- Sep 6, 2014
- 2
- 0
- 7
Hello everyone,
Jim and Ann here from North Carolina. We have been playing around with a small flock of Americanas for about a year now. About one month ago, we decided to expand the flock and add a couple of breeds to the group. This was our first time trying to incubate eggs and we were able to obtain some American Bresse and Jersey Giant hatching eggs via the mail. We set a dozen of each breed and 6 of our mixed Americanas. The information on this site really helped us throughout the incubation process.
Unfortunately, over half of the hatching eggs for the Bresse and Jersey Giants candled as duds (infertile) at 7 and/or 14 days. However, we had some that did develop. After culling the duds, we had 5 Bresse, 6 jersey Giants and 5 of our mixed chicks left. We lost one that failed to unzip completely overnight on day 20 (it was full term and in the correct position). We are at day 22 now and we have 4 strong chicks of each breed and one egg is left in the incubator (we did the float test on the final 3 eggs, but 2 failed and on eggtopsy showed that they probably died before reaching the pipping stage). We have small hope that the last egg will hatch.
All in all not a bad result considering that half of the eggs were not even fertile off the bat. I can really see the difference in the chicks from the mailed eggs verses the ones from our flock. Our chicks were strong and hearty and the first to hatch. The mail ordered chicks tended to be slightly smaller and weaker so we have been focusing on making sure they are eating and drinking. They are much stronger today and all of them seem to be doing very well in the brooder. We are looking forward to learning as much as we can on this site and we have recommended it to several of our friends.
Regards!
Jim and Ann here from North Carolina. We have been playing around with a small flock of Americanas for about a year now. About one month ago, we decided to expand the flock and add a couple of breeds to the group. This was our first time trying to incubate eggs and we were able to obtain some American Bresse and Jersey Giant hatching eggs via the mail. We set a dozen of each breed and 6 of our mixed Americanas. The information on this site really helped us throughout the incubation process.
Unfortunately, over half of the hatching eggs for the Bresse and Jersey Giants candled as duds (infertile) at 7 and/or 14 days. However, we had some that did develop. After culling the duds, we had 5 Bresse, 6 jersey Giants and 5 of our mixed chicks left. We lost one that failed to unzip completely overnight on day 20 (it was full term and in the correct position). We are at day 22 now and we have 4 strong chicks of each breed and one egg is left in the incubator (we did the float test on the final 3 eggs, but 2 failed and on eggtopsy showed that they probably died before reaching the pipping stage). We have small hope that the last egg will hatch.
All in all not a bad result considering that half of the eggs were not even fertile off the bat. I can really see the difference in the chicks from the mailed eggs verses the ones from our flock. Our chicks were strong and hearty and the first to hatch. The mail ordered chicks tended to be slightly smaller and weaker so we have been focusing on making sure they are eating and drinking. They are much stronger today and all of them seem to be doing very well in the brooder. We are looking forward to learning as much as we can on this site and we have recommended it to several of our friends.
Regards!
and Welcome To BYC!
