Hopefully I am not reposting. I wrote last night, but when I clicked post, my computer froze. My question is about whether to try incubating additional eggs or to buy chicks. Here is the scenario. This is the first time incubating eggs since I was a kid. We did it a few times and I have some good memories. Now that I have young kids and a place to keep chickens, I am doing it with them. The kids are the main reason I chose to incubate rather than purchasing chicks. I ordered eggs online as I could not find locally the type my kids had decided they wanted based on some-surprisingly-childish criteria. Golden Laced Wyandotte is what they chose. I looked into it. They looked like an acceptable choice for what I want and for this area, so I went with it. The eggs arrived on a Monday, so obviously had set at the post office for an extra day. With the eggs being dark brown, I had a hard time candling them and ended up having one break open and leak on neighboring eggs. With the different issues, I wasn't that optimistic about the hatch. Sunday was day 21. That evening I had two hatch. They were right next to each other and closer to the heat source. They are both in the brooder and seem to be healthy. I am leaving the other eggs in the incubator, but am becoming increasingly pessimistic about more hatching. I'm going to give them until Friday. My goal was to ultimately have about 6 hens and a rooster. I am patient and can wait, but am really uncomfortable with only two chickens. I can get Silver Laced Wyandottes from a local hatchery. Both chicks and eggs. Any recommendation on which route to go. Thanks, David
if you hatch more eggs at this point, the chicks will be 3 weeks apart at least. Best scenario is to have different age chicks no more than one week apart in age. You should raise them in different brooders until the youngest ones are at least 5 weeks old. if you get more chicks from that hatchery, be very careful they aren't sick. Don't want to make yo current two sick. When you get the new chicks home, give them Poultry Nutri-Drench in their water for a week or 2. http://www.nutridrench.com This will combat any stress from travel and adjustment from hatch to new home. After a week apart or so, you will know if the new chicks are healthy and you can introduce them to your current 2 chicks. I would go with chicks instead of more eggs. Plus, more pretty colors for the kids to admire. Best, Karen
Hey David. You and kids are gonna have a lot of fun. I have done back to back hatches, and done well brooding the youngsters in the same area, with a heating pad. Gave the youngsters about a week to get their feet under them, and get settled, then let them out to run with their sibs who were 3 weeks older, at night, I sent the babies back to their partition, blocking their access to the older chicks. By the time the littles were 3 weeks old, they were completely at home with the bigger chicks. And they were integrated with the older flock by the time they were 6 weeks old. I've had chicks in same brooder with same heat source up to 10 days difference. Check with Blooie. I think she's had success with even more of an age spread. I agree with 3rivers. ND is a fantastic product.
Thank you for your replies and recommendations as well on combining. I just called the hatchery to confirm availability and they said they were down to 25 Silver Laced hatched yesterday. Only about 36 hours difference from ours. As most of their sales are online and they sale 25 as a minimum(online) they could sale out at any point, my wife is on her way to pick up 10 now. They are about 20 minutes away which makes it easier.
