I was thinking of hatching my own eggs?

[TGWTHF]

yeah, we've recently had a few pekins and a silkie.. we had 2 silkies but one passed the other day at a terribly young age..
ANYWAY lets not talk about that haha
but I was thinking of buying a Silkie egg and possibly some other eggs, because I really want a baby silkie to raise but i'm then faced with the chance of it being a cockerel haha
do you think I should try?
also could anyone send me some links to some things I should know before even trying to start hatching my own eggs? like books or online websites or something.
please and thank you :3

 

[TGWTHF]

also linking things like good accessories to have ready for the hatching and stuff and what sort of food they would/should be eating from hatching, is there a special type of food I'd have to get for them?

 

[sumi]

This article is very good:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101

It should tell you everything you need to know. Feed wise: get them some chick starter crumbs. You can buy medicated or non-medicated, it's your choice. The medicated starter contains small amounts of drugs, usually amprolium which is a thiamine blocker and helps prevent coccidiosis. It's not a complete preventative though. Chicks can still get cocci even when fed medicated starter, but it does help their resistance to the disease.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

DO NOT feed medicated feed if you vaccinate for coccidiosis because the vaccine is a weakened form of the coccidiosis organism and medicated starter feed will kill off the vaccine before your chicks receive any benefit from the vaccination.