Our introduction to keeping chickens, the high's, the lows and pics of our journey.

[Bens-Hens]

Hahahaha, 'uber dork!' Can already see those fluffy little hats.

Nice pics, very creative. What sort of results did you end up with second time around? Any more still in?

Thanks for sharing.

 

[NovaAman]

Well so far, of the 17 that were wiggling at lock down, 11 hatched, 1 half hatched and died, 5 are yet to decide if they are dead or if they are just lates. It's only day 23 so, I will wait till tomorrow night then... thats that.

 

[Wrightsx4]

Mine are hatching! I hear peeping but there's no window to watch through this time

 

[ozexpat]

Mine are hatching! I hear peeping but there's no window to watch through this time

mine are hatching in my bordeaux bator 3 out 2 chirping. nice window. it would drive me nuts to not be able to peek

 

[Wrightsx4]

My homemade incubator has a nice big window. I was lucky to have a hen volunteer for this hatch though. My broody hen is so sweet - I was trying to look around her feathers and she leaned way over so I could peek. Lol! Lots of pips but none out yet.

 

[Wrightsx4]

Spam time It is chilly here for the chicks to be outside considering they are only a day old. BUT, I heated up a corn cob heat pad, put it in the bottom of a basket, put a hand towel over it, set mi chicks in, and went out the door. Did the trick to keep them warm enough between takes. LOL. I am uber dork now.

Sooooo adorable! Great job - I would love to do a picture like that. Frost got my lilacs and cherry blossoms. Maybe I can stick them in the strawberry patch for some pics.

 

[ozexpat]

My homemade incubator has a nice big window. I was lucky to have a hen volunteer for this hatch though. My broody hen is so sweet - I was trying to look around her feathers and she leaned way over so I could peek. Lol! Lots of pips but none out yet.

a broody with windows - their is a project for ben

 

[Wrightsx4]

That would be great!

 

[Bens-Hens]

Hmmmm, lol, glass bowl for a nest was my first thought, but the poor girl would have to sit on some straw....window closed hahahaha

I feel funny now, I miss hatching and all the excitement that comes with it, but at the same time I also am liking our birds growing up and giving me less jobs to in the morning before work. Kind of like kids I guess, babies are cute but you appreciate them being able to do some things for themselves as they get older too.

Looking forward to hatching some of our own EE's from our own flock, so due to numbers we will have to wait until everyone is mature enough to do their jobs.

Feel free to share your hatch pics

 

[Bens-Hens]

I finished mowing the lawn today, and was just hanging out in the coop, snapped a couple of pictures. Tomorrow they will be 15 and 10 weeks old, pretty big range in sizes across the breeds. Mr Tea is already nearly the same size as Luna.

What caught my attention was Baby, she is the only one that is showing fluffy cheeks. Certainly not 'tuffts' but looking at Araucana pictures she is starting to look like what they should. Seems to be three different feather patterns at this age, a 'smooth' head, fluffy head and fluffy head fluffy cheeks. Not sure if the others will feather out with more fluffy, but interesting all the same.

What I am hoping for in our mature birds. (with a tail, as all our's have tails)


Baby at 10 weeks, much lighter with yellow legs




Baby (l) and Jewel (r), both have yellow legs, Jewel still has some peachy kind of colours. The rest have slate legs.


Lucky, getting so BIG!


One of the two boy's, so much red!


These three, l-r Barney, Lil Tea and Curly (guess which one has the curly toe!) No idea what was so interesting to look at!


The girl on the left has the 'smooth' type of head, where the boy has a fluffy head, but not much cheek going on.


That was about it for today, starting to think about future plans now. I brought some sandwich panel off cuts home to begin planning a rooster box, see if I can make something so we can keep two boys long enough to fertilise some eggs for next hatch.

I have also been looking into a 'lawn box' I can make with some left over timber, just need some mesh to keep them off it long enough to grow back.

Finally, for those in the 'gene know how' I would like to aim for some mint green and if possible some olive green eggs next hatch. I have learnt a bit about it and understand olive comes from dark brown and blue cross (we have BV and AR, males and females) and the minty kind of colour comes from blue eggs and brown eggs, we have 'Lorps, LS and RIR, males and females. So I understand the dominant gene, and how the colour is applied to the egg and how one gene 'dilutes' the colour to give the desired tints.

However, which sex is best to produced my desired colours?

BV male over AR female, or vise versa?
AR male over RIR/BA female or vise versa?

The way I read it it does not seem to matter as the gene is passed on from either parents, but I don't want to make a mistake and keep the wrong sex male for breeding.

Thoughts?