Musings of a twenty-something hobby hatcher: Whole Foods Fertile Chicken Eggs / Rock Island -- UPDAT

[123RedBeard]

Gives a whole new meaning to whole foods ... Complete charming cute chickens!

 

[Sonya9]

Will be interesting to see if most or all are pullets.

 

[MisfitMarie]

UPDATE: Three-weeks old!
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Well, it's been an awesome past few weeks since completing my college degree. I went from both full-time work and full-time classes to just working... no more classes! I have free time now that I didn't have before, and I've been finally getting around to completing various projects. As an example, I finally got around to painting my chicken coop and planting lots of flowers around it:

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The Whole Foods chicks are not three weeks old and thriving. I will be holding back one pullet for myself and giving away the others to family.

Two of the chicks are feathering in completely white; however, one is feathering in blonde/buff with a speckled feather pattern. They are in a brooder with some bantam chicks that I had hatched, which are the darker chicks in the pictures:

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I have no idea what sex they all are; however, I have a suspicion that the two white-feathered chicks are males and the little buff is a female. This is just a guess based on how quickly the little buff's tail feathers came in compared to the small white ones. This is also the case with their combs, since the two white chicks have a slightly larger (and more detailed) comb.

One of the white chicks is rather assertive, always charging at my hand when I reach into the brooder.

But... I could easily be completely wrong. Watch me end up with exactly opposite to what I just guessed.

Any ideas on breed? I'm sure they're mixed offspring of fantastic layers.

 

[123RedBeard]

So .. how are they doing now?

Were you right about the sexes?

Any current pictures?

 

[MisfitMarie]

So .. how are they doing now?

Were you right about the sexes?

Any current pictures?

Well, I was correct in guessing the sexes.

The two white chicks ended up being males, and the buff-colored chick ended up being a female.

I kept the female and named her Reno.

I gave away the two males. They grew into fully white roosters, and I'll try to track down some pics.




And here's the most current picture I have of her, taken last month.
Her comb has become a deep red since then and seemingly tripled in size this past week. Yesterday, she started squatting! So I'm looking forward to some eggs!

 

[123RedBeard]

Thanks for the update!

Very Pretty Pullet!

 

[evitachu]

Amazing and inspiring. What breed is Reno?

 

[MisfitMarie]

I'm not sure what breed Reno is... When I called, I was told that they were "White Rock crosses" ... Maybe White Rock and RIR?

They told me over the phone that all of their chickens were white, and sounded kind of confused when I was describing a brown chicken.

So I'm not sure how accurate that information was that was given to me. The person I talked to didn't seem to completely understand.

 

[Dubrovnik]

Reno looks like a very pretty Red Star to me. This is a sex-link hybrid which can be made by crossing a Rhode Island Red with a silver or white hen (maybe a White Rock) that carries the silver gene. So the employee who said it was a White Rock cross was telling the truth. Red Star hybrids are also called Red Sex Links, Cinnamon Queens and Golden Comets. They tend to be reddish fore and whitish aft. Male Red Stars are whitish like their mommies.
The Red Star is an extremely productive dual purpose hen with hybrid vigor, but I have read that they have short lifespans because almost all of their energy and nutrients go into egg production. So they need lots of protein and calcium, you could try giving them yogurt or milk or leftover cat or dog food.
I've got a 9 day old carton of Rock Island eggs from Safeway in my still air Little Giant on Day 4 right now. They are oval, no pointy end, and light brown. Never incubated eggs before and am uncertain whether any are developing. The air cells appear to be very small so I put a little paper bag of clay cat litter in the incubator to soak up some moisture, since the H is around 45 and this may be too high for a dry hatch.
If none hatch I may have to try Trader Joe's or Walmart fertile eggs.

 

[MisfitMarie]

Reno looks like a very pretty Red Star to me. This is a sex-link hybrid which can be made by crossing a Rhode Island Red with a silver or white hen (maybe a White Rock) that carries the silver gene. So the employee who said it was a White Rock cross was telling the truth. Red Star hybrids are also called Red Sex Links, Cinnamon Queens and Golden Comets....

Thanks, Dubrovnik!

She is one of my favorites, for sure! Such a calm, sweet temperament. And she lays the most ENORMOUS eggs! I constantly get double-yolkers from her!

Here she is, full-fledged hen and laying huge eggs nearly EVERY DAY (my best layer):




I adore my Whole Foods hen!