Incubating Silkies with other eggs? yay or nay?

[chanamarie]

So, a friend of mine was supposed to bring me some Trader Joe eggs today and I was gonna give them a try. Then I found out his local TJ's doesn't carry the fertile eggs. The same day, I found someone local selling Silkie hatching eggs, so I thought I'd get some of them this week (got the hatching bug).

But...last night I got a message from someone saying they have Wholefoods fertile eggs for me! But now I also have my heart set on these Silkies, lol!

So I've read conflicting things about hatching silkies with other eggs. Should I go for both? Or should I try the Wholefoods first and at another time try the Silkies?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

So, a friend of mine was supposed to bring me some Trader Joe eggs today and I was gonna give them a try. Then I found out his local TJ's doesn't carry the fertile eggs. The same day, I found someone local selling Silkie hatching eggs, so I thought I'd get some of them this week (got the hatching bug).

But...last night I got a message from someone saying they have Wholefoods fertile eggs for me! But now I also have my heart set on these Silkies, lol!

So I've read conflicting things about hatching silkies with other eggs. Should I go for both? Or should I try the Wholefoods first and at another time try the Silkies?

I'd say it depends on the size of the silkie eggs. I have some pet quality silkies in my original flock that lay a normal sized egg and those I could incubate with the other eggs. A couple months ago I purchased some good quality silkie eggs from @RubyNala97 and they were little. I had already pulled my spitz eggs and 4 of my large green eggs to go with them when they arrived and I should never have incubated my greens with these little silkie eggs. I had to run the humidity higher than I ever incubate at because the silkies lost moisture much faster (which was ok for the spitz as they are medium white eggs and loose fairly fast) but the big green eggs couldn't loose enough moisture. I had one drown in the excess fluid and one that managed to pip through the bottom that I was able to save, but had it not pipped all the way through the egg, would have drowned as well. So I think size is a BIG factor.

The little guy in my avatar is one of the 12 silkies that hatched.

 

[FridayYet]

I'd focus on the Silkie eggs and incubate based on them, if Silkies are really what you want. But go ahead and throw in some WholeFoods eggs if you have them, since I've heard mixed results on hatching %, Basically if any hatch they will be a bonus. (Plus they are relatively cheap and you can always try again later.) Did you want leghorn-based production layers or just doing it for a fun hatching experiment?

But if you incubate them together, make your humidity changes based on the Silkie eggs so they have the best chance at success.

 

[chanamarie]

The Wholefoods eggs fell through (he bought their regular eggs), so it's just gonna be Silkies! Thanks for your help.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

The Wholefoods eggs fell through (he bought their regular eggs), so it's just gonna be Silkies! Thanks for your help.

Good luck!!!