Silkie Hatch-A-Long 2015

[rainbowchick]

Wow! I'm excited to try both of these methods!
Thanks for the pics!

 

[katiec1824]

I am very excited about my 1st attempt at hatching my Silkie hens eggs I set 12 in my incubator on Feb 14th and I candles them last night and I have great veins and tiny red blobs in all but 2!! Am I being foolish to think at least 10 will hatch??

 

[LisaLouHoo]

I am very excited about my 1st attempt at hatching my Silkie hens eggs I set 12 in my incubator on Feb 14th and I candles them last night and I have great veins and tiny red blobs in all but 2!! Am I being foolish to think at least 10 will hatch??

Congrats on your new life! Here's to hoping that they make it to hatch!

 

[rainbowchick]

My silkie hatching eggs are enroute... But we are having zero degree weather with windchill in the negatives! Even with the 72 hour warmer, I am so nervous they'll be frozen. I even read on the Uniheat website that the heaters *can* stop working in temps below freezing. What the?? What's the point of one then?
Anyone had this experience? Did you get any to hatch??

 

[katiec1824]

What is a realistic amount that usually makes it to pip?

 

[rainbowchick]

What is a realistic amount that usually makes it to pip?

Seems like experienced breeders get about 85-95% hatch rate. Inexperienced ones get 50-80% typically. I set my first hatch ever last month- 7 eggs set, 5 made it to lockdown, 4 pipped, 3 hatched. That's actually less than 50%, but having two infertiles kind of skewed my odds. If you've set 12 and see veining in 10, my guess is you'll have at least 50%.

 

[Tammylr]

Seems like experienced breeders get about 85-95% hatch rate. Inexperienced ones get 50-80% typically. I set my first hatch ever last month- 7 eggs set, 5 made it to lockdown, 4 pipped, 3 hatched. That's actually less than 50%, but having two infertiles kind of skewed my odds. If you've set 12 and see veining in 10, my guess is you'll have at least 50%.

I set 16, had great development in 14, had 9 pip, 1 didn't hatch that piped, one died that had deformities and 7 are doing well. 4 of the 7 are porcelain and that carries hatching difficulty. I think in the future I'll stay with BBS. They are my fav, maybe throw some white dominant a in there.

 

[katiec1824]

Ok im a newbie so can someone tell me what the difference between porcelain and BBS

 

[rainbowchick]

Ok im a newbie so can someone tell me what the difference between porcelain and BBS

Porcelain is a diluted partridge or buff. BBS stands for Blue, Black, Splash, which genetically can be easily crossed with eachother to produce varying amounts of blues, blacks, and splashes. Search for BBS Punnet Square and you'll see what I mean...

 

[aatx]

I have at least one full Silkie egg under a broody, possibly more. Rooster is a silkie, so all are at least half-silkie. Two silkie hens broody right now. One has six eggs and one has four. I only gave the first one five eggs, but she laid her own egg the next day or the day after. She's always laid one last egg a few days after going broody and I forgot about that. (In the past, it's always been while I was trying to break her, so it's never mattered.) The second one got her eggs four days after the first one. Hopefully the first will wait for the late egg to hatch (assuming it's viable at that point) or maybe I could even sneak it under the other hen at the very end. I'm trying to wait until Monday to candle (day 10), but I might have to sneak a peek this weekend.