LynnaePB
Free Ranging
So the saga of the shipped eggs continues!
Only one viable of the paint here DAY 7, it’s doing quite well. Crossing my fingers! The replacements the breeder is sending, the lavender and mixed colors, have got held up somewhere. They were supposed to be here yesterday morning, shipped express. Looks like they won’t get here until Monday, if then. Post office tracking shows them leaving Seattle but they have not officially arrived in Hawaii yet. Even called the ag department yesterday to find out if they had been scanned in Honolulu and they have no record of that yet. Even if they go through today they still won’t get to me until earliest Monday. In conversations with the breeder, she suspects that the eggs may be x-rayed when they get to Hawaii as the agriculture department is very strict. Obviously they shouldn’t be scanning shipped eggs that have permits to be here, but what can you do? Only explanation we can come up with that explains the low development rate.
Anyway, I decided to take some photos of the cute chicks I have and not dwell on the ones that I don’t have!
The Fab Four are now between the ages of 4 weeks and 5 1/2 weeks of age. Kinoko and Hikari are standing out as awesome little pullets with great personalities. Akira is feathering in quite nicely and has an amazing bunny tail already. She has a very wide comb and if I didn’t already have a DNA test with 99.6% accuracy that she is female, I would wonder.
Little Imari is feathering in nicely as well but unfortunately he has a single comb which is becoming quite evident now. I will likely sell him when he has feathered out and looks nice. Hopefully I can find him a good home. He is the only one that hatched and lived, out of 35 eggs total!
Expensive learning experience. On a positive note, two of my silkie girls are laying again and I’ve been putting their eggs in the incubator. Hopefully they’re fertile and my little cockerel has done his job!
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They are looking adorable, they sure grow up fast!
I'm really sorry you've been having such bad luck with the shipped eggs! I would be really frustrated with that situation too.....
The DNA testing seems really handy....I would have been leaning towards cockerel too if I saw that comb.
I'm sorry to hear little Imari is developing a single comb. Can you get some more decent stock there? Given how hard it's been to get any of the shipped eggs to hatch I'd be tempted to keep him for the genetic diversity if he turns out nice otherwise and breed out the single combs over time. They are a pain since they are recessive but it could definitely be done. Can you get adult birds shipped there or is there too much red tape? Getting a nice cockerel/cock from a breeder who could ship would probably be an even better option if possible.
Such cute beautiful babies! Their sweet little faces 
Fingers crossed for this little one!
And hopefully they were handled with care and without excessive x-raying on their way 
