November egg swap~~Check thread for updates on shipping!!

[farrier!]

I have a few cute matching chicks too.

They are Rhode Island Reds from a breeder near me. My girls were on a slow down and only giving me an egg or two a day.

 

[Bil]

farrier! :

I have a few cute matching chicks too.

They are Rhode Island Reds from a breeder near me. My girls were on a slow down and only giving me an egg or two a day.

How exciting. I don't have any RIR! Nice addition! I love a mixed flock! WOO HOO!!

Thanks!

Bil​

 

[shelleyd2008]

January thread is started, link is in my siggy

 

[BirdMom]

Well, Friday morning we heard tapping and peeping for a few hours off and on in the bator, with two of our hens eggs and about seven swap eggs left from Evonne that I wasn't sure about. So far, with Saturday as day 21, nothing. No pips, and no more peeping and tapping since Friday afternoon. I'm afraid maybe whoever was making all the noise didn't make it. I'm giving them a few more days just in case, but I'm not hopeful.

I don't know what's worse, having none hatch or having one hatch! I guess I'd rather have none, since if we only got one then it'd be too lonely, though we do have a special needs duckling from the last swap whose sibling is about ready to go outside, but the special needs one is still quite small and walks on his hocks, and feathering very slowly, so he probably won't be an outside duck, not for a long time at least. I'm sure he could use the company. Keeping my fingers crossed we still might get a chick or two out of this, but afraid maybe it's not going to be good news. We've kept the temp remarkably steady this time, and the humidity has been in a good range, we dry hatch, but things have been so dry with the heater going (it's single digits outside right now!) that I haven't been able to keep the humidity up enough, I think. It's been dropping to 50% within hours of it finally getting to 60%.

Our incubator is a homemade one, a cooler with a desk lamp, but we've had some great hatches out of it several times this year. I have three big jars of water in it with three big sponges, we're keeping them wet, but the humidity just isn't staying up enough. Ugh. I might wait till Spring to try hatching anymore, but one of our silkies just died a couple days ago and we think we want to try to hatch some of her eggs as soon as the bator is clear... This truly is an addiction! So easy to rationalize another set, and another, and another...

I think if I set another batch I'm going to dig out my room humidifier and run that to keep the humidity up. We keep that room closed off from the rest of the house, and it's the one with our ducklings in the tub so frequent tubs of water going, but that isn't enough for the humidity. I'm guessing that's probably the problem right now. I'm afraid to even open the eggs, I'm too much of a sissy to do eggtopsies. I'll give them a few more days at any rate.

 

[shelleyd2008]

HATCHING IN THE WINTER IS HARD, I DON'T HAVE ANY LUCK WITH CHICKEN EGGS IN THE REAL COLD MONTHS. QUAIL ARE DIFFERENT, THEY'LL HATCH IN ANY CONDITIONS

HOPE YOU GET AT LEAST A COUPLE TO HATCH, I WOULD HAVE CHECKED THEM ALREADY

 

[evonne]

aaww birdmom... i'm sorry... like i said, i had one batch of about 8 of my own eggs and the one that pipped it's egg managed to do it with it's wing, not it's beak.. and it couldn't get it's head out from under it's wing... so the last set on day 21 i candled, it was all full, and not into the air cell so i pipped and opened the air cell and opened the membrane for her and pulled it back enough so she had wiggle room and put her back in the bator and watched... she hatched the rest of the way herself...
these babies just seem to be too big for their eggs.. but the mom's are still pullets, under 1 yr old, so that could be part of the problem...

i would LOVE to do another side swap with you later in the spring when it warms up a bit....

 

[BirdMom]

Well, I went ahead and candled them all. The two from my hens quit about a week ago, it looks like, as did two or three of the shipped eggs. However, one of the shipped eggs, a beautiful green one, did make it to trying to pip. Unfortunately, it pipped down at the bottom toward the pointed end, and never managed to break through. There is a long crack in the egg an inch either direction from the pip. Poor thing. Didn't make it. Maybe two or three questionable eggs still in the bator, but I doubt they're viable. No movement on candling at all. Oh well. Better none that one, I guess. Though it would have been a beautiful chicky, I'm sure, and could have kept our disabled duckling company.

Going to set some of our silkie eggs tomorrow probably. I guess hope never dies.

Evonne, I'm definitely going to want some of those green eggs in the spring to try again.

They're a beautiful color and I'm sure our egg customers would love to have them!

 

[evonne]

Quote:
awsome... by then i'll also know (hopefully) what color the EE roo is throwing into the mix... at that time what may hatch out of that green egg could be an olive egger if dad is throwing plain brown i'll put Lucy in w/ my cuckoo marans to get an even deeper olive....
you can help me track the offsprings egg colors...

 

[BirdMom]

That will be fun. It's like Christmas waiting for a hatch, and then waiting for them to grow up into hens and roos, and then seeing what color eggs the hens lay.

And with mutt chickens, seeing what they'll look like when they mature. So much fun!

In spite of my poor hatch results this time, I put another dozen in to see how things go. None are shipped, they're all from our birds, so hopefully that will help. I put two of our older hens eggs in (the cream colored ones), five from our silkies, and five brown ones from our unknown breed chickens, one is white with black lacing, the other black with white lacing. The silkies and the black and white chickens are in with two white silkie roos and a beautiful EE roo, so who knows what kind of chicks we'll get.

I still haven't had the guts to eggtopsy the ones from this swap. I think they're just going "away." I don't know if I can stand to see them, especially knowing one got to pip stage. Poor babies.

 

[speckledhen]

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