JUNE HATCH-A-LONG come join in

[abooth]

My second broody is sitting tight the past two days. I think she is in "lockdown". She usually comes out of the coop when I bring their water in the morning but yesterday and today she stayed in. So I think she must be getting close. She has 3 eggs but the only time I candled them one was much farther along than the other two. I am getting excited.

Also the chicks that were hatched by the broody that got killed have integrated themselves into my existing flock. They can fit thru the fencing and so they have the run of the whole place. They found my silkies yesterday and adopted the two hens and the roo as their new parents. But even my mean old rocks are accepting them. It is truly strange because I have had such trouble in the past integrating birds in with this flock. Crazy...but great. I will post a pic of them with the silkies for you guys. It is a beautiful sight.

 

[abooth]

Here are the chicks with their new family! The pic are blurry because it was kind of dark but you get the idea right?

 

[Kedreeva]

@ Abooth: omg they are so poofy. I love it. The chicks are really cute too, glad to hear they are getting along ok.

 

[Kedreeva]

Well, the hatch is done and I've ended it with 5/6 hatched. I cracked open the sixth egg to see what went wrong, and it looks like it just gave up around lockdown date, which is the last time I saw it wobble. Very sad day.

As for those that did hatch, I ended up with 4 buff polish and 1 'blue' polish, although it remains to be seen whether it will actually be blue in full plumage. Three of the babies (30, 26S, and 28) have got beards.... go figure. None of the parents have beards, so I will be darned if I know where that came from. Maybe they won't actually feather into beards. We haven't named them, since they may be going to stay with some friends instead of with us, so I'm just calling them by their lay dates >.> They are very friendly, climbing onto my hands when I reach in... I will be sad to see them go.

I candled the next batch of 5.... 2 of them I had to ditch. One I had thought I would have to give up on because it was looking awfully clear.... but it turns out that it was badly infected. The other WAS doing fine, but it appears to have given up very early on. The vein pattern was totally messed up and there was no movement from inside when I candled it, and the edges of the 'dark' area that should have been the veins looked an awfully lot like bacterial growth. After cracking it open, I am thinking it may have died to the bacteria from the other shell, as it's shell was very porous and it was sitting next to the bad egg. I feel bad for not taking it out sooner, but I'm not sure it would have helped.

I'm going to switch to the July thread now, good luck to those of you with June babies left! I will keep my fingers crossed for you!

 

[PandoraTaylor]

Pip #1 is a light brahma and has completed hatching today!

Can't see anyone else doing anything......yet (very small plastic window in the Brower)

will keep you posted as I know more.

 

[chickenmeadow]

abooth: Great pics, thanks for sharing! The whites (fluffy cotton balls) are the adults & the goldens are the chicks, right?

PandoraTaylor: Congrats on Pip #1!

Kedreeva: 5 out of 6! Good for you, congrats! Are the beards still there?

 

[Kedreeva]

Yeah, the beards will stay for a while if my first hatch is any indication. First hatch is ~4 weeks now and Fox still has a beard growing. Here's a pic of 2 from the first hatch at 3 weeks: the one on the left has no beard and the one on the right has one. They were both born that way and stayed that way! Fingers crossed they all stay bearded, they're really cute that way.

 

[abooth]

kedreeva what beautiful chicks! congrats!

 

[Penturner]

Well my June hatch count is 3 Seramas from the incubator (3of6) and 3 more from our hen (3of3) Best month so far.

 

[chickenmeadow]

Quote:
That's great, congratulations! I've heard that Seramas are hard to hatch.