Illinois...

[homeschoolin momma]

@Faraday40 , so how's the spitzies doing? Any more hatch? Are they nice and fluffy? I'm so happy that Jake's a daddy again. Hes such a good roo!

 

[Faraday40]

@Faraday40 , so how's the spitzies doing? Any more hatch? Are they nice and fluffy? I'm so happy that Jake's a daddy again. Hes such a good roo!

Two of the orp eggs have pips. All 6 spitz eggs hatched.

I moved the early chicks into the brooder.
Box of fluffiness:

Here are the 2 seramas. The will likely look just like Teddy & Jasper.

Here are 5 spitzes

Some are lighter/darker, but all look like pure Spitzhaubens.
Here's a dark & light one. I've learned from experience that color is no indication of gender. It will be at least 2 months before we can guess.

The 6th Spitz hatched this morning. There was a lot of peeping going on during the process but chicks always peep a lot when hatching. It's their way of announcing themselves, so other than look through the tiny window, I didn't think much about it. Life was the usual crazy getting everyone off to school, work, and driving carpool. When I went to move the chicks to the brooder, I noticed that the last chick had a bloody navel. Apparently its siblings decided to peck at the red belly bump. Ouch! I applied Veterycin and am keeping it in the incubator to see how it goes.

Spoiler: gross navel pic

It's possible some of the belly skin may have torn or the fluff plucked off. No organs are falling out. The wetness is from the Veterycin.

 

[homeschoolin momma]

They look beautiful!!

 

[homeschoolin momma]

@Faraday40
And 100%hatch rate to boot!

 

[Faraday40]

@Faraday40
And 100%hatch rate to boot!

Jake is certainly doing his job which makes my job of hatching the eggs possible. I wish Mr Wonderful were as fertile.

Here's DS carrying Mr Wonderful to bed. He's such a gentle rooster.


Both of Jewel's eggs hatched. Her chicks look lav. Once the chicks fluff up I should be able to tell the color better. I suspected Jewel carried the lav gene. Last summer she gave us a very light blue or very dark lav. She also gave us a couple blues, a recessive white, and a chocolate. I really liked the variety when we bred her to last year's rooster, but we decided to keep a lav roo instead. (No more recessive whites or chocolates.... unless our lav also happens to have those hidden genes)

Here's DS carrying the Lav Orp to bed. (We call him either Mini Moose - after his Daddy - or just the lavender roo.) It's hard to see in the pic but this boy is massive. He's only about 9 months and will continue to fill out until he reaches 18 months. That's a lot more growing to do!


There are 2 pipped orp eggs and 3 without pips left in the incubator. I can't wait to see what hatches.

 

[BReeder!]

I

Jake is certainly doing his job which makes my job of hatching the eggs possible. I wish Mr Wonderful were as fertile.

Here's DS carrying Mr Wonderful to bed. He's such a gentle rooster.
View attachment 1739892

Both of Jewel's eggs hatched. Her chicks look lav. Once the chicks fluff up I should be able to tell the color better. I suspected Jewel carried the lav gene. Last summer she gave us a very light blue or very dark lav. She also gave us a couple blues, a recessive white, and a chocolate. I really liked the variety when we bred her to last year's rooster, but we decided to keep a lav roo instead. (No more recessive whites or chocolates.... unless our lav also happens to have those hidden genes)

Here's DS carrying the Lav Orp to bed. (We call him either Mini Moose - after his Daddy - or just the lavender roo.) It's hard to see in the pic but this boy is massive. He's only about 9 months and will continue to fill out until he reaches 18 months. That's a lot more growing to do!
View attachment 1739907

There are 2 pipped orp eggs and 3 without pips left in the incubator. I can't wait to see what hatches.

I too say you are doing a wonderful job breeding orps for size. My silver blue laced and lavender are our two biggest hens and they are 4 of 5 months younger than the rest of our girls. They even outgrew my light brahmas now it looks like - I haven't weighed or measured. They are gentle giants too. We love them.

 

[Faraday40]

Thank you @BReeder! Feel free to post pics. I love seeing how "my babies" turn out. Orps from imported English bloodlines are very large. They have a slightly different build which makes them look more rounded. Add in all the orp fluff & they look far bigger than they really are. However, our lav orp roo is bigger than our turkey hen.

Tonight we candled some of DS's experiment eggs in the cooler-bator. (the white ones) All 6 Leghorns, the one serama, and all 3 Spitzes are developing. I can also confirm the 2 turkey eggs are developing. We can't really tell how well the orp eggs are doing because the shells are darker, but so far so good. We're visiting the Incuview incubator tomorrow.

leghorn egg

Meanwhile, I took a quick pic of Jewel's chicks.
The one in front could be a blue, but the one in back looks lav to me.
The injured Spitz is holding its own.

Spoiler: navel close up

Here's what it looks like after a couple hours. She's acting normally, so it's still a wait and see.

 

[cavemanrich]

Mr Wonderful looks like the size of a Jersey Giant
What does he tip the scale at??? (approximate)

 

[chickendreams24]

The plucking is the only part I would struggle with since I don't have a machine for it. I hand pluck quail and will do the same with turkeys or chickens since I only would process a few at once.

Just make sure you scald them before plucking. Although wet feathers smell something like wet dog they are so very much easier to pluck!

healthy foxes are no danger to humans or medium size dogs, might take an ankle biter size dog... if everyone backs away from them they get bold..they are sneaky anyway... by me they get chased so as soon as they see me they run... people put food out and don't scare them away and they get use to people. Now you have a half tame fox that doesn't stay away from people... Best to scare it every chance you have.... and put out a box trap.

Yeah a healthy fox shouldn't be a danger to people or medium/large pets. Definitely fox or any wild predator that loses it's fear of humans can become a danger to pets, livestock, and even more of a danger to humans especially very small children.

You know what kills me? You live in the city while I'm out in the country and you have more wildlife than I do.
I get the occasional coyote passing through, racoon and of course the weasel/mink that killed all those babies last year, but all in all, they aren't just sitting around. I literally dont have a hawk sitting on my house just waiting for the chickens to come out!

Speaking of eggs.....

I have 2 turkey eggs (Day 12) here in my good incubator & I think both are developing. The rest are in the school incubators throughout town.

The 3 Spitz eggs from @homeschoolin momma and the 2 serama eggs from Noodle are all developing. (Again, the rest are incubating elsewhere. They are all day 6 & 7.)

The 1/2 doz leghorn eggs from the farm bureau all have veins, but the development looks a few days behind the other white eggs. I hope they're just slow and not early quitters.

The orp eggs are hard to tell anything at this stage. I usually don't even think about tossing any until 2 weeks. By then it's easy to compare either a nice dark shadow or bright glowing ball.


Test hatch-
Tomorrow's hatch day, but we have 3 early chicks. 2 white seramas, 1 Spitz, and 2 more pipped spitz eggs. Orps are a larger breed, so I rarely have any hatch before day 21. These eggs are in my back up incubator. I'll post pics after they fluff up.

Chicks -
Yesterday, I put mama silkie & her 4 wk old littles back into the "Useless chicken" coop. What a horrible 1st night with a fox screaming just a few feet away from them! (One of the main reasons I turned on all the exterior lights.) Then this morning, they experience their 1st snow..... and what a snow!!!

Although the snow is melting into a dense, heavy, slushy substance, those big snow clusters just keep coming. The trees are full, so they're dropping huge snowballs that splat on the ground - or my head. UGH!

5 out of 6 Spitz eggs have already hatched. All 5 look pure at this point.
Both seramas are out.
None of the orp eggs have pips yet.

Tomorrow is the real hatch day. I decided to keep the chicks in the incubator until tomorrow.

One reason for the brooder delay was DD's Spanish project. In true 8th grade form, she let me know that she had a big project about Colombia due tomorrow. She had all the work done for her presentation, but for fun they need to prepare a food from their chosen country. She chose Arepas and had already submitted the recipe. (Unlike most kids, she does all her work on her own and rarely even tells me about such projects.)

I'm always up for cooking something new, but man did I have a hard time finding the correct flour! It requires pre-cooked white cornmeal. It took me 4 stores and 2.5 hours to buy it. I almost bought some "Colombian coffee" instead. Far easier.

Arepas are a fried dough. (We made a version with some cheese in the center). It's usually sliced to make a pocket & filled with a wide variety of things. For dinner I made black bean, onion, garlic combo & sprinkled some Jack cheese. I also made a tuna, onion, avocado filling. Both were good but very, very filling. After dinner, DD & I began cooking for the class. We decided to just make the cheese filled dough. Now it's 10:30, the kitchen is finally closed, and I can go to bed.

Sounds like a fun project!

Two of the orp eggs have pips. All 6 spitz eggs hatched.

I moved the early chicks into the brooder.
Box of fluffiness:
View attachment 1739212

Here are the 2 seramas. The will likely look just like Teddy & Jasper.
View attachment 1739213

Here are 5 spitzes
View attachment 1739214

Some are lighter/darker, but all look like pure Spitzhaubens.
Here's a dark & light one. I've learned from experience that color is no indication of gender. It will be at least 2 months before we can guess.
View attachment 1739211


The 6th Spitz hatched this morning. There was a lot of peeping going on during the process but chicks always peep a lot when hatching. It's their way of announcing themselves, so other than look through the tiny window, I didn't think much about it. Life was the usual crazy getting everyone off to school, work, and driving carpool. When I went to move the chicks to the brooder, I noticed that the last chick had a bloody navel. Apparently its siblings decided to peck at the red belly bump. Ouch! I applied Veterycin and am keeping it in the incubator to see how it goes.

Spoiler: gross navel pic

It's possible some of the belly skin may have torn or the fluff plucked off. No organs are falling out. The wetness is from the Veterycin.
View attachment 1739224

I love the box of fluffies!!

 

[chickendreams24]

For those that have or are incubating turkey eggs what do you run your humidity at for hatching and lockdown?

Also do they need the same temperatures as chicken eggs?