"Springing in the Chicks" 2016 April Hatch-a-Long Hosted by Mike & Sally

[Watermelon123]

No pics I will take some tomorrow pouring the rain here

At least its not snowing anymore....

 

[jnr005]

Still waiting on mine to hatch in 2 weeks, but here are the silkies I picked up tonight.

I wanted to wait and get a few when mine hatch, but a good opportunity came up early. I love the blue ones. My daughter picked the black and partridge(?).

 

[tao chick]

Meh. Down to two due tomorrow. One was gone before lockdown but I questioned my judgment and left it. 1 I found today with a cracked shell in a bad position. I'm not sure if the chick pipped there or if the crack happened first. Either way the chick was dead. :-( I trashed the carton and hope the two remaining eggs don't get messed up because of the change in position. There hadn't been draw down yet. I am disappointed but trying to learn from it all.
@lindalouly@Chaos18
4/1 = 0/15 from shipped eggs
4/8&4/9 = 5/7 from my eggs
4/12 = ?/12 from shipped eggs
3 due 4/15 from a friend
20? due 4/24 from my flock

 

[chicken hawk 33]

Day 14 for my broody muscovy hen.and day seven for shipped chicken eggs in the incubator

 

[vonrow]

We finally set up an incubator today with 45 eggs. (4 mottled Houdan, 8 olive eggers, and the rest are a mix of Wyandotte and Austrolorp brown eggs.)

We have 4 different roosters: Blue Polish, Golden Wyandotte, Silver Wyandotte, and one mystery Rooster with feathered feet and bright red eyes ...so our hatch should yield a neat mix of "barnyard" surprises this year.

 

[firedragon1982]

Put my Silkies into lockdown today, already had internal pips, as of right now, 2 external pips!!

Edit: up to 5 silkie pips!!

I have skipped a lot of pages, sorry if I missed anything. My internet is running super slow tonight, and I am tired, been digging holes for trees all day.

 

[sasafras4u2]

@Sally Sunshine @lindalouly
Oh wow I just found out the little barnyard mix I have been so carefully incubating are not just normal chicks. The are 1/8 gray gamebird 1/8 asil game bird and 3/4 Japanese game bird. I hate game chickens. I had homes for these if they hatch but since they wanted pets I think these would not be good. So the original owners are going to get them back and I ordered 12 "nice" eggs to hatch for my friends pets. So my eggs are due to arrive 4/16 so i'll set them on sunday or monday the 18th.Lol helps my addiction too.....
Update edit
I just purchased 6 isabelle split to brown and 6 ayam cemani eggs to set on monday. Yay

 

[generaldsherman]

Hey all think I might have gotten missed in the hatch-a-long list
@lindalouly

I had one broody, a buff silkie, due on 4/1 she had a rough time with eggs accidentally getting broken until we seperated her. She ended up hatching three chicks, two black oegb and a silkie. She had one other egg that internally pipped but never externally. Upon opening it up we were shocked to discover a little crossbeak chick, with possible misplaced/missing eye(one was normal) and a complete lack of a right leg. This chick was a slw/buff Orpington mix. One of the little oegb did require some minor assistance when we discovered the membrane was stuck to the back of its head gluing it in the egg.

After two days one of the little black oegb chicks stumbled too close to our Buff Orpington broody due on 4/4. She acted aggressively and pecked the little one to death.

The buff Orpington was sitting on 1 slw egg, and 7 slw/buff Orpington eggs. All hatched perfectly healthy leaving yet more mystery about the little deformed chick.

These two along with two broodies due the week before were our first broodies.

I am currently waiting in the doctors office as I've been running a fever for over a week. Courtesy of some illness complicated by my asthma.

I have been in a haze for over a week now. Well the bator was cleaned and prepped and late on 4/6 in a haze from my cold I decided to jenga eggs into the bator, determined to fit as many of the eggs we had been collecting as possible into the bator. I will tell you idk how many I set. Lol we will be counting them at first candle in the meantime we are running dry and tilting the whole incubator to turn the eggs. I'm hoping we get a good hatch.

Assuming my sudaphed steeped brain did the math correctly we should be locking down on the 25th and hatching on the 28th.

I feel your pain, my appointment for the exact same thing is tomorrow except the fever part just started, biggest problem here is deep cough and clogged lungs.

awwww good luck!!!  was humidity too high?


!!! 

? 

GOOD LUCK!!!!!

Nope, have a humidistat on my new hatcher hooked to a LED mister. Held steady at 65-70 the whole time. Think that one was the wonky-looking egg when I candled. It seems to be doing better this evening. Might be OK.

look at the cute little bare necks

 

[h2oratt]

Good morning all.  Well, I may be done with the April HAL.  I candled this weekend on day 10 and am down to 2 developing, 5 blood rings and 3 clear.  I knew that shipped eggs could be problematic and they are.  I may try again with eggs from a different source.  I wish I could find Icelandics locally but it's difficult to find any fertile eggs locally.  I'll be going to our local trade day/flea market this weekend and take a look at the chicken row.

On a funny note, a dog got after one of my young hens and chased her under my shop.  I tried to coax her out to no avail so I got one of the other hens and got her to clucking and peeping (they're still very young and just starting to sound henlike).  That didn't work.  It was getting dark and I thought to myself "Self, she'll stay under there until the morning."  A few minutes later, there's a brown streak running across the backyard.  Chicken being chased by the dog again.  I grab the dog and the hen is now under the back porch.  I'm half way under the porch, clucking at the chicken.  My wife says that I looked like the scene from the Wizard of Oz where the house feel on the witch and her feet were sticking out.  Anyway, the chicken finally ran out, ran up next to me and pressed up as close as she could to me.  "Save me Daddy!" 

All's well that ends well.  Any advice on how to train a dog to ignore the chickens?

Train it on a shock collar to come. When it chases call it off

 

[pjnbill22]

@Sally Sunshine
Hatch-a-long update
Incu #1 on lockdown just now
It's been a near total loss

7/41 still going
1/6 Cuckoo Bluebar- (MPC) clears, quitters, saddle cells. The one remaining doesn't look too promising
0/10 White Leghorn- (mail) clears, saddle cells and scrambled eggs
3/18 (our birds) EE, White Plymouth mutts- threw them in after a no show for the fertile eggs x 3 days, early quitters -100% fertile
3/7(our birds) EE- same as above, no shows, early quitters- 100% fertile

Incu #2 (day 16)
8/10 White Plymouths (mail) 1 clear, 1 late quitter
9/12 EE- Erminett type (BYC auction/mail) 1 clear, 2 early quitters- saddled air cells
25/30 Nanci's mutts (coworker) 2 clears, 3 early quitters

Incu #3 (day 15)
1/7 Sebastopol geese (coworker Nanci) 5 clears, 1 early quitter - She's bringing me more to try in a week or two!

Incu #4 (day 4)
17 Columbian Wyandottes (mail)
12 Nanci's mutts (coworker)
Also in #4 (staggered)
10 Olive Eggers- Marans/Ameraucana & Ameraucana/Marans (BYC auction/mail)

Still to come:
12 BLRW
12 Langshan

Hoping for an uneventful hatch- it's been a horrible few days here. After returning from a cousin's funeral (breast cancer), we found our one and only Polish, Sir Topham Hatt dead. No signs of trauma. Quarantined that coop and treated for coccidiosis as one other bird was acting sluggish. All are doing well now, still quarantined. My young son and I cried like babies, we just adored that bird! I deal with death every day (hospice), but I think dealing with such personal loss brought everything to a head. My youngest (3 yrs) grandson came home from the hospital today (pneumonia), my daughter can't convince him to take his meds or breathing treatment, because only Nahma can do it. So I get to give medicine, and breathing treatment, and rock and comfort my precious boy. He's doing much better, and little does he know, he was comforting me.