The 7th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-A-Long!

[AppleJackAcres]

5 hatched so far and 3 are still zipping.

 

[emvickrey]

I'm not done yet. I have one zipping and 2 eggs left. I'm just shocked that so many have hatched. Right now i have 7 1/2 chicks out of 10

 

[Penny Hen]

Glad we caught it in time.

It wasn't just that my temp spiked the digital thermostat raised the shut off point

Do you have yours plugged into a surge protector? Power surges can affect digital devises. It is always best to have them plugged into one of the light strips with the surge protection in them.

 

[emvickrey]

Myj chicks started hatching 2 days late due to incubator issues. I didn't expect any to hatch. But nearly all have and they are still hatching. One egg at a time

 

[Penny Hen]

Anyone know what's going on here? It can hold its head up some, but it starts to drift until it's completely upside down. Got it in a cup with its head supported and gave it some Nutri-Drench.

Did it have a difficult hatch?

 

[Lozuufy]

The 4th winner of the Random Posting Contest is..........

Penny Hen

You have won a poultry sign, courtesy of NotAFarm.for your post here.

There is still one more chance to win!​

​

Congrats!

This was the best way to corral all 19 babies: 2 silkies, 1 showgirl, 2 CCL, 4 BBS Copper Marans, and the rest are various leghorn varieties. I am completely addicted!

So cute!

I love this! I'm going to have to see what colors I can make now!
I read that you can flip them & pull back on the tail slightly to tell if they're male by a "foam" production from the vent. That helped me find that I have 2 males but I figured they were by that funny crow they do

I just love the sounds.

No, please! I enjoy learning as much as I can about these! I just picked these 6 up off Craigslist for $5 & thought it'd be fun. So far, it is.

This is interesting! I like learning all of these color genetics.

AAWWS! She feels better with the company!

Lol yeah it's really funny how they crow, my quail are in my pigeon cage and the pigeons used to freak out when they would crow

.

3 were due Sunday, Roommate came home to two out & two pipped/zipped.
So, one little guy is early by 2 days!

So cute!


Hope everyone has a great Easter!

 

[emvickrey]

Here are the first 6


These 2 are silkies. Dad is a black silkie roo and mom is a paint. i'm thinking these are going to be interesting to watch feather out. The 3rd silkie is mostly white with a few black spots. I hope it gets more when it feathers out. The other 3 are mottled english orps. So far all 4 look alike. The 4th one is still in the bator cheering on one that is zipping and 2 eggs that haven't done anything yet

 

[Penny Hen]

I'm really sorry to hear it's one of your Chanteclers!

I'm the other side of the coin and I realize what I'm going to say is harsh, but I'm just putting it out there anyway for everyone to think about.
(And even when I told myself no more early am posting

)

I have a line of 10 (originally 11; 6 hens, 5 roosters) Silkie crosses that we got as week old chicks from one farm. I had one chick show a tilted head late last summer. I did get chicky vitamins from the vet but before I gave them the tilted head disappeared.

Fast forward to December, I think that's when I mentioned the wry neck Silkie X rooster I had. He'd respond to larger doses of vitamins, but would regress if put back into general population. He lost weight, continued regressing and I finally put him down when it was clear he wasn't getting any better. I had one chick from one of the Silkie cross females (sister sibling) hatch in the NYE HAL that showed wry neck. (I put it down) I now have two Silkie cross roosters showing clear signs of wry neck after being stressed when I had them penned separately in a smaller coop by themselves before we got the coop renovations done.

So as I suspected in December, I would consider these Silkies to have a heritable genetic defect, possibly with in the utilization of vitamins/minerals which predisposes them to getting wry neck. I've been reading as much as I can about wry neck; I don't have any evidence of injury or otherwise. I don't believe they have vaulted skulls...they're crossed birds and not bred for the poof.
I also have 4 purebred non-related Silkies who have not shown anything.

Anyone who has followed the HALS since December has read that I have not given my birds a balanced diet this winter. Every other bird has performed beautifully, which is what I want to see. My roosters maintained great fertility. The hens began laying young (5 months, both EE's & OEGBs) and the older girls through molt, with only short amounts of daylight on an unbalanced diet when I didn't even want them laying...lol. The chickens haven't eaten each other or developed any other problems...other than these Silkie x's who were showing signs when they were on a balanced diet last year.

If you are a breeder, even though you may feed a balanced diet...the people you sell chicks to may not feed a balanced diet. The very last thing you want is people having issues with your chicks if problems show up down the road.

A quick story: I cannot convey to you as a livestock breeder how many people keep progeny from animals who have problems, like vaginal prolapse (a heritable trait.) I've been a breeder of Katahdin sheep for 16 years and I've had extensive experience correcting (culling) other breeders very poor choices in keeping stock. I started with 4 unrelated lines; one line of females (IGB), 4 out of 10 females prolapsed. The females from the other 3 lines did not prolapse at all. I took the entire IGB line of females, plus the ram I never got to use, out of purebred production and raised slaughter stock lambs only that were shipped straight to slaughter. I had another "breeder" contact me to buy this line of females because she wanted to outcross with another sheep breed. Of course I refused as any reputable breeder would. A neighbor of ours purchased about 20 females from this breeder 3 years down the road and ended up giving everything away because EVERY female prolapsed. I've corrected prolapsing with calcium/vitamin injections (helps with muscle tone/strength) if a ewe has issues with prolapsing. But that female is no good to me as a breeding animal if she can't properly utilize what she needs on her own.

My idea is cull the problem and you won't have problems.(survival of the fittest genetics) If it's a pet for yourself, it's a different story.
But if this chick wouldn't survive without your help, it probably shouldn't survive to carry on those genetics. There are exceptions of course.

But this is just food for thought.

(And I don't mean to sound SO serious...lol)

I appreciate your candor so much. Some people think I am a bit strange when I counseled my daughters that if they fell in love with a man who had diabetes in his family to seriously think of adopting because my mother has a mild form and DH mother died of complications from severe diabetes when he was 10. One more level of concentration could bring it up.

 

[circ director]

Woke up this morning to 9 more chicks. One had zipped yesterday but couldn't make it out before membrane dried and stuck. Had to assist this morning. Looks good except for curled toes from being stuck.

So far 28 have hatched, 10 eggs left

 

[venymae]

Came home from sunrise service to 8 chicks and five pips! Yippie!