May 2020 Hatch-A-Long

[Honora]

I have a chick! It’s a Swedish Flower hen & looks to be black & white. He was my second pip; the first pipped egg still has not zipped for some reason Hopefully will get some more pips & zips before long.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Hi all,

I hope you don't mind me hopping on this thread. I have 2 Brinsea mini incs on the go with a total of 11 viable silkies in. I started with 12 (all were fertile but I got an early quitter with a blood ring), so fertility is good. I have one detached air cell (shipped eggs) but it is doing OK so far. My first set is on day 12 and the other set is on day 8. All looking as it should - fingers crossed.

I do have a question though. My eggs are bantam silkies, but even then, there's a huge variation in size and weight between them. My smallest egg is going to be about 28g by day 18. I know bantams can hatch early. Is the small size of these little eggs making that even more likely? If so, should I consider lockdown earlier?

Please be kind, I am only finally being allowed to get chickens after years of nagging the husband

Thank you <3

Bex

Welcome to the hatch-a-long and congrats on finally getting through to your hubby! lol

Most of my Silkies hatch like standard chickens, late day 20 or day 21. You can stop turning them earlier if you would like and just wait to increase humidity based on air cell development. There's no harm in stopping turning as early as day 14.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Weirdness. How do a cushion and v comb make a single these genetics are killing me

Give it a couple days and maybe it will look different. Has it been over 3 weeks since Squach left? Because otherwise if could still be his!

 

[FortCluck]

Welcome to the hatch-a-long and congrats on finally getting through to your hubby! lol

Most of my Silkies hatch like standard chickens, late day 20 or day 21. You can stop turning them earlier if you would like and just wait to increase humidity based on air cell development. There's no harm in stopping turning as early as day 14.

I have so many silkies right now It's ridiculous I have 9 and I wasn't even supposed to have any

 

[SharW75]

With my bantam polish eggs they always hatch 2-3 days early so I always put them in lockdown 7 days early because I never know when they're going to come out.

They say that bantams aren't supposed to hatch early, but with my Polish I have definitely noticed her eggs are always early. I'm not sure if it's because I've been breeding her with standard size roosters or if it's because she's a bantam.

regardless I would put your eggs and lock down a couple days early just in case.

Glad I saw this post! I have several bantam Polish eggs incubating right now. Thinking I'll lock down on day 16. We're on day 8 today.

 

[SueT]

The last egg to hatch, #8, which meant it was laid on 4/8, is also the 8th egg to hatch. It pipped yesterday. Today, day 22, it took hours to unzip. The others that I watched took minutes. I was tempted to help, but sat on my hands and said you have to make it on your own.....
And it did! It's out, after about 5 hours of struggle.
So I got 8 out of 9 eggs. I think the remianing egg, which never pipped, is probably not going to, since the others of its breed hatched on day 20.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Glad I saw this post! I have several bantam Polish eggs incubating right now. Thinking I'll lock down on day 16. We're on day 8 right now.

I'm so jealous of all of the Polish babies hatching!

 

[FortCluck]

Give it a couple days and maybe it will look different. Has it been over 3 weeks since Squach left? Because otherwise if could still be his!

Yeah I got the Deathlayers the second week of April and set the eggs. She wasn't mating with Squatch, but with HeiHei. Squatch didn't mate anyone small because they'd run away.

She could be mating with the Bantam Brahma though. He's white and black (light Brahma). I didn't even want bantam brahmas but ended up with some of their eggs from a local farm. Now I'm obsessed with them.

Last time her 3 chicks were straight black with a bit of white. I don't have them anymore though.

I have others hatching today too. Looks to be Cochin deathlayer cross and Delaware deathlayer cross.

 

[FortCluck]

Glad I saw this post! I have several bantam Polish eggs incubating right now. Thinking I'll lock down on day 16. We're on day 8 today.

What colors?

I have a golden laced bantam polish. She's my only one.

 

[FortCluck]

I blame TSC for the silkies and the leghorns. You can't offer a chicken nutter some chicks for $0.50 a piece obviously they know you'll say yes considering you bought 53 meat chickens from them the week before.