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

[mlm Mike]

I am wanting to join. I am planning to hatch some local Silkies and some Bantam Silver Penciled Wyandottes. I also might throw in some of my OE's. Right now my bator is full of Texas A&M quail. and 5 OE's. I'm wondering 1 dozen Silkies or 2? I am wanting to put the Silkies under my BSPW roo. I am wanting his color pattern. Does anyone know what color Silkie would work?

Great, welcome to the hatch a long. Someone might be able to answer your color pattern, but it isn't me.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

I am wanting to join. I am planning to hatch some local Silkies and some Bantam Silver Penciled Wyandottes. I also might throw in some of my OE's. Right now my bator is full of Texas A&M quail. and 5 OE's. I'm wondering 1 dozen Silkies or 2? I am wanting to put the Silkies under my BSPW roo. I am wanting his color pattern. Does anyone know what color Silkie would work?

You'll want a black hen under that silver penciled pattern male you have. It will take a minimum of two years to get the pattern on offspring and you'll have to hatch a ton of chicks that second spring to get the best pattern you can. To tackle this the easiest way would be to keep the sire and put him over the female offspring of first mating. If your looking for Silkie with that coloring you've a seriously long project ahead. Not only would you be two years minimum to get the coloration your adding to that Silkie physical characteristics which will take few years longer to bring all that back. If that's the plan then choose the most Silkie like F1 females to put under the sire for F2 birds. You'll want/need to hatch a lot of chicks this round not only for color but most Silkie features then mate back to F1 and hatch a ton again to pull out pattern and Silkie. How close you are at this third year will attest to how many you hatched to find the best genetic combination of what is available. From that third year you can either continue line breeding to pull out more and more Silkie or take your best birds and put over black Silkie again and expect two more years to get penciling back. So...five year minimum plan for Silver Penciled Silkie. To get a broody bird with many Silkie features that is Silver Penciled would take 3 years.

BTW, I have this variety color too and will be able to obtain a black pullet or two this fall for type improvement. Two year minimum project for me but I'm working with the same breed just different variety to improve body type of the Penciled.

 

[mlm Mike]

Quote: Wow. I admire your dedication!

 

[emvickrey]

Last year I had a bugar of a time hatching eggs. I would have a bator full and only get a few chicks. So I made my mind up that I was buying a Brinsea 20 this year. I had almost 2 dozen eggs collected and I hadn't ordered my Brinsea yet so I went ahead and set up my Hovobator still air. For some reason I couldn't get the temp up past 96 degrees. I changed the batteries in the thermo/hydrometer and couldn't understand why. So I added an old thermo/hydrometer that you use to measure the outdoors with. The temp was 100 degrees and humidity wouldn't even register. So I went to Walmart and bought a new one. The temp was 103 and humidity was 56. By this time my Brinsea had arrived and I set it up and put the new meter inside to test it and the temp was 99.5 and humidity 43%.

So I came to the conclusion that I was cooking the poor chicks. Last year most of them actually made it to lock down then would die. Now I'm hoping this year will be different. I have eggs that are due to hatch from the Hovobator on the 24th. I'll see what damage was done from the temp being to high early in incubation. The eggs in the Brinsea are due on the 30th. I have been collecting eggs and will set them after the eggs in the Hovobator hatch or don't hatch and I will start all over with a good meter. I'm hoping I do better on the next batch. It will be my last batch using the hovobator. A friend is giving me a couple dozen call duck eggs when ever I'm ready for them. I want to use the Brinsea for those since I dont' have good luck with duck eggs.

 

[hereorthere]

This is for anyone that looses any part of their flock, NEVER feel bad about showing your emotions over the loss of (just a chickrn or what ever.) God gave us animals to care for and we can not control all that happens in life. I 'll take any one of you as a friend because you have the type of heart the world needs. And yes, we feel your loss also.

Well said.

 

[emvickrey]

I am so glad to see you post. Haven't seen your eggs on Ebay in a long time or seen you post on the Middle TN line. I was sorta worried. Hey maybe you know the answer to my post about what color Silkie should I pair with my Bantam Silver Penciled Wyandotte roo to produce chicks with his color pattern.

I sold all my silkies except for a trio and one of the hens died this winter so I just have a pair. I'm working on hatching out more so I can hopefully add a couple more girls to that pen. I mainly got out of silkies because they are high maintenance and i'm just not able to take care of them properly. With as many as I had that is. I switched to LF. I have a trio of english orps. I have 2 mottled and a black. I also have 5 maran mixes I hatched last year and I bought 3 hens from the auction last year. One got sick and died right off. Then when I was checking the 2 remaining over for parasites and checking if nails needed to be trimmed I discovered I had a roo and a hen. One of them has spurs and was crowing. It looks like a hen unless you notice the spurs. I was getting 1 egg every other day for a long time and every once in a while I would find 2 eggs. Which had me scratching my head over. Then the other hen got sick and died and just before she died I got an egg up in the nest shelf. The sick hen couldn't even walk so I knew it wasn't her. After she died I was finding an egg every 2 days.That only means one thing. My roo isn't a roo. It's a hen with spurs. Her eggs are always very large/long and the shells are thin and bumpy. I was working on the shell quality before the hen died. Now I'm thinking the quality is because my hen/roo is a hen/roo.

Do you have any grey silkies? You can use those if your looking to try to keep the silver penciling. What other color is in the wyandotte besides silver penciled?

 

[hereorthere]

Which Brinsea? It's surface area, not depth that control the humidity, Cover up part of the well if you need to lower it.

Thanks Mike, this DID help. Humidity dropped to 27-31% just by covering half of the water well. Initially I had to test out your explanation of surface area.....so I soaked up half of the distilled water and tossed- humidity barely flickered & stayed steady at 35-37% for most of the yesterday. Laying a thick piece of cardboard over the well was the most quickest and reliable way. Oh, and it's an Octagon 20.

Did a quick candle for Day 3 and am excited to see that I've got veining in a few of those shells that I can see thru as well as bigger air sacs. Whoo-hoo!

Will update on Day 7.

 

[mlm Mike]

Quote:

 

[hereorthere]

Last year I had a bugar of a time hatching eggs. I would have a bator full and only get a few chicks. So I made my mind up that I was buying a Brinsea 20 this year. I had almost 2 dozen eggs collected and I hadn't ordered my Brinsea yet so I went ahead and set up my Hovobator still air. For some reason I couldn't get the temp up past 96 degrees. I changed the batteries in the thermo/hydrometer and couldn't understand why. So I added an old thermo/hydrometer that you use to measure the outdoors with. The temp was 100 degrees and humidity wouldn't even register. So I went to Walmart and bought a new one. The temp was 103 and humidity was 56. By this time my Brinsea had arrived and I set it up and put the new meter inside to test it and the temp was 99.5 and humidity 43%.

So I came to the conclusion that I was cooking the poor chicks. Last year most of them actually made it to lock down then would die. Now I'm hoping this year will be different. I have eggs that are due to hatch from the Hovobator on the 24th. I'll see what damage was done from the temp being to high early in incubation. The eggs in the Brinsea are due on the 30th. I have been collecting eggs and will set them after the eggs in the Hovobator hatch or don't hatch and I will start all over with a good meter. I'm hoping I do better on the next batch. It will be my last batch using the hovobator. A friend is giving me a couple dozen call duck eggs when ever I'm ready for them. I want to use the Brinsea for those since I dont' have good luck with duck eggs.

Love my Brinsea - it's pretty much fail-safe. If it fails, I think it's user error. I didn't use it much last year- just once when I got some shipped eggs but that turned out to be a disaster. My broody was much more successful, thank goodness!!! As I've had to replace all the original stock of hens as they were already at their 3 year mark.

 

[Peachickie]

I'm sure I'll be setting more eggs in April. I'm hatching some silkies and olive eggers for my sister's birthday 4/16.