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Quote: were they big wet chicks?
Not any bigger or wetter than I've noticed before…. I think my temp was a lil low. They were hatching later than usual (day 22 and 23) and the creole Orp had not absorbed the yolk completely, left him in a cup for an extra day… didn't help.
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that sucks, I started incubating at 100-101 now and keeping it there. I only add water to keep above 20% and only add more if the air cell growth is demanding it. You can tell at hatch a wet chick vs a good one, number one is the amount of green/white goop in the egg, number two is the back feathering of the chick just after hatch, most times a wet chick is bigger and has alot of visible skin on the back before the feathers dry.
 
Well, the girls have been busy today, 18 eggs so far, and 2 girls stilt in boxes. Our May and June pallets are getting into the swing of it for sure.... but can anyone say "OUCH"!! Found this amongst the regular eggs today...





It measures just over 3 inches long and 6 inches around, weighs just over 4 oz. I know a lot of breeds lay extra large eggs, and we have some nice size layers, but this one had to hurt! LOL
My brahma hen was laying huge eggs until she finally got a butt hernia : ( she is still alive 6 months later and still gives the occational big egg, her bum is huge though :(
 
I have a question, I am researching incubators, and I like the brinsea, but they are a little pricey. Does anyone have either of the incubators from tractor supply? If so how do you do with those? Are they actually as bad as the reviews I've been reading?
I wouldnt trade my coolerbators for anything except a prof huge capacity bator!

and easy to make, Hubs helped make an article on them, Less than a POINT degree variance in temp, you cant get that with MOST bators!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/incubator-incubator
 
I am hoping this is just an 'oddball' delivery! We had one hen who prolapsed last winter, she recovered with 4 weeks of treatments in the house and hasn't had any trouble since. I don't want to see that happen to another. With 9 pullets working out their egger kinks I figure to see a few odd eggs, we had a tiny green 'fart egg' a few days go, looks like a quail egg...
 
Question for anyone..... has anyone used the food dye trick to identify who lays which eggs? Does it work well, or at all? We have 24 layers, 9 of which just started recently and I am trying to figure out which are laying which colors/sizes. I am getting some I would call pink, and some which are a darker brown than my original layers (though their color may have darkened since their first molt?) I really don't want to separate them to find out, though I could for a day or so if I really had to. I don't think that would help figure out their rates of lay though, since they would probably change for a few days if I caged them, so I wouldn't get an accurate rate, anyways.

If not the food dye on the vent trick, has anyone found another trick to help figure it out?

Fisher:

No pearls of wisdom here....but, I think there's a couple of considerations before using food coloring:

a) do you really want to chase down your birds and color their butts with Q-tips??? if so, please make a video!!!
b) after painting their butts, you will have to look at it for a long time...and think of the emotional damage when the girl reaches around to preen herself and finds her tucas green and none of the roosters want to have anything to do with her???
c) lastly, assuming you proceed, you will have to explain to all your friends and neighbors that you painted you chooks butts...and no explanation will suffice.... they will not understand....lol
 
Ahh, but there is a good explanation. Blame it on the neighbor kids! Say something about how you used to "tip cows", but now "painting chicken butts" is all the rag!

I bet 9 out of 10 people will buy that story, and the other one will at least appreciate your creativity.
 

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