Serama Hatch-A-Long!!

[Naliez]

It can happen, just thank your lucky stars : )    From my own birds, I have had hatches where I got four or five pullets and one or no roosters but then my hen hatched out 4 roosters and just one pullet.  From my own eggs, I find it usually evens out eventually.    Funny, the girls that are raised without a rooster don't have much tolerance for them!  I really can't blame them.

Neither can I! Lol Here's the one I suspect is a roo. (actually, I bet money on it) Aside from the red comb and wattles coming in, he's the only one with any colors other than brown. He's got these big, patchy spots on his chest and wings and I think there's some red coming in between his wings, on his shoulders. I think he's going to be very handsome! Do you know what he could look like as he matures?

 

[Naliez]

Actually, you know what? I wonder if these are sex linked. I guessed this was a boy at hatch because all of the others have solid chipmunk stripes and he has more of a blur. I can't remember which breed that applies to but it looks like it applied to my brood of Seramas too.

 

[Naliez]

I have never heard of the Serama before. After doing some image search, I have to say between the PHX and the Serama, it's a real toss up!

Idk about Phoenix, but I'm absolutely loving my Seramas. They really are funny, brave little birds with BIG attitude and they've been by far the friendliest breed I've owned.

 

[darkbluespace]

Neither can I! Lol Here's the one I suspect is a roo. (actually, I bet money on it) Aside from the red comb and wattles coming in, he's the only one with any colors other than brown. He's got these big, patchy spots on his chest and wings and I think there's some red coming in between his wings, on his shoulders. I think he's going to be very handsome! Do you know what he could look like as he matures?

He is a cutie, though I could not say what he might look like!

 

[formerchickenlass]

How many days left do you have?

I have two chicks hatching under my little broody and three more eggs. I am hoping for 4 or 5 because someone wants to buy a couple but I want my hen to have at least 2.

I'm on day 17 with my incubator and day 10 with my broody. Just candled the eggs under broody and removed two (1 clear and 1 quitter). She has 5 left. Incubator has 9 serama eggs left (1 quit, looked like around day 14).

I think the air cells look about right in my serama eggs but maybe looked small in my 3 large hen eggs. I'm hoping those 3 will be tough enough to hatch anyway since I'm optimizing the hatch for the seramas. I stopped turning & began raising humidity last night, right now it's at 65% and the vent is half open. I hope that's right, I wasn't sure exactly when to put them on lockdown but it sounded like they could be hatching as early as day 18 so I wanted to be prepared for that. I suppose I'll have a better feel for it after this first hatch!

Congrats on your new chicks!

 

[formerchickenlass]

Actually, you know what? I wonder if these are sex linked. I guessed this was a boy at hatch because all of the others have solid chipmunk stripes and he has more of a blur. I can't remember which breed that applies to but it looks like it applied to my brood of Seramas too.

These were purchased eggs right? Do you know whether the breeder was working on any color projects? Perhaps they're in the process of breeding a sex-linked color. Pixie Chickens has an article from some years ago talking about her chocolate breeding project and the chocolate is a sex-linked recessive gene.

http://www.pixiechickens.com/1512/chocolate-serama-goodness/

 

[Naliez]

These were purchased eggs right? Do you know whether the breeder was working on any color projects? Perhaps they're in the process of breeding a sex-linked color. Pixie Chickens has an article from some years ago talking about her chocolate breeding project and the chocolate is a sex-linked recessive gene. 

http://www.pixiechickens.com/1512/chocolate-serama-goodness/

Well, I saw they had Seramas, but when I texted them, they said the birds had not been laying well and to check back in a week. So I did, that week and the next, and the one after that. I think they got annoyed with me and finally told me to just come get what they had, which was less than a dozen (10, I think), but they charged me less than half of what they had originally quoted for 12 eggs. I think they're advertised as a small hatchery, which they run on their residential property. Husband picked up the eggs and never saw the parent stock. Honestly, the entire experience was pretty unprofessional and had I been looking for a SQ bird, I definitely would have kept looking. BUT after spending so much on shipped eggs with terrible hatch rates, I was just happy to get some viable eggs. 9 out of 10 made it to hatch with one quitter during zipping. (A much better hatch rate than the 1 out of 30-something I got with shipped eggs!) I tried to look at their website to see the possible parent stock, but there was only two blurry pictures and I couldn't get a good look.

 

[formerchickenlass]

Wow, what a strange experience! On the upside you got an excellent hatch rate.

My experiences acquiring animals from breeders has left me with mixed feelings. In one case I acquired silkie chicks that turned out to be silkie crosses. No idea what they're crossed with. I wrote the lady & told her I didn't mind they weren't full silkies (even though I honestly did) because I really wanted to know what the mix might be. Of course she never wrote me back.

In the second case we bought 4 ducks and were told 3 were females. It turns out 3 are males.

In the third case (this is the gal I acquired my seramas from) there were a number of little details that weren't quite correct during our conversations (like age of a second flock she owned shifted from 5 months to 7 months within a week). When I finally purchased the birds I was told 3 falsehoods:

1. they rarely go broody (as you know I have a broody on eggs right now, and a second one who's been in a broody breaker cage for several days, sigh).

2. the 5 girls would lay me 3-5 eggs a day (once I got 4 eggs, but before these two girls went broody I was typically getting 1-3 eggs a day).

3. they were all A class. This was thankfully a lie as I don't care one iota about their weight unless it's too low for them to lay effectively. I weighed 3 of my girls one afternoon and as best I could tell one was A class and the other two were C class weights.

Naliez, I'm hoping for the best with your babies but just because my own experiences have led me to feel suspicious of breeders, I want to make you an offer. If you find that as your babies continue to grow and feather out that they aren't full blood seramas, I invite you to send me a PM. I would be happy to send you whatever eggs I could collect over 3-4 days for cost of s&h.

 

[Naliez]

Wow, what a strange experience! On the upside you got an excellent hatch rate.  

My experiences acquiring animals from breeders has left me with mixed feelings. In one case I acquired silkie chicks that turned out to be silkie crosses. No idea what they're crossed with. I wrote the lady & told her I didn't mind they weren't full silkies (even though I honestly did) because I really wanted to know what the mix might be. Of course she never wrote me back. 

In the second case we bought 4 ducks and were told 3 were females. It turns out 3 are males. 

In the third case (this is the gal I acquired my seramas from) there were a number of little details that weren't quite correct during our conversations (like age of a second flock she owned shifted from 5 months to 7 months within a week). When I finally purchased the birds I was told 3 falsehoods: 

1. they rarely go broody (as you know I have a broody on eggs right now, and a second one who's been in a broody breaker cage for several days, sigh). 

2. the 5 girls would lay me 3-5 eggs a day (once I got 4 eggs, but before these two girls went broody I was typically getting 1-3 eggs a day). 

3. they were all A class. This was thankfully a lie as I don't care one iota about their weight unless it's too low for them to lay effectively. I weighed 3 of my girls one afternoon and as best I could tell one was A class and the other two were C class weights. 

Naliez, I'm hoping for the best with your babies but just because my own experiences have led me to feel suspicious of breeders, I want to make you an offer. If you find that as your babies continue to grow and feather out that they aren't full blood seramas, I invite you to send me a PM. I would be happy to send you whatever eggs I could collect over 3-4 days for cost of s&h. 

Wow! That is pretty amazing of you to offer! I will let you know! Thank you so much. It's been a lot of fun, all this chicken business; a lot of ups and downs. I feel like I've learned a lot in a very short amount of time (and with minimal disaster) thanks to the many kind and helpful people, (like you!) here on BYC and for that, I am very grateful.

 

[Skink]

I will be setting Serama eggs again soon! My own this tine, testing the fertility of my nicest young rooster. For now, look what I have in the incubator this morning: