Iowa Blues - Breed thread and discussion

[mrheinz77]

Quote:
Interesting. I will need to see how my hatch goes. I set 22 Iowa Blue eggs for the NYD hatch. I'll have to see how they do. I am running my incubator around 40% humidity. Prior to that, it has been running in the 20%'s since the humidity went away in September. I know BHep does dry hatches and she hatched 4 Iowa Blues from me. It'll be interesting to see what others state.

Chookschick, I know where you can get some Iowa Blue eggs. I need to get Lifesong Farm's order filled first and then I should have some available as long as they keep laying.

Lifesong Farm, a dry hatch is filling the water trough with water when you set the eggs and not doing anything with humidity until lockdown. Then you raise the humidity at lock down. Maybe BHep will join in on the dry hatch.

 

[mrheinz77]

Ok, I have a question. I have a young cockerel (the first that I have hatched so far) that looks like this cockerel of Kari's but he has some brown feathers too. Will he lose those when he molts? he is probably 10-12 weeks old.
Thanks,
Jim

I borrowed this picture from Kari. I hope that was ok.

 

[ChooksChick]

Quote:
What was your humidity at and what would you say to try differently? This will be my second year hatching and i am not sure what a dry hatch is.

My humidity is set at 38% on the RCom, which works perfectly for everything else. There's a link to dry hatching in my signature that describes how I use my 6 styrofoam incubators. It's the most successful method I've used, and it works really well regardless of ambient humidity. The RCom is a self-enclosed table-top fully digital plug and play machne. You literally do nothing the entire 21 days.

 

[Lifesong Farm]

Chookschick, I know where you can get some Iowa Blue eggs. I need to get Lifesong Farm's order filled first and then I should have some available as long as they keep laying.

I was right you are such an enabler. LOL


On another note I remember someone talking about Privett Hatcheries Iowa Blues. Were they any good? Are they even worth thinking about ordering from. I was thinking about ordering from Sandhill but i don't want any of their other breeds and I don't have anyone else to go in on an order with me.​

 

[BHep]

Quote:
Interesting. I will need to see how my hatch goes. I set 22 Iowa Blue eggs for the NYD hatch. I'll have to see how they do. I am running my incubator around 40% humidity. Prior to that, it has been running in the 20%'s since the humidity went away in September. I know BHep does dry hatches and she hatched 4 Iowa Blues from me. It'll be interesting to see what others state.

Chookschick, I know where you can get some Iowa Blue eggs. I need to get Lifesong Farm's order filled first and then I should have some available as long as they keep laying.

Lifesong Farm, a dry hatch is filling the water trough with water when you set the eggs and not doing anything with humidity until lockdown. Then you raise the humidity at lock down. Maybe BHep will join in on the dry hatch.

I have a Dickey to incubate and a Brinsea ECO to hatch. I incubate dry everything, chickens, Quail, Pheasants, ducks, peacocks....all the time. Right now my Dickey is running at 100* and 20% humidity, the humidity varies according to the weather, a few days ago it was 16%., sometimes it is up to 30%.
At lock down, I move the eggs to the Brinsea and fill both reservoirs and add a scrunched up paper towel to 1 reservoir. It stays at 50-55%.

I hatched 5 IB from Jim.

 

[Myabcs3]

I am really going to take pics and post this evening! BHep, I can see brown in your chicks, but mine are all dark. Pitch black. How old are your chicks? Mine would be 11 days...So, is the brown desirable for a birchen?

And Jim, they are terrific chicks. Running circles in the brooder box around my blue orps that are a week older! Inquisitive little buggers. Was really hoping more would have made it. And you are first on my list if the cuckoo girls ever get going again!

 

[ChooksChick]

I always do dry incubation in anything other than my rcom. It has such powerful circulation that it dries eggs out if I don't keep it up. I had weird congealed eggs the first small batch when I got it...then I went with the instructions. Several hundred healthy chicks have since been hatched in it, averaging about 15 a week, as I double-stack them and stagger hatches since it doesn't get bumped up for hatching.

Thanks for the offer on eggs- I'm buried in breeds and projects right now, so I'll just go over to MyABCs3's to visit them!

For now...

 

[karimw]

Quote:
Any way IBs can be sexed as chicks by markings/coloring?

I can usually get a pretty good idea once they start feathering out. The pullets' feathers come in nice and even and the cockerels look like they were run over with a lawn mower. The one thing I dislike about this breed is they are not pretty as teenagers

Their personalities make up for it though. I always feel bad for my Cochin broodies because they can't keep up with them. They fly and want to roost very early.

 

[karimw]

Quote:
One thing about the birchen cockerels is most will have red on them and it gets stronger with age. I culled all the ones that had this. The little roo in the picture never did get red feathers so I had high hopes for him, unfortunately he was killed by a raccoon.

 

[karimw]

I don't know if humidity is an issue with hatching them or not. One thing I have noticed is they seem to either hatch early or not at all. I've never been able to successfull help one either. I've got 58 in the NYD hatch and every one I checked last night is growing. Goodness! What will I do if they all hatch!