Important Facts When Hatching chickens !!!!

[chesterbarton78]

In this thread i just wanted to tell first time hatchers some important facts about hatching.

1) A chickens lays an egg boy, girl, boy, girl, ect. For example you will need to 10 eggs in if you wanted 5 hens or 7 eggs in if you wanted 3 or 4 hens.You will need to dispose 50% of the chicks.

2) If you are crossbreeding hens you will need to expect the unexpected because you never know what the out come will be. for example, if you crossed a polish and a pekin bantams the out come you will get will be something with feathery feet and has a small crest.

3)Raising a chick to a 20 week old pullet you will spend £3.50 0n food per head. So it is cheap to raise a chick up to adult hood then buying a fully mature hen.

4)You can sex chick at around 3 days old using a method called " feather sexing " You will have to look it up because it is very hard to explain.

5)if your hatching chicks it is better if you candle the eggs before they hatch and take out the in fertile eggs because they can pousin the fertile eggs.

HAPPY HATCHING

 

[Wyandottes7]

Good information in general, but I have a few corrections:

In theory, a chicken produces 50% male and 50% female eggs. However, they do not alternate girl, boy, girl, boy. It is all a matter of probablity. If you collect ten eggs, you could get any combination of chicks. I've had all female hatches, and some hatches with mostly males. If you collected all of the eggs a hen could ever lay, chances are you would have 50% males and 50% females. But, in any given clutch, the actual amount of males vs. females will differ.

In some cases, raising your own chicks will be profitable, especially if the cost of feed is low. However, buying older birds can be more profitable.

Not all chickens can be feather sexed. Only if they have been specifically bred for that, or are a certain breed, can this work. You have to have two lines of chickens, a slow-feathering female line, and a fast feathering male line. You breed a bird from each of these lines together, and the chicks can be feathered sex. Otherwise, chicks can not be feather sexed.