Naked Neck/Turken Thread

I think I found the reason why the broodies crack the eggs. I am not sure, so I hope you guys would tell me is that possible.
My grandma's dog died, so she had a lot of leftover bread so she gave it to chickens. They were eating it every day for about two weeks and then she set the broodies. I think that they were eating bread instead of their regular feed because they like it more, and that it made the egg shells thiner and weaker.
 
I think that this year full NN won't hatch. At this point I'm hoping for anything to hatch.

I also don't like barred but lot of people love it.


I have been having a lot better hatches earlier this year. Mostly 70's and 80% hatches. I run 8 to 10 hens per rooster. I think the roosters have their picks on the hens and don't mate with some. JMHO.


I think I found the reason why the broodies crack the eggs. I am not sure, so I hope you guys would tell me is that possible.
My grandma's dog died, so she had a lot of leftover bread so she gave it to chickens. They were eating it every day for about two weeks and then she set the broodies. I think that they were eating bread instead of their regular feed because they like it more, and that it made the egg shells thiner and weaker.


I wouldn't think that the bread for that short if a time would weaken the shell that much, I feed mine a lot of left over and it includes some bread scraps. They do still get their feed though. They really love the scraps they won't hardly let me in the run they are wanting them that bad.
 
Well I believe the hatch maybe over, but I'm keeping them in there until Saturday to be sure.

This wasn't a very good hatch I'm going to call it 46% even though it likes a .0001 being that.

I was worried there'd be a lot of barred babies, but if I looked right there are only going to be 5 that are barred. I like the barred for selling people like it, me I'm not a barred fan but its nice to have a couple around for producing some. There were reddish looking ones, yellowish looking ones and chipmunk looking ones and black ones also in the lot.

ETA: all that hatched were Nakwd Necked. I figured this rooster was a double genes rooster just by the few feathers he had maybe four. Now tge bad news he's tge one that I've been talking about that has turned out to be aggressive. So he's the one leaving. Hopefully some if these babies will be double gened to continue on.

Bummer on the hatch rate. I'm not a fan of barring on NNs either. I culled the one I had, but also because he had feathered shanks and was meaner than I'd like. I hope your cockerel chicks turn out to be of better temperament than their daddy.


The two chicks seem to be thriving so far. The third one was backwards, shrink wrapped, deformed (no or small non functioning eyes, and looked like it had been debeaked top beak was shorter) it didn't make it, but that was good saved me having to cull. I am currently working on the last egg now. It is shrink wrapped, but has a strong chirp.

I hope that shrink wrapped one makes it! I've had a couple of those and they've all turned out healthy and strong once I helped them out. Any scaleless chicks this hatch?
 
There's a lot of wisdom in this post. I've only been raising chickens for a little over six months, but I've already experienced much of what you've described here.

It seems to me that chickens have individual personalities...just like dogs....just like humans. You can raise all of them the same way and yet some will be incredibly sweet and others will be nasty. The trick for me has been learning when to respect those differences, and when to just throw in the towel and cull. That BR rooster...I tried many techniques with him to no avail. When I went out to collect eggs four days ago and turned to find his spurs coming at my face I'd finally had enough. That wasn't charging but an all out assault for no apparent reason. He had to die. By comparison, I can do whatever I want to my black NN, Heisenberg, and he's never shown an ounce of aggression, but I would never dream of handling my NN "Goldie" that way. He doesn't bite or charge, but he's also not that affectionate. I'm okay with that. He respects me, never shows aggression towards me and takes good care of the flock. 

I'm actually in the process of incubating some of my BR rooster's offspring. I'm curious to see what their personalities turn out like...if any of them will be keepers or if they'll adopt his temperament. I originally wasn't going to hatch any eggs fertilized by him but my own curiosity got the better of me (as well as my Psych degree). I want some first-hand experience with the nature vs nurture via and chicken world. All the books I've read, research I've done...it's all pedantic. Nothing can beat "living the experiment". :rolleyes:

I agree with you both here. The on going backyard research is so much fun.
 
im having the most horrible time with incubation:( last batch out of 36 i had 1 hatch.i figured this due to high humidity. as most eggs were filled with fluid. my 2nd batch was looking better. but so far only two have hatched and both show symptoms of humidity being to high... i opened 2 eggs after candling them.neither had pipped internally and one the air pocket and chick had shifted to the side and head of chick was at wrong side of egg..im starting to wonder if i have a genetic problem..or is my humidity still to high?these are nakedneck crosses. nn whiteleghorn.the 3 living chicks are this breed others were straight nn and nn orpington xs
 
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Ok.the thing is i am.dry incubating:/ even tried using rice and silicone packets to get humidity down. it stayed down at least 30% for the first 18 days might have spiked a couple times but nothing to drastic. im thinking i just may have to wait till the summer dryness sets in? weve had an unusually wet spring.i live in texas. humidity hasnt been below 40 outside since spring started
 
I pulled the rest of the eggs that I was incubating. 20-12 were not fertile, 8 had chicks but all dead, 2 of the 8 had started hatching but died before they hatched.

So here were the percentages:
Set: 37
Hatched: 17 45.945%
Fertile Eggs: 25
Fertility: 67.567%
So the actual hatch percentage of fertile eggs was over all: 68%.
 
No scaleless in this hatch, but of 24 eggs there are only 2 live chicks that are thriving, one live that is struggling, one sort of live assisted hatch that didn't live to dry. All 4 had to be assisted all were shrink wrapped in flooding and near 100% humidity for nearly the entire incubation.
 

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