My current breeding project birds

[averytds]

Well darn.

My BB roo isn't going anywhere soon but maybe any of the Xed gals from him Xed with an AM roo I'll be getting will net something faster growing. The only processor I can find wants you to make the appt as soon as you get the birds. I had no idea what would be a good time frame to expect.

No idea on the eggs. We had that happen with our first hatch from ours, 9 out of 20, but I just figured we messed something up. Had it happen several times last year and now again this year to lots of people in my area with shipped eggs. I was thinking too high humidity and they drowned myself.

 

[dancingbear]

Quote:
What's AM?

We talked about the humidity, but he hatches a lot of eggs, and he's pretty good. The humidity was a little higher than I would have had it, but that may not be significant. He had quail eggs in the same bator, and they hatched. He's got eggs from several species, spread around through several bators. It helps to pinpoint where the problem is, because if there's a problem with the eggs themselves, it'll be the same though all of them, but if it's a problem with a bator, it's unlikely to happen with all of them.

 

[Germaine_11.20]

Dancing bear--have you weighed your roo? If so, how much does he weigh? Mine looks to be getting a little broader but not like yours. My hens are getting big though.

 

[dancingbear]

No, I only have a lame little scale that goes to 5 lbs. I had a people scale, we used to step on it, get our own weights, step on again holding a bird, and subtract to get the difference. But it quit working right. Digital, the numbers were all over the place.

I'll be getting a 50 lb. capacity postal scale soon, then I can tell you what he weighs.

 

[dancingbear]

duplicate post deleted

 

[averytds]

Sorry, Ameraucana. Sometimes I get tired of spelling it out. I've got a dozen straight run chicks ordered and 13 eggs in the bator now, so surely I'll have 1 roo amongst them all.

My last batch with all the developed but didn't hatch chicks were 1 shipped Silkie egg out of 2 and 8 out of 18 from my Xs.

I've been hearing about a lot of the same thing for my area, so I was thinking humidity possible, but also maybe some weird weather related thing. Like how hatch rates go down in the summer.

 

[dancingbear]

I talked to my friend again, it looks like fertility was pretty good, all things considered. I had about 47 hens with one DC roo. Out of 5 dozen eggs, 42 develop. On the clears, he doesn't know if all were just infertile, or if some died very early. So at least 70% fertile. Not bad for such a high hen-to-roo ratio. Of the 42, 8 hatched, but one had to be culled because it's innards started coming out the navel. Of the remaining 34, only a few looked like they dies at around 9 or 10 days, the rest looked like they were full term, but most didn't absorb the yolk, or pip. A few pipped the membrane, but not the shell. I'm thinking maybe the humidity was too high, from looking at a chart in Gail Damerow's Chicken Health Handbook.

I'll let you know how the live chicks do, and what happens with my own hatch when I get it going. It'll be a few days.

 

[becky3086]

I think the humidity was too high too, absorbing the yolk problems seem to stem from that.
I found this thread very interesting. I am hoping to do something similiar with my Welsummer roo and some up and growing chicks. I have white rocks, dominiques and Naked Necks that I hope to breed with that roo and see what kind of meat bird that I get from them. I would love some cornish to mix in and I am sure I will find some eventually.

 

[dancingbear]

The chicks are 8 days old today, my friend weighed them. there's one that's 3 oz., the others are all 4 oz. I've never weighed chicks before, so I don't know how good that is. He said he thinks they're really big. I haven't seen them yet, his camera's broken, and we don't live very close.

I'm about to start a 'bator full of eggs myself, in the next day or two.

 

[averytds]

IDK. Ours are about 2 wks. I'll see if I can find something to weigh them and you could compare.