i want them to hatch on the same day so i decided to put the duck eggs in a week earlier, so the humidity has been around 50- 60 which i read is ok for duck eggs, but when i put my hen eggs in, i couldn't really get it down, i tried putting in less water, but that didn't work, so i thought it may be to high for them, so i was wondering is it to late to do a dry hatch, I've never done this before so if u have any ideas or tips please help thanks

 

[Lesa Mae]

Oh okay, I was just worried that I was missing some obvious incompatibility with those two! Marie, I am so sorry that Penny wouldn't accept them and all the worrying about the little one, but super happy to hear she is doing well! They are all absolutely adorable!!!! I heard that generally broodies will accept other chicks up to day 4-5 after theirs hatch. Tested with Cenere last year on day 4, and it worked out. Haven't tried to add anyone later than that... but I suspect that as with everything, it's just a general guideline and it really depends on the chickenality in question. In any case, YAY for your little silkie babies!!!! Woohoo, first Gracie Belle egg!!! I always get super excited about the new ones too. Counting down with you, while waiting to start my second hatch of the year (arranged to get me those Cochin eggs early next week). Hi Liz, great to hear from you! Can I borrow your weird customer? Lol!!! We usually get people trying to haggle the price down, not up! I say you have amazing customers! The upcoming preschool hatch sounds great... sure, there are all sorts of worries that go with it, but lots of positives too. Hope they outweigh the negatives! That pretty much sums up my experiment, too... they are not very interested, though the new girls seem to like it. I did leave the regular feed out as well - maybe I should try a day without it? My chickens are completely spoiled... They want sunflower seeds and eggs, not their feed in any form or shape! By the way, some of mine were initially afraid of watermelon too, but overcame their fear when they saw others happily chomping away. I really hope the egg is okay!! Other than waiting and praying, I don't think there's much else you can do... will keep my fingers crossed for you! I hear they prefer silk pillows to roosts. I don't have any either, except the roo, who does roost, but pretty much everyone who has silkies says most can roost if there is absolutely no other option, but prefer not to. I guess they know they are special? All is well over here, bubbies keep growing, co-parents keep happily co-parenting, two broodies are sitting on fake eggs (separately!) while waiting for those Cochin ones, along with the incubator... soon!!! A picture that was too cute not to share: This one is for Cenere fans. Well, back to work - hopefully more pics tomorrow, has been raining too much lately to stalk the chickens.

So here's my 2 cents being I'm such apro at this NOT!!! I was lucky when I came to. My mommy excepting the last 2 babies that hatched and there was 8 days between the first and last hatch so maybe it's the horse shoe that was up my butt!!