My chicks are all Marans, which show quite early their combs if male, so I have known since week 2-3 which ones are little dudes (two/six in this batch, but I've had a few 75% male hatches--frustrating!). We have a farm store nearby that takes cockerels (starting at about 8 weeks) for resale. Or I keep them and process them if I have enough. I will keep one as my new Splash Marans rooster. I am waiting as both are Splash and I want to see how they develop, but i do have a favorite so far! Here is Joe Joe as a little tyke ( have a strange sense of humor, i know!)
That's me! Hatching optimist!!!
Well I guess my homemade incubator was a big flop! Got up this morning with a temp of 120. I figured all chance of survival was gone. I did learn from it, when I candled them a few days ago I marked the ones I though were good and the one I thought wasn't. Turns out I was mostly right. When I cracked them this morning the one I thought was no good wasn't. There was one other one that was no good. It was a little depressing to see the developing chicks that could have survived.
I know what you mean about keeping your expectations low. I'm a hatching optimist for the first 18 days, and then I keep thinking their dead.
Yeah, I like the idea of a colorful egg basket too!!! I'm trying to get DH to buy me a few blue egg layers and maybe some green. We'll have brown and white covered and my golden sex-links from last year actually contribute considerably to the colorful-ness of my egg basket. One lays a yellow-ish brown egg, another lays a super dark egg (nothing like Marans, but much darker than my other hens), another lays a speckled egg, and the fourth one drum roll please lays pink-ish color eggs (last summer they were a beautiful lavender, rose sort of purply pinky color). These are all varieties of brown eggs, mind you. I also have one that lays white eggs and a pullet just started laying a month ago and she lays creamy color eggs (much lighter than the light brown). My Cochin Bantam Frizzle (who was apparently a mix b/c she had five toes) laid beautiful creamy pinkish beige eggs. IDK what to expect from my Cochin Bantam girls I got this year or the other two pullets I have from a late Jan hatch a friend of mine did for me.
Sorry
Yeah, I'm sorry to say that low expectations are the key with shipped eggs.
I am working on building a colorful egg basket. My Ameruacana pullets and my Easter Eggers pullets still need to start laying and I don't think my marans are laying yet. And I didnt want to pull any of my cream colored bantam eggs out of the incubator for the picture. I just need to get some white egg layers and cross my maran and Ameruacanas for olive eggs.
