Serama Hatch-A-Long!!

[Bama1]

So I am wondering how my husband is going to handle it if all 50 of these eggs hatch. Lockdown is this coming week.

I just bought my first trio of Serama last week and yes they are in the living room. He is amazed that they mimic sounds and they respond to things they hear on the TV and when our dogs bark, the rooster does a bark that sounds exactly like the schnauzer's bark. We are use to the large fowl growling or warning when they see a bird fly overhead, and the egg song etc. but these little Serama's have a much larger vocabulary than we have heard before. More entertaining than the TV !

 

[RockyRose]

@darkbluespace - I agree there is likely a fertility problem with the eggs from KY, although I did ask after my first 8 were duds and seller said fertility was good on eggs she was hatching. She also said other people did get shipped Serama eggs to hatch. People say things that aren't always the whole truth though, so I just don't know. Obviously won't order from her again. I'm quite sure it isn't my incubating process...having very good success with silkies this time around. Congrats on the ducks! I'm amazed you had a silkie that young that crowed...very unusual in my experience.

@Skink - Glad to hear your roos aren't really any trouble yet, they haven't got the hormone thing going on yet lol. Although I don't have any naked necks YET of any kind, think they are adorable. Praying the one purchased egg from a NN pen is truly a NN! Those eggs don't go into lockdown for another 10 days or so.

@Bama1 - You make me very glad I don't have anyone to complain about my very full incubator, although my son "the builder" has been grumbling a bit about my need for a growout pen lol. I love hearing folks tell of the amusement they get from their Seramas...and I will have a breeding pair once weather is warm enough to ship. Still figuriig out how to keep them in the house and safe from 3 dogs that want to eat any bird they have access to! A big challenge in a small house. Dogs need serious training (not that I haven't tried already but it's very difficult with 3 of them).

Update on hatching...4 pips by the time I went to bed last night on my first batch of staggered eggs, this morning woke to two black chicks, one yellow, and one a mix of grey and yellow. They are still a bit wet this morning so colors are "preliminary"...as they fluff I can get a better idea...but the yellow will likely turn white and has light skin so I suspect momma is my one frizzle bantam cochin. The grey and yellow may be splash (dad is splash I think, although some of these eggs could have been fertilized by the black silkie roo I sold). It's too soon to tell if any will be frizzled, and colors will change to some degree as they are silkies & sizzles. Two more eggs have pipped, leaving 6 with no visible signs of hatching yet, but day 21 doesn't actually start until late today, so I have early birds!

 

[darkbluespace]

@Rockyrose Congrats on the chicks!!!

Yay!!

 

[darkbluespace]

So I am wondering how my husband is going to handle it if all 50 of these eggs hatch.

Lockdown is this coming week.

I just bought my first trio of Serama last week and yes they are in the living room. He is amazed that they mimic sounds and they respond to things they hear on the TV and when our dogs bark, the rooster does a bark that sounds exactly like the schnauzer's bark. We are use to the large fowl growling or warning when they see a bird fly overhead, and the egg song etc. but these little Serama's have a much larger vocabulary than we have heard before. More entertaining than the TV !

I can't wait to see how they do... of course I expect the best so I imagine your husband flipping out about how many there are... ooops, I mean loving all the adorable new little chickies!! Keep us updated please!

I have a bunch of birds in my living room... 15 quail and 2 Seramas and 3 incubators, ha ha! My dog doesn't care about them and my cats know they better not touch one of MY birds. We have a no birds rule in general for the cats, but they sneak the occasional one outside.

5 duckies making their way out. The thing I notice about ducklings is that they are just pure love when they hatch, they are so precious.

I have 10 Serama eggs on day 17 so I went ahead and put them in the hatcher in a basket, even though the ducks are still in there. I set another 32 Seramas, my biggest batch ever the other day. I already took out 5 clears and quitters. I put them in my original incubator that I had good Serama success with so we'll see. I have 40 quail eggs in there too.

 

[mightymax]

Good News !!! It appears that all my worrying about my babies little squabbles was for not, they're getting along just fine (for now...

). I'm so releavied. I guess it was just playful pecking order stuff after all because everything is once again harmonious at the little 'casa el pollo de serama' !!!

@darkbluespace ...
...you must have a really BIG living room to accommodate all that...lol !!! Which leads me to my question...How DO you DO it ALL ??? We just added
a new puppy to our already bursting at the seams fur and feathers family and I haven't even so much as looked at this forum in 3 days let alone hatch and care for all of those chickens !!! I really am starting to feel overwhelmed, although that could be because of the every 3 hour potty excursions I make with the puppy in the middle of the night

(at least you can diaper a human baby...or even a chicken, for that matter

!!!) Oh well

. Just wanted you to know that my hats off to you !!!


Naked neck serama, huh? Sounds interesting !!! Anyone have any pictures they can post?

Thanks
-kim

 

[Bama1]

Candled so it looks like 25 will be going into lockdown in a few day.
@mightymax glad the boys are playing nice !
@darkbluespace I hope your hatch goes great! What kind of ducks did you hatch? We have a Pekin trio that live out on our pond. Best thing ever, because the pond was so overgrown with stuff in the water when we moved here that hubby couldn't even fish without having to de-junk his line every single cast.
@rockyrose pics of baby's yet?

 

[Skink]

Candled 'em, 6 chicks going in to lockdown this weekend! This was the day 14, but they're all so large I plan to start lockdown early. I wouldn't be shocked if they turn out to be 18 day hatchers. Finally got to order some bantam cochin eggs for my broody hen too!

 

[darkbluespace]

Well, I was sick for a couple days and my son is finally getting better after a week. Talk about NOT doing it all! I just did the bare minimum and fortunately I only felt really badly for one day. I had a few Serama hatch this week and my 5 ducklings went to their new homes today. A couple of them had leg issues for a couple days that thankfully worked themselves out. They are not as cooperative as chickens are about having taped legs.

@mightymax I remember the last time I had a puppy and I remember after one night I could have just taken him right back! They are so much work! This time I got a 3 yr old Golden Retriever and he is a nearly perfect dog that just lays around and sleeps all the time. He is 8 now and just sleeps more.

@Bama1 How are those eggs doing? We have Ancona ducks in black and white, chocolate and white and one Lilac. The boys' ( of my youngest 8 ducks ) tail feathers are just starting to curl and if I am right and very lucky, I have 3 drakes and 5 hens.

Hoping hoping!! Pekins are so pretty... I wish I had a real pond for mine. They have a couple small "ponds" that they splash around in. My ducks keep the lawn pretty mowed all around the house, I really like it when animals do chores!

@Skink Can't wait to see how those eggs do! My last few hatched mostly on day 19. I am contemplating how I can get a Brinsea because I have lost so many chicks this winter. I have gone back to the original incubator I was using and trying to keep the humidity the same as when Serama hatches were going well and crossing my fingers. I am determined to figure it out eventually. Good luck with the cochins too, they are such beautiful chickens!!




I took some photos but they are on my other computer, so I'll post them when I get a chance. I just realized I forgot to take photos of the ducklings I sold today... darn it. I have more due on the 2nd and the 7th and the 19th so I'll remember sometime. My twin egg due on the 7th is still going strong. I wonder how it will do??!! I was trying to have low expectations.

 

[RockyRose]

Hey all! I've been quite busy so forgive my lack of updates and photos of chicks...13 hatched on my first batch and 10 silkie/frizzle went into lockdown last night. We had an ice storm and then a major snowstorm here in north Georgia which threw everything off kilter, lots of extra work taking care of outside chickens, pens, runs, and everything else. Twelve of the thirteen chicks are doing very well...but one little grey silkie has splay leg and I'm working on her, she's thriving but don't know if I can save her. Hobble isn't working well. Same thing happened with a hatch back in December, a grey silkie also...I suspect a genetic abnormality at work here. The polish eggs that hatched (2 of 3 set) are doing very well and will likely be like their mom, a bantam gold laced frizzle polish! I think 16 went into lockdown, 3 didn't make it to hatch.

I had thought the frizzled GL polish roo was gone long enough before I collected eggs for hatching - I didn't want any frazzled chicks...but some of the silkie eggs hatched out what appears to be frizzled chicks! Those roos leave there "stuff" with hens much longer than I expected (I waited a month). Some of the hatchlings appear to be from my frizzled cochin and the GL roo - miraculously wonderful little chicks! Still feeling blessed there were no frazzles.

Five out of six of my hens in the silkie pen are trying to go broody...one is definitely there, the others are waffling. Two are very young hens that only just started laying about 2 months ago (if that). It's a riot watching these girls trying to make up their minds about setting - swapping nests, generally grumpy, two hens on one nest sometimes...quite the chuckle. I really don't know if any of the eggs in the coop are viable with the freezing temps we had, and I was not doing a good job of collecting eggs from their coop. Waiting to see who really does sit, then I can candle eggs after a few days to see if any are really viable.

Between the incubator and the broodies I'm going to have to sell some chicks and this will be an extremely difficult decision for me...who will I keep?

It's been many years since I have tried uploading pics to this site and couldn't do it then, but I will try to do it later today. It appears that upgrades to the site may make this much easier now. The batch that hatched earlier this week are changing SO fast, some of them are getting frizzled already, so I may take new pics to upload today. If I have the time to figure out how to do a collage type pic I'll do a day old pic with a new pic...we shall see! I have the software but haven't really figured it out

. Still "laying low" after the backbreaking snow removal from Wednesday - so it's a good project for today.

Hope everyone's Seramas are doing well. Still waiting for weather to improve to get the Serama breeding pair shipped to me...maybe this week as we are expecting a warm up to nearly 60F! Hooray! Of course rain is expected with the warm up, so more GA mud to deal with, but that's a sure sign of Spring coming.

Here's at least one pic (many pics are still on my phone, not the PC), this is one of my favorites of the silkies...at about 24 hrs old.

 

[Bama1]

First one out! 10 more to go on this set. Yippee!