Here they come, just-a rockin' in the heat...

[LaurenRitz]

Ok, so hatch day isn't until tomorrow and Sunday, but I can still make you stare at a silent incubator with me. Bwahahahaha!

2 Marans crosses, since she laid consistently through the winter. Her bloodline is JG, RIR, Marans.

6 Kraienkoppe x (the father is likely JG and RIR) although I recently discovered that these might be the pullet eggs from the Dorking-Sussex cross. I thought they were already laying, but just started getting their eggs in the last month. They look very much like the Kraienkoppe eggs, but they're getting larger.

4 with unknown mothers. I just picked the biggest eggs, but likely pullet eggs since these birds laid through the winter. That would make them Buckeye, BA and Ranger crosses with the JG/RIR base.

 

[Debbie292d]

Ok, so hatch day isn't until tomorrow and Sunday, but I can still make you stare at a silent incubator with me. Bwahahahaha!

View attachment 4304081

2 Marans crosses, since she laid consistently through the winter. Her bloodline is JG, RIR, Marans.

6 Kraienkoppe x (the father is likely JG and RIR) although I recently discovered that these might be the pullet eggs from the Dorking-Sussex cross. I thought they were already laying, but just started getting their eggs in the last month. They look very much like the Kraienkoppe eggs, but they're getting larger.

4 with unknown mothers. I just picked the biggest eggs, but likely pullet eggs since these birds laid through the winter. That would make them Buckeye, BA and Ranger crosses with the JG/RIR base.

Talk to them! I'm trying to prove eggs talked to in lockdown make friendlier chicks!

Wishing you a great hatch!

 

[LaurenRitz]

Oh, I do. And once somebody pips I'll put on their hatching music...(YT, hours of chick sounds)

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I’m going to get an incubator (even though I swore I never would) and start brooding some chicks (even though I swore I never would again) and I am definitely not going to talk to the eggs but I am hatching a plan to make the brooder open to the rest of the flock with hwc so they can be brooded with the flock in the barn. I don’t want people-friendly chicks but I would like easy integration and I’m hoping it will get the chicks in a good day/night rhythm since I will be putting them in a stall where they can get some natural light, hear the rooster and be on the periphery of all the day time action.

 

[LaurenRitz]

I’m going to get an incubator (even though I swore I never would) and start brooding some chicks (even though I swore I never would again) and I am definitely not going to talk to the eggs but I am hatching a plan to make the brooder open to the rest of the flock with hwc so they can be brooded with the flock in the barn. I don’t want people-friendly chicks but I would like easy integration and I’m hoping it will get the chicks in a good day/night rhythm since I will be putting them in a stall where they can get some natural light, hear the rooster and be on the periphery of all the day time action.

I built my brooder into the new coop. Once the chicks are all fluffy, they go out. After a week or two, I start letting them out to forage and the adults already know them.

 

[LaurenRitz]

I am definitely not going to talk to the eggs

I talk to the chicks because that's what a mother hen does. The chicks start "talking" in the egg and the broody talks back. So they get used to her voice and vocalizations even before they hatch. And she knows them as well, which is part of why some broodies reject chicks they haven't hatched.

I want them to have as close to a natural hatching event as I can manage.

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I am going to put my incubator in an outbuilding because the house is a tornado of likely accidents between the kids and the dog. So I won’t be able to talk to them. I would put the incubator in the barn if I thought possums couldn’t get to it. Although it would be possible to put the incubator in the brooder which will be predator proof so that’s another thought. Just not sure incubating in a barn is a good idea ambient temperature wise

 

[kattabelly]

I want them to have as close to a natural hatching event as I can manage.

I think this is how I've ended up with friendly "pet" chickens by accident.

I chat to incubator chicks a lot while they're still hatching, and as soon as they've hatched they come straight out of the incubator to fluff up inside a cloth tucked into the neck of my top.