Serama Hatch-A-Long!!

[darkbluespace]

I made this hatch-a-long just because I am really obsessed with Serama right now and thought I would see if there are others hatching Serama who want to share about their hatches and obsess along with me!

I just had a broody hatch 7 chicks and I have a Serama trio that I have collected some eggs from and am going to test them out in the incubator. I would like to order some really nice eggs but thought I should try with my own eggs first. I set 11 eggs... 21 days for this batch will be August 1st. I am thinking about building a separate hatcher so I can do some staggered hatching.

 

[darkbluespace]

I have some mottled babies hatching right now.. I am pretty sure they are the cutest ever Serama babies!

I didn't even know their mama was laying again when I found her broody on 8 eggs! Her babies were only a few weeks old. I left her four and took the other four. I'll post a photo when they dry. Some of them will be silkied... mottled silkied chicks are freaking adorable.

 

[formerchickenlass]

In other news... gah, am I really taking up 3 posts with my chatter? Then again I guess it's been relatively quiet here so maybe it's ok. Anyway, in other news, I ordered some serama eggs off ebay. I figured since I shipped some eggs, I should also have the experience of hatching shipped eggs.

This has been an interesting adventure. Eggs arrived with air cells that were either invisible or looked like spirit levels or multiple bubbles. They'd been picked up by USPS at seller's house (lol) and then driven to my house as well rather than held for pickup. So they were good and jostled.

I let them set overnight and then started them upright in quail trays, and started hand turning after a couple days, just tilting side to side.

Well, I'm on day 11 now with the eggs. One was a really early death or possibly infertile (I think I did see a bit of a red spot inside the egg the first time I candled). Second was an early death, blood ring. I've got another one that looks like it quit a few days ago (leaving in another day or two just to be sure). And so far the rest are fertile and cooking right along! I started with 9 eggs and have 6 live ones. Most of them look like air cells have stabilized. At least one was still looking wonky when I candled last night.

I say at least one because they all have a strange aspect to them compared to incubating my own eggs. But I'm just completely blown away that you can ship eggs in the heat of summer from Louisiana all the way to Oregon, over two days, allowing them to be bumping around in a hot truck for hours, sitting on a hot porch or mail box before pickup for hours, and then have any that are viable. I'm actually starting to wonder whether some of these might make it to hatch. If they do, I'll come back and post about it!

 

[darkbluespace]

Here are a few of my mottled babies...

 

[darkbluespace]

x2!!!!
I'd really love to get rid of my chocolate Orpington flock, so i could refill that pen with lots more seramas, but I'm not giving the birds away. They were too expensive to start with. So I'll keep em! And try not to go overboard (any more so) with the seramas.

I bet you could layer that coop. The Orpingtons are tall and the Seramas are short, so I bet the Orpingtons wouldn't even notice them!

 

[darkbluespace]

i help seramas alot faster than any other breed. I know I've saved a few females, for sure. But you make a good point. I don't normally intervene until they stall, so maybe next hatch, i do a few more safety holes earlier, just as an experiment.

I figure that most of the ones that need help are probably girls... but I've never kept track. Honestly, I help them early and I rarely have ill effects from doing so. These babies just hatched.

 

[formerchickenlass]

anybody found a secret on hatching female seramas? I bet i have twice as many little cockerels.

This is anecdotal, but I've read that the female embryos are a little more sensitive to problems during incubation and more likely to quit.

Here's how I speculate and interpret that: male birds have ZZ chromosome, female birds have ZW. In humans it's the opposite. Females have XX and males have XY. In humans, there are X-linked genetic disorders. Males have a higher prevalence of those disorders because they only have one X, whereas females have a backup X if info from one is defective.

And in birds it's the opposite. There must be Z-linked genetic defects that females are more susceptible to because they only have one Z.

 

[formerchickenlass]

I acquired a second incubator this spring and have been doing a rolling incubation the past month. It's been so nice not having to worry about eggs getting too old while I collect enough to set, nor to worry much about getting enough eggs from pairs that lay less frequently.

Will be hatching through the rest of June. Here are a few of the babies I've already hatched:

Here's one that just hatched this afternoon:

 

[SilksterTN]

I have one of each. The premiere is easier to adjust but feels a lot hotter. The brinsea is a pain to adjust. The chicks love them

 

[SilksterTN]

Hatching eggs are way too addictive. Truly. Like most, I hatched some of my own eggs to build my flock. And like most, I over hatched. LOL Then I wanted a few other things for my breeding pens so I bought hatching eggs twice. Now I've got so many chicks coming out of my ears I won't let myself hatch anymore of my own eggs this year. So now I am selling my eggs and hoping that they keep selling so I am not tempted.
It's fun to get eggs and see what birds from the other side of the country end up looking like. It's also a great way to diversify and mix things up. The down side is that they are often scrambled and/or don't develop. But still worth it to me to have something different to add to my flock