Setting our OWN eggs :) :) :) pics page 3!

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Oh my gosh last year I came to HATE shipped eggs. Infertiles from unscrupulous sellers, broken air cells, 50% blood rings, USPS football games with boxes marked fragile - not to mention lost boxes, heat damage, cold damage, aggghhhhhh . . .!!!!

This year . . . I have two dozen beauties from my own hens in the bator. There were three infertiles - but I expected that knowing which hen they came from, only one blood ring, and NO BROKEN AIR CELLS!!!

One more week to go . . . gosh I hope all goes well!

 

[Orphy]

Good job!
What is a blood ring?

 

[sonew123]

Yah Katy!!

I love incubating my own eggs--what eggs are you incubating? Amaracaunas???

 

[4-H chicken mom]

Congrats and good Luck.

 

[chickenmeadow]

I'm not giving up on "shipped eggs" yet, because they do help me get breeds & lines that I can't get otherwise. Have even had some good luck with the shipped eggs & was always amazed at what the eggs could survive after the "jostling."

But, am pleased to candle my own in the incubator with 100% viable so far, out of 16 eggs. They are mostly Bantam Ameraucana/Faverolles crosses for green-blue eggs & some Bantam Faverolles. There's just a different feeling about knowing that they are from my own flock, I'll probably feel even more proud of the chicks to come, my roos & my hens.

Happy hatching with yours!

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
It's a red ring around the top third, you see it when you candle and it means it died.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

Quote:
7 of my meat bird project, 9 of my "super layer" project - the roo is my John Blehm Buff Am, 3 white AMs (Wane Meredith)

and 6 EE's who are in with the White AM roo. wooohooo!

 

[sonew123]

Quote:
7 of my meat bird project, 9 of my "super layer" project - the roo is my John Blehm Buff Am, 3 white AMs (Wane Meredith)

and 6 EE's who are in with the White AM roo. wooohooo!

whats the "meat bird project"? pretty-BIG FAT birdies???

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

lol yes!
I was given two full grown cornish cross hens . . . they weigh 20lbs each!
Rustyswoman and I thought and thought about what to cross them with (they lay HUGE eggs), you know to slow the growth rate back down a bit - make a fast growing but more reasonable bird. Kind of like attacking the problem from the other direction

So we settled on a Black Copper Maran that Rustyswoman had culled for coloring and we each have 1/2 dozen in our incubators. These girls won't last forever, they're laying now but I can see them aging RAPIDLY. They're the sweetest fattys you ever saw and the roo loves his fat bottom girls!
My tentative plan is to:
cross FCM X CC = F1
cross FCM X Buckeye = F1
cross F1 X F1 both males and females = F2
then F2 X F2
I am aiming for a red shaded free foraging meat bird . . . what cha think?

 

[chiknhut]

Hatching your own does give you a more feeling of accomplishment than just buying and incubating which is fun too. Congrats.