Marans Thread for Posting Pics of Your Eggs, Chicks and Chickens

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Quote:
It's about tracking the eggs' collective average weight loss and hoping to achieve ~12-14% weight loss by Day 18. Humidity is a wildly constant variable, but the weight loss target is consistent whether we're talking about a 40-gram banty egg or a 65-gram Marans egg. If I need more weight loss, I let the RH linger down at the lower level a bit longer...if I need to minimize weight loss for the last few days prior to Day 18, I'll boost the RH.

As for opening the 'bator...well, some folks still turn their eggs by hand and a broody hen gets up to poop/eat/drink.

here are a couple of quotes from https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=113681&p=3...

Buddy Henry (quoting Bill Worrell) :

An egg must lose approximately 11% to 14% of its weight during the incubation cycle. That is, it has to have some evaporation of the contents of the egg itself in order for the chick to have room inside of the egg to develop and still have room to turn in the egg so it can spin around and pip the shell. Where most folks go wrong is they add water to often or they add too much to the incubator and cause the humidity to increase to levels that slow or stop the evaporation process. This causes the chick to grow too large inside the egg. The chick will pip the shell on day 21 and never go any farther. Or they wont pip at all because they puncture the internal membrane of the egg and there they are met with a gush of water, causing them to drown. Have you ever wondered why this happens? I sure did.

Quote:
I hope this helps. I'm not trying to sell anything to anybody, but I would be lost without using this laborious method.

 

[pinkchick]

Update on the broody. I now have 2

My first broody and her sister!

Moved both gals yesterday to their new broody house, I suspect that they will settle down soon and go back to setting. I have not transferred eggs out of the bator yet to them. If all is going well today they will both get eggs.

eta: I should have posted that in the hatch festivus thread....'der!

 

[gamebirdsonly]

One of my BCM laid this egg yesterday.

Here it is next to a Cukoo Marans egg

 

[pinkchick]

Look at you go Gamebirds!!!!!!!! Nice Egg!

 

[Freckle Face Farm]

Quote:
Congrats on the new chicks

 

[AHappychick]

Quote:
It's about tracking the eggs' collective average weight loss and hoping to achieve ~12-14% weight loss by Day 18. Humidity is a wildly constant variable, but the weight loss target is consistent whether we're talking about a 40-gram banty egg or a 65-gram Marans egg. If I need more weight loss, I let the RH linger down at the lower level a bit longer...if I need to minimize weight loss for the last few days prior to Day 18, I'll boost the RH.

As for opening the 'bator...well, some folks still turn their eggs by hand and a broody hen gets up to poop/eat/drink.

here are a couple of quotes from https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=113681&p=3...

Buddy Henry (quoting Bill Worrell) :

An egg must lose approximately 11% to 14% of its weight during the incubation cycle. That is, it has to have some evaporation of the contents of the egg itself in order for the chick to have room inside of the egg to develop and still have room to turn in the egg so it can spin around and pip the shell. Where most folks go wrong is they add water to often or they add too much to the incubator and cause the humidity to increase to levels that slow or stop the evaporation process. This causes the chick to grow too large inside the egg. The chick will pip the shell on day 21 and never go any farther. Or they wont pip at all because they puncture the internal membrane of the egg and there they are met with a gush of water, causing them to drown. Have you ever wondered why this happens? I sure did.

Quote:
I hope this helps. I'm not trying to sell anything to anybody, but I would be lost without using this laborious method.

wow that is so interesting

On a side note my second best Marans hen that came out of molt has been laying.

I thought that after her molt the eggs would be really dark again like her first few pullet eggs were and although they were dark, not nearly as much, then today she laid a supper dark egg so I guess she still had the coloring just took a week to kick in lol I will never understand how they change so much from one day to the next. Now if I can just keep them this dark, I did feed her a bunch of mealyworms the other day and have boosted their protein to the highest yet safest levels so maybe that helped also. I am getting the biopod soon and I hope the constant supply of grubs will keep the eggs dark, at least thats the plan

 

[kathyinmo]

I just gathered a few eggs. The outside ones are Cuckoo Marans. The gigantic one is from an unknown pullet. All of my Marans are just now at POL .... yup, just a bunch of newbies.

 

[berkeleysprings]

king suro 20 by r-com update by randy the carpenter.... the incubator has been working very well the temp stays to with in 1/10 of a degree and the humidity is perfect to with in 1.......(I set it to 43 and it stays there ) this Saturday the 13th of march will be day 17/18 and all I need to do is take it off “the swing set thing “. I have 21 of my own eggs some as old as 16 days and some were fresh that I put in .i have incubated in a little giant incubator around 60 eggs and lucky me never had a egg explode. I never bother to candle eggs because I cant see anything so I have no idea how many might hatch . I think I saw on tv somewhere that alligators can hatch more males depending on the temp of the soil. Well someone(bev davis or budy hennery ) crossed my wheatens with a gator because I hatched 7 chicks a wile back an d got 6 roos ……lol lol ……I am hopeful this incubator will do well but I am some what uncertain to what I will set the humidity to for the last few days , anyone have any thoughts on humidity? ….
I just thought of something . bev is closer to gators !

 

[geebs]

Berkley Springs: Alligator marans cross..... So PHUNNY.... I fell under my desk...

 

[jlapham]

Post pictures good idea. I'll need to get my camera fired up again. Great idea I need to put some updated pic on my web pages. We are starting to get geared up here at back to basics, I'll get some and get them posted. Great Idea!