Susan Skylark
Songster
I’ve tried isolating a couple hens and a young ginger male for a month for hatching eggs, between his youth and the cold, I got 4 male chicks (2 mutant) out of 13 eggs (7 infertile, 2 died at hatch). My American pansy male is getting old so I swapped him out for my inexperienced ginger boy thinking I’ll get a couple more chicks out of him, the temps warmed up and after a two week reset for the hens, they all stopped laying and or were bullying my poor timid male, I was so annoyed I tossed them all back in the big pen and didn’t even try to collect eggs. Jump ahead a week, temps are still decent (40-50), I pulled eggs from the main flock for 2 days (about 2 dozen) and tossed them in the incubator. I had a lady call out of the blue who wants 10 one day old chicks in a couple weeks so I added another dozen eggs to the incubator the next day, which overloads my turner a bit, but with my recent fertility rates and hatch issues I figured I’d need extras to fill this order and have a few for replacements. Today was day 3 on the original 2 dozen, I figured I’d lose a few and make room in the turner. I pulled one egg out of 24! This is ridiculous! When I spend 2 months planning a hatch I get bumpkus but when I just throw random eggs in the incubator I’m going to have quail coming out my ears. McDonalds law states the Murphy was an optimist, I think he’s onto something! Anybody need some quail?
