November/December "Hatch-a-Long"

[rachmickmurphy]

the newbies another strange coloured belgium 3 in the last week suspect my new porcelain hen possibly has mille in her breeding not what i expected but thats an auction purchase huh.

 

[familypendragon]

Me too... i'm sorry to hear your sad news...

you mentioned earlier you are hatching experimental eggs (having been refrigerated for 2 weeks)

i find this amazing... and am keen to have an update.

have you tried this before? or heard of others trying it?

i read somewhere that eggs 2 months old when incubated hatched, but find it hard to believe...

HAPPY HATCHING 

I have, my very first batch because I didn't know better. It went pretty well but lots of malpositions. I also had temp and humidity issues though, so wanted to see if it went better this time. Sadly I chipped some shell back this morning to see why Franken-Marans had made no progress at all. I see she pipped right through a major vein AND it looks like she popped her yolk sack. So.... very doubtful it will end well. My fridge is 55 F and about 47 percent humidity - which should be about right for storage. But I didn't turn the eggs since I hadn't intended on hatching them.

 

[familypendragon]

the newbies another strange coloured belgium 3 in the last week suspect my new porcelain hen possibly has mille in her breeding not what i expected but thats an auction purchase huh.

I am sure someone that knows genetics far better than me will correct me if I am wrong (I don't know much), but isn't "porcelain" another term for "Isabelle" which is the lavender gene dilution of a patterned bird? IF that is the case the bird would have to be crossed only to another porcelain to retain the color as it takes two copies of the gene for it to be expressed - one from each parent. Was the daddy a porcelain too?

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Hmm, no chicks yet... I tried candling but most of the eggs were too dark to see much with my little LED light, just an air cell which was distinct in almost all of them. One of them was clear through so that one went to my dogs. A few I could not see anything at all, not aircells, nothing. The light just would not penetrate the shells because it wasn't clear nor could I see the speckles of the shell... Some of those eggs are just really dark and I can't candle them. :|

Well, I have one more day before I need to start deciding what to do with my broody. I think the only option is to break her if these don't hatch... She's been brooding a long time now.

 

[mickielee]

Hello everyone! I am new to chickens and this amazing website. We got our first chicks back in March. Got our first egg August 15th. My golden sex link went broody and started stealing eggs. So we ate letting her hatch her first batch now. Egg 1 was laid Sept 15, egg 2,3,4 were laid sept 18 and egg 5 was the 20th. All eggs show development, 4 are mostly all full when I shine the flashlight through them. If I've done the math properly, the first chick should arrive this Sunday. Do you think it is realalistic that all the eggs can hatch with such a time difference between them?

 

[mickielee]

Oh, the rooster is a barred rock and the eggs are either rhode island reds or barred rocks or a combo of the two. Flaps (broody hen) hasn't laid an egg herself in over a month. Thank you.

 

[rachmickmurphy]

I am sure someone that knows genetics far better than me will correct me if I am wrong (I don't know much), but isn't "porcelain" another term for "Isabelle" which is the lavender gene dilution of a patterned bird? IF that is the case the bird would have to be crossed only to another porcelain to retain the color as it takes two copies of the gene for it to be expressed - one from each parent. Was the daddy a porcelain too?

my pens are pen 1-two white hens one from an auction one from a breeder a the roo is dad of the one from breeder a. pen two is black hen from breeder a black hen and roo from breeder b pen three is black mottled hen from same auction as suspect hen and a pair from breeder b. some how i have 3 strange coloured chick i honestly have never had a mille when i 1st got this breed breeder a explained at length how important it was to keep colours separate she actually choose the birds to go with this auction hen. breeder a does have millies but they are silver she sent pics of them i declined her offer of millies i have speckled sussex i can only imagine how hard it is to get a millie right.

heres another one

and another .for me not having had millies i got no idea what the chicks are supposed to look like all my previous chicks have hatched like the earlier pic i posted in this thread i think you commented on or they are all black or little tuxedos as i call them and they always mature into the mottles i think your correct bout the lavender gene they do sometimes have a colouring similar to my corronation sussex neither of the hens have yellow leakage the roo has a little the eggs these chick are goldy brown. all the eggs these chicks hatched from were marked on both ends with b1. i have to be super organised every egg thats collected is marked dated and logged i will post a pic of 10 week old for same pen tomorrow exactly what you are describing and what i have come to expect from this pen nothing like these though

 

[chicketydooda]

I hope i'm not too late to join in. I started my first hatch last night. I am hatching 8 of my barnyard mix, 8 Marans, and I believe 20 Trader Joe eggs. I know Crazy. I live really close to the farm that they are collected from and they were shipped within 2 days so I have high hopes for them. This is my very first hatch so I'm nerve wracked that I might be doing something wrong. My humidifier/ theremometer I bought isn't working so I'm extra worried. Does humidity make a huge difference in the first days?

 

[rachmickmurphy]

hi chicketydooda never too late. dont stress ask questions if you worried the members here give great advice. whats trader joe eggs? humidity lol you will get diferent answers from everyone temps more important and it depends on your incubator type mine is a known chick drowner but i get good results dry hatching well not dry but lower than a lot of other members.

 

[chicketydooda]

Trader Joe Is a health food store here in CA. They sell fertilized eggs that are meant for eating but are so fresh you can actually hatch them. Since I was able to find such a fresh batch I have high hopes.