Pipd's Peeps!

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Thanks for the update!

I really should do it more often. How about another update today?


The second egg in this group pipped late last night, and the first started to zip this morning, but stopped part way. I'm really not sure if she was stuck, or just resting, but a few hours later there had been no progress.

By that point, the second egg was getting closer and closer to hatching, opening its pip further and further, and when I checked on them a little after noon, it was zipping. I figured once the second baby was out, I'd investigate and see what was going on with the first.

Well, round about 1:00 pm EST, all of the sudden the stuck baby decided she was done being stuck, and she gave a mighty push and popped right out of the egg!! That was about 6 hours of zipping before she actually hatched, phew! At the same time, the second baby also pushed out of the egg, and the two ended up hatching simultaneously!

The first to pip baby is a Khaki, so I'll not really have any strong indicators of male or female until she's older. She's just gonna be a 'she' until proven otherwise.

Second to pip baby is a Fawn, so I should be able to tell once she's dried out. Hoping at least one of these two (preferably both, though!) is female!!


The third egg, the one I've not been sure of this whole time, looks very dead now. I'm waiting until it's a bit darker to give it a good, solid look, and then I'll pull the plug.


Here are our two newest additions cuddling under the EcoGlow.

I did get the big-kid brooder set up so that those two could have the baby bin to get their land legs in in peace. Here they are in their new box; there's another box zip-tied to the side with a hole in between for even more space, and I'll move the food and water over there once they're used to going through there. (You can see the pine shavings in the second box in the lower left corner of the picture. )

...And yes, they're already making a mess of the place.

As a quick note here, the first first-to-hatch baby, who is two weeks old now, I have started to call 'Bee'. Not sure if that's going to end up being a nickname for a longer name, or if she's just going to be Bee, but for now it's Bee.



Also, I would have posted this a bit sooner after the little ones hatched, but I took an accidental nap after moving them to the brooder, so I had to go close coops for the night before I could sit down and write this out.

 

[ronott1]

I really should do it more often. How about another update today?


The second egg in this group pipped late last night, and the first started to zip this morning, but stopped part way. I'm really not sure if she was stuck, or just resting, but a few hours later there had been no progress.

By that point, the second egg was getting closer and closer to hatching, opening its pip further and further, and when I checked on them a little after noon, it was zipping. I figured once the second baby was out, I'd investigate and see what was going on with the first.

Well, round about 1:00 pm EST, all of the sudden the stuck baby decided she was done being stuck, and she gave a mighty push and popped right out of the egg!! That was about 6 hours of zipping before she actually hatched, phew! At the same time, the second baby also pushed out of the egg, and the two ended up hatching simultaneously!

The first to pip baby is a Khaki, so I'll not really have any strong indicators of male or female until she's older. She's just gonna be a 'she' until proven otherwise.

Second to pip baby is a Fawn, so I should be able to tell once she's dried out. Hoping at least one of these two (preferably both, though!) is female!!


The third egg, the one I've not been sure of this whole time, looks very dead now. I'm waiting until it's a bit darker to give it a good, solid look, and then I'll pull the plug.


Here are our two newest additions cuddling under the EcoGlow.

View attachment 2551206


I did get the big-kid brooder set up so that those two could have the baby bin to get their land legs in in peace. Here they are in their new box; there's another box zip-tied to the side with a hole in between for even more space, and I'll move the food and water over there once they're used to going through there. (You can see the pine shavings in the second box in the lower left corner of the picture. )

View attachment 2551212

...And yes, they're already making a mess of the place.

View attachment 2551215

As a quick note here, the first first-to-hatch baby, who is two weeks old now, I have started to call 'Bee'. Not sure if that's going to end up being a nickname for a longer name, or if she's just going to be Bee, but for now it's Bee.



Also, I would have posted this a bit sooner after the little ones hatched, but I took an accidental nap after moving them to the brooder, so I had to go close coops for the night before I could sit down and write this out.

The are doing great!

One of the hardest things to do is waiting for the chick to hatch.

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

That's for sure!! If I had any less restraint than I already do, I'd probably be in the incubator breaking those eggs open by hand on day 21



A quick group pic of the five babies. Note the look of pain on the oldest's face smack dab in the middle of all her younger siblings.

Not sure if I'm just getting my usual paranoia in early with these kids, but I'm starting to suspect that all of them are male. Even the oldest, who I had been thinking was female up until now. The younger four all sure seem to have the thinner eye striping of males... Ugh!

 

[ronott1]

Is the coloring one of those that are only in the 70% accurate range?

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

It's been 100% accurate so far, but a small sample size (10 chicks previously, plus these five) so it's hard to say if that's purely coincidental... I certainly wouldn't mind if it was only 70% accurate this time around!!

 

[ronott1]

It's been 100% accurate so far, but a small sample size (10 chicks previously, plus these five) so it's hard to say if that's purely coincidental... I certainly wouldn't mind if it was only 70% accurate this time around!!

I hope you get some pullets too!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

Apologies for disappearing again! With the weather warming up as it is, it's hard not to spend more time off the computer and outside. And it certainly doesn't help that I have some cleanup and minor fixes that need done from the snow that we got dumped on us last month, or that my niece and nephew keep begging me to go on walks in the woods with them now that it's warm out.


I wanted to give a bit of an update. I can't remember if I actually mentioned this or not, but we found out last month that the place I'd been buying feed from for years was going out of business. I started getting feed there after a year or so of hunting for a new place to get feed after the place before that became infested with grain mites and wouldn't deal with it. Unfortunately, most people in my area are under the impression that they're 'just chickens' and don't care about feed quality, or feeding their flock an all-flock type of mix for the lower calcium and higher protein content as I do. So I've been a bit stressed over that because I'd already tried many of the places in the area with no success in finding what I need for my birds.

There's a small, local feed place about five minutes away that I'd tried way back when, but at the time they only carried an all-flock mix that was medicated with amprolium. Ugh! Yesterday, I went in to see if there'd been any changes, and found out that, even though they only carry layer (and some SUPER expensive show bird mix), they'll now order in any feed I need as long as it's listed on the website of any of the manufacturers that they normally carry! So it looks like my feed problems are solved!! They're a bit more expensive than the other place I'd been buying through, but a fraction of the drive, so that's more than made up for in the gas mileage I'll be saving. I'm so relieved!


Another small thing I'd like to mention is that I might be hatching some more Marans soon. I'm torn on it, because I still have the Orpington eggs coming around the end of this month or beginning of next, plus I'm in talks to get more silkie-feathered Cochin hatching eggs soon, so it's gonna be crazy around here with all these chicks... But, I'd like to participate in the EHAL, and plus my Marans are getting older and I'd like to keep some chocolate-eggers in my flock for the variety of egg colors. It'll depend on if the Silkie boys are breeding them, because I'm up to my ears with Silkie mixes as is and I kinda just don't want any more!!

I also need to get some update pictures of last year's kids as I wasn't able to with the snow last month, so maybe if I mention it I'll feel obligated to finally do it. I have some work to do on the brooder for this year's babies, too, so that it's big enough to combine all the groups into one.

I'm already worn out from all the stuff I need to do today.

 

[ronott1]

Apologies for disappearing again! With the weather warming up as it is, it's hard not to spend more time off the computer and outside. And it certainly doesn't help that I have some cleanup and minor fixes that need done from the snow that we got dumped on us last month, or that my niece and nephew keep begging me to go on walks in the woods with them now that it's warm out.


I wanted to give a bit of an update. I can't remember if I actually mentioned this or not, but we found out last month that the place I'd been buying feed from for years was going out of business. I started getting feed there after a year or so of hunting for a new place to get feed after the place before that became infested with grain mites and wouldn't deal with it. Unfortunately, most people in my area are under the impression that they're 'just chickens' and don't care about feed quality, or feeding their flock an all-flock type of mix for the lower calcium and higher protein content as I do. So I've been a bit stressed over that because I'd already tried many of the places in the area with no success in finding what I need for my birds.

There's a small, local feed place about five minutes away that I'd tried way back when, but at the time they only carried an all-flock mix that was medicated with amprolium. Ugh! Yesterday, I went in to see if there'd been any changes, and found out that, even though they only carry layer (and some SUPER expensive show bird mix), they'll now order in any feed I need as long as it's listed on the website of any of the manufacturers that they normally carry! So it looks like my feed problems are solved!! They're a bit more expensive than the other place I'd been buying through, but a fraction of the drive, so that's more than made up for in the gas mileage I'll be saving. I'm so relieved!


Another small thing I'd like to mention is that I might be hatching some more Marans soon. I'm torn on it, because I still have the Orpington eggs coming around the end of this month or beginning of next, plus I'm in talks to get more silkie-feathered Cochin hatching eggs soon, so it's gonna be crazy around here with all these chicks... But, I'd like to participate in the EHAL, and plus my Marans are getting older and I'd like to keep some chocolate-eggers in my flock for the variety of egg colors. It'll depend on if the Silkie boys are breeding them, because I'm up to my ears with Silkie mixes as is and I kinda just don't want any more!!

I also need to get some update pictures of last year's kids as I wasn't able to with the snow last month, so maybe if I mention it I'll feel obligated to finally do it. I have some work to do on the brooder for this year's babies, too, so that it's big enough to combine all the groups into one. View attachment 2562179 I'm already worn out from all the stuff I need to do today.

Marans sound like a good breed for the hatch-along!

 

[pipdzipdnreadytogo]

They'll be interesting at least, considering last time I incubated them I couldn't see a darn thing aside from the air cell in those eggs!

Starting to wonder if I'll be able to set them for the hatchalong, though. My sister keeps saying she wants to do some baking, and thus use some eggs, so I've been waiting for her to do that so I could check for bullseyes in those Marans eggs without wasting them, and now here we are days later and still no baking has occurred. I already knew I wouldn't hit the official set date, but now I'm starting to wonder if I'll have time to collect eggs to set in a reasonable timeframe at all. Very frustrating. I guess I'll have to bake something today, myself, if I want to get it done in time.




I had a lucky close call last night with the birds. I somehow forgot entirely to close Russell, Rosey, and Buzz's coop, so they were left vulnerable all night. I literally had to walk past them to close the old duck coop where Achernar and Rigel sleep, and walk past again to finish up and go inside, yet I guess I never glanced over at their coop or gave them a second thought. Thankfully, they're all fine, but that's not something I'd like to take any more chances on by repeating. I'll have to be more careful about checking that all of the coops are closed in the evening.

 

[ronott1]

They'll be interesting at least, considering last time I incubated them I couldn't see a darn thing aside from the air cell in those eggs!

Starting to wonder if I'll be able to set them for the hatchalong, though. My sister keeps saying she wants to do some baking, and thus use some eggs, so I've been waiting for her to do that so I could check for bullseyes in those Marans eggs without wasting them, and now here we are days later and still no baking has occurred. I already knew I wouldn't hit the official set date, but now I'm starting to wonder if I'll have time to collect eggs to set in a reasonable timeframe at all. Very frustrating. I guess I'll have to bake something today, myself, if I want to get it done in time.




I had a lucky close call last night with the birds. I somehow forgot entirely to close Russell, Rosey, and Buzz's coop, so they were left vulnerable all night. I literally had to walk past them to close the old duck coop where Achernar and Rigel sleep, and walk past again to finish up and go inside, yet I guess I never glanced over at their coop or gave them a second thought. Thankfully, they're all fine, but that's not something I'd like to take any more chances on by repeating. I'll have to be more careful about checking that all of the coops are closed in the evening.

I hope the eggs make it!

It is good that the open coop did not result in an attack last nigh too.