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

[Lapeerian]

Was able to nail down some local Wheaten/Blue Wheaten Ameraucana eggs for the Hatch-a-long. Not sure how many I'll be getting, whatever the ladies decide to lay for the 10 days prior. Now to get some more to fill the 'bator at least partially. Looks like I'll have to try shipping some in, who here is in the Northeast with some cool hatching eggs? (Prefer purebreds, I have enough of my own mixed barnyard mutts)

 

[Penny Hen]

My coops are still crowded. I moved chicks,hens and roos around. I really need more space. One of my older hen keep pecking the juveniles so I put her with a pair of my mixed. The coop was a 8x6 with nesting boxes and place to hide if needed. All was great. The next morning when I went to feed is couldn't find my hen. She was hiding all hurt. Apparently she was attacked by the other hen.
Lily's head is now swollen and she can't open her eyes. I feed her 3 or 4 times a day. I put iodine on her head. This happened two days ago. Today she finally stand and open one eye. I think she's going to make it.
My question is Lili hatch 2 months ago and chick, it is a tiny one that I keep with the newly hatch. ( I think it's a female) she is awesome with the babies. Warms them teaches them to eat and all, but when I put my hands in the brooder to change feed or water she attacks me. It's so bad that she pecks my hand that she stays hanging when I put back.
Should I keep he? After what happened to Lili I'm not sure what to do with her.

She is just being a supermom. She is determined that nothing, NOTHING, not even you are going to hurt the little ones. It is PTSD. If you are patient with her and consistently are gentle with her an babies she will come around eventually. The emotional after affects of the trauma are causing this. On the positive side you know she will give her life to protect the babies should they be attacked.

 

[Asever1]

There were emu eggs at our feedstore when I went earlier this week. Just as well that we don't have anywhere near the room for emus--doubt I'd get one of those gorgeous eggs to fit in my incubator

The Emu eggs fit in my Hovabator very nicely. Just had to take out the wire base and of course no egg turner (except me of course

) I put two small glass canning jars in with the eggs to hold water for humidity, and that does it. Four Emu eggs fit very nicely!

 

[TJordan]

She is just being a supermom. She is determined that nothing, NOTHING, not even you are going to hurt the little ones. It is PTSD. If you are patient with her and consistently are gentle with her an babies she will come around eventually. The emotional after affects of the trauma are causing this. On the positive side you know she will give her life to protect the babies should they be attacked.

I agree. She is protecting those babies but if she gets too aggressive try holding her under your arm while you tend the chicks. Pet her often and be kind.

 

[Asever1]

Well firstly I'm glad the emu eggs seems to be coming along well can't wait to see the chicks as I've been stopping myself from googling them so they will be the first emu chicks I've ever seen.

Now about your flock, I am so sorry that happened to you that is just awful, our neighbors growing up had a German Shepherd that wiped out nearly all of our flock three times. She'd even get our cocker spaniel to tag team with her and corner the flock of they were out. Idk if you know the dog or not but our neighbor and the dog's owner was a large animal vet and he handed my father a box of rubber bullets and said she comes back shoot her BC he didn't want to have her start killing their flocks, and they were tired of having to replace our birds. Well you better believe when my Dad shot her in the butt with those rubber bullets as she ran away she got the idea and she never chased one of our chickens or anyone elses to my knowledge again.

I'm glad you guys found and hatched Legacy's egg, we need pictures please. I too hope Legacy is a pullet anorderat little chick has no clue how lucky it is, but all of us here do.

Lastly if its okay with you we are getting some speckled Sussex this spring on March 30th and if one fits the name I would like to name her Suzy in honor of your Suzy and maybe if I'm lucky I'll get a sweet little one like you had.
When is your order supposed to come? Mind if I ask what all you ordered?

I'm hatching the Emu eggs because my 23 year old son and my 14 year old daughter decided they just had to try Emus! My son calls them "his" little babies...then why am I doing the turning hmmmmm....

Anyway, we are all very excited for the Emus no matter who lays claim to them. Baby Emus are adorable! All legs!! As soon as they start hatching I will post pics?

Legacy is now almost one month old but we have still kept her in the house instead of putting her out to the coop. I think the kids are worried something will happen to her. :/ Can't really blame them. We have a brooding area for our little guys out in the coop where she will be safely locked behind wire. Since we do still have two chickens, three ducks, and a turkey, I won't put her directly into the coop until she can fend for herself. She's not even fully feathered anyway.

So she will remain in the house until either my husband realizes we have a "large" baby chick in the laundry room, or the chicken smell over powers the smell of clean clothes! Haha!

Suzy would be honored to know you named another hen after her! She was an extremely kind and humble hen.....

I have ordered a variety of chicks: Speckled Sussex, Lt. Brahma, Silkies, Barred Rock, Buff Orpington, Laced Cochin, Rhode Island Red Roo, and three more Turkeys.

Here is a picture of Legacy....she is watching over the Emu eggs

 

[GitaBooks]

Hoping to set 2-3 dozen, depending on what the ladies give me the week before

Cool. I don't know how many I'm going to set yet, but I guess I'll wait and see.

Was able to nail down some local Wheaten/Blue Wheaten Ameraucana eggs for the Hatch-a-long. Not sure how many I'll be getting, whatever the ladies decide to lay for the 10 days prior. Now to get some more to fill the 'bator at least partially. Looks like I'll have to try shipping some in, who here is in the Northeast with some cool hatching eggs? (Prefer purebreds, I have enough of my own mixed barnyard mutts)

Nice colors! Pure Ameraucanas are cool, though I haven't had any actually. Its funny that from the local birds of South America the Araucana was created, from the Araucana the Ameraucana was made and from the Ameraucana the Easter Egger was made and from the Easter Egger the Olive Egger was made. They're all related somehow. : )

I agree. She is protecting those babies but if she gets too aggressive try holding her under your arm while you tend the chicks. Pet her often and be kind.

My hens like to peck at me when I reach under them, but I usually just wear a glove or pull my sleeve over my hand. It is pretty scary when they do it though, and sometimes they accidentally peck one of their chicks or eggs.

 

[AmyPaperlady]

EMU Egg update! I weighed the eggs last week and they have all lost about 15% of their original weight. I had to use a different scale though as I think the first one I used was rounding the weights up to the nearest 50grams which is throwing everything off. I was able to calculate what the original weight of the eggs most likely was using a formula I found online. In any case, the eggs are rolling along nicely. Sure wish I could candle them, but I'm fairly certain I have viable eggs. When I turn them now I notice that they try to rotate back to the position they were previously in. Based on experience with my chicken eggs, I believe this is because the growing embryo inside weights the egg as it settles which causes it to want to stay in the same position. So, I have to prop them up a little bit to keep them from rolling back. I take this as a good sign that all is well and I have baby Emus in all of my eggs! (just a theory.. lol) My younger son came in with some duck eggs a few days ago (we have three Rouen ducks, 1 drake and 2 hens) He asked if we could try and incubate the eggs so they are now in our spare incubator! Timing wise they won't hatch on Easter, but what the heck! We had our chicken coop decimated the day after New Years. A dog got into the coop and gorged on our chickens. We lost all but two. Luckily the dog left the ducks alone and our beautiful Royal Palm turkey flew away to safety. It was a hard blow and the kids were super upset. So when my son asked to hatch a couple duck eggs, how could I say no?? On a sorta semi-sweet note, the night the dog killed our chickens I found one lone egg in the nesting boxes. I heated up the incubator and hatched the little sweetie. We are calling her "Legacy" in remembrance of our lost chickens. Not sure who her parents are, but she looks like our old EE roo and maybe the golden laced hen we had. She's darn cute no matter what! :yiipchick So that is the EMU egg update and a little more....

All sounds good with the emu eggs! Thanks for the update! I hope your duck eggs do well! I'm so very sorry to hear of your flock loss, that is a tough one for an adult to take, let alone children.

I will call her Breeze. As @GitaBooks suggested. She suggested that on a very breezy day. I had just been out there taking care of the chickens, and there she stood, with those ruffled curley feathers just blowing this way and that! I was just chuckling at her. I will call her Breeze, Breezy.. remember the tune for Cover Girl? Easy Breezy Cover Girl? Something like that. She's my little Cover Girl... She doesn't need the makeup though!

Perfect name! She does look like she's strutting down the runway.

Hi I'd like to join! I'll be setting my own eggs on March 5th, from a variety of hens paired up with CL

Welcome!

Think I'm going to join in, as long as I can find some eggs! Been crazy temperature swings here in Central New York. I know I can get some Wheaton Ameraucanas locally, but no success in finding non-hatchery, utility bred Wyandottes that I really want.

Welcome!

[CONTENTEMBED=/t/1074649/the-7th-annual-byc-easter-hatch-a-long/4500#post_16564939 layout=inline] [/CONTENTEMBED] There were emu eggs at our feedstore when I went earlier this week. Just as well that we don't have anywhere near the room for emus--doubt I'd get one of those gorgeous eggs to fit in my incubator

Fertile emu eggs? Or for painting? I know emu eggs are used for painting/carving.

My coops are still crowded. I moved chicks,hens and roos around. I really need more space. One of my older hen keep pecking the juveniles so I put her with a pair of my mixed. The coop was a 8x6 with nesting boxes and place to hide if needed. All was great. The next morning when I went to feed is couldn't find my hen. She was hiding all hurt. Apparently she was attacked by the other hen. Lily's head is now swollen and she can't open her eyes. I feed her 3 or 4 times a day. I put iodine on her head. This happened two days ago. Today she finally stand and open one eye. I think she's going to make it. My question is Lili hatch 2 months ago and chick, it is a tiny one that I keep with the newly hatch. ( I think it's a female) she is awesome with the babies. Warms them teaches them to eat and all, but when I put my hands in the brooder to change feed or water she attacks me. It's so bad that she pecks my hand that she stays hanging when I put back. Should I keep he? After what happened to Lili I'm not sure what to do with her.

Could she be going broody? For her eyes, I'd really recommend getting opthamalic ointment. It's pricey at about $30 for a little tube, but I've had great luck with it with birds that got scratched in the eye.

Does anyone put leg bands on their chicks/chickens? And if so what kind, size etc.

I have used them on chicks, the spiral kind. I don't like them, as a chicks legs are fragile and I have a hard time getting them on by myself. And an even harder time getting them off. You have to change them as they grow or the band can grow into their leg. I switched to the kind that snap on and off and I like those better, but I don't band them unless I have a reason to. I do use them on adults. I choose a color a year. Yellow was for 2014 hatches, red for 2015 hatches, etc. I use the cellulose kind, which can be tricky. I have had some Houdini's get out of them. But most of the birds have no issue with them.

[COLOR=4B0082]I hadn't thought about the polish matching! It's total coincidence, I put the polish on about the 8th, way before the hatch. That's kinda cool though.[/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082]I've never seen or heard of Vorwerks. But I didn't realize they were rare. Although now that you mention it, their eggs were one of the pricier eggs...lol![/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082]After reading her description of their temperament, I thought they sounded like they would fit in nicely with my flock. It's nice to hear that you are familiar with them AND love them! Helps ease my mind...lol.[/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082]I love the eggs...SO easy to candle! And I like that they've been laying Jan/Feb. Between the Vorworks and my EE's...I should have steady eggs all fall/winter. [/COLOR] [COLOR=4B0082]"IF" I'm successful at hatching some of the eggs, I want to see how the different breeds do against each other. I thought it would be the quickest way to make decisions on which breeds to bring into the flock to outcross. [/COLOR]

I look forward to seeing pictures of them! I've seen a couple bantams at shows. Never large fowl.

I didn't ask if they were fertile or not. Sorry for not trimming--I'm on my phone...

 

[aplynn]

And this hatch is going MUCH MUCH better so far. Only 1 baby born and she look AWESOME, there are 4 more pip's and 2 more that have started to unzip. Not to bad for a test hatch of 12 eggs and we are not even finished day 2 of lockdown.

Looks like I will be able to feel much better that my bator is good going into the HAL. Although I am pretty sure hubby is trying to find me an upgraded nicer one as a surprise. He keeps looking stuff up online about them and he HATES the internet LOL

 

[Junibutt]

Today is Day 19 for my test hatch and had power outage for about 2 and 1/2 hrs. I first placed the incubator on top of the hot water pipes and covered with blankets. It caused humidity to go up the roof. Then I started calling friends if someone would possibly be home early so I can move them to their place. Finally found someone and in my rush did not place anything inside the incubator to keep the eggs from rolling. By the time I got there, DW called that the power is back. I think in my haste and panic, I have done more damage to the eggs transporting back and forth than the power outage would have done.

 

[chickendreams24]

I'm hatching the Emu eggs because my 23 year old son and my 14 year old daughter decided they just had to try Emus! My son calls them "his" little babies...then why am I doing the turning hmmmmm....

Anyway, we are all very excited for the Emus no matter who lays claim to them. Baby Emus are adorable! All legs!! As soon as they start hatching I will post pics?

Legacy is now almost one month old but we have still kept her in the house instead of putting her out to the coop. I think the kids are worried something will happen to her. :/ Can't really blame them. We have a brooding area for our little guys out in the coop where she will be safely locked behind wire. Since we do still have two chickens, three ducks, and a turkey, I won't put her directly into the coop until she can fend for herself. She's not even fully feathered anyway.

So she will remain in the house until either my husband realizes we have a "large" baby chick in the laundry room, or the chicken smell over powers the smell of clean clothes! Haha!

Suzy would be honored to know you named another hen after her! She was an extremely kind and humble hen.....

I have ordered a variety of chicks: Speckled Sussex, Lt. Brahma, Silkies, Barred Rock, Buff Orpington, Laced Cochin, Rhode Island Red Roo, and three more Turkeys.

Here is a picture of Legacy....she is watching over the Emu eggs

Legacy is adorable and I bet you guys are excited about the emus. I think we all are.

Oh that sounds like a fun mix what color silkies? Oh I was hoping for cochins this year but am waiting until next year. Have you had Lt Brahmas before, how do you like them?