This is the correct answer
No
7
Yes, it's my baby. I love throwing parades, but there is a reason the bar is high. If it were easy, we would be having parades every week, and they wouldn't be special any more. I would love as much as anyone to hatch one parade batch, then sit back and gloat for the rest of the year like some people
, but I'm hatching every few weeks, so bad things are going to happen.
I don't think this batch is going to produce a parade either, but I am very happy with the results. I have 15 in the brooder this morning, so this is my best marans hatch yet. All of the large brown eggs with the small air cells hatched, so I learned a lot from this batch. The Davis eggs hatching points more towards the genetics of Tate's original flock as the source of my earlier issues. I won't be incubating those eggs any more. I have several cockerels coming up that hatched from those dark eggs, and 2 of them are developing nicely. I should have several more from this batch, too, so I'm hoping to get at least one rooster that can take Tate's place in the BCM pen. Tate will be given a flock of Ams next spring.
The incubator is still running, but there are no pips in the remaining light eggs. What I thought was a pip on #16 was a piece of shell from another egg. If there are no pips when I get home tonight, I will shut it down and probably won't be hatching any more until the Ams start laying some normal sized eggs, probably in December
So, no 2015 parade for me, but I finished the year with 30 marans chicks, which was my original goal, so I'm happy