The Great Egg Shipping Experiment!

[Tomtommom]

Hahaha, that's awesome. Before I read it, I thought it was a chicken with a broken neck or something (or that chicken with the severed head that continued to live 0_0)

 

[Wisher1000]

awww, thanks for telling me about this experiment Wisher.....I'm a great grandmother rofl!!! I wish I could have such good luck with shipped eggs.

Hey Kowgurl!

For those of you that don't know. Some of my chickens came from Kowgurl62, who lives across the county from me. I wanted to hatch some chicks that were different from what I already had. I went to her place an picked up some eggs that I think she was about to eat!

That is how I got the first dark egg layers in my flock.

She has some beautiful birds.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

7 Day Candling
******Please note I am not a professional incubator of eggs and some results could be in error on my part not the shipment of the eggs*******
OK, Wisher Here is the results as they are to date of 16 shipped eggs. To all please know that I have had very little luck in shipped eggs thus far until now! Of the 16 eggs all 16 are/were fertile. 1 egg cracked and leaking from shipment, Check egg for fertility it was fertilized. 2 eggs had scrambled air cells, no development eggs clear. Opened and checked for fertility, both fertile. 1BCM was clear (unsure about air cell egg too dark to tell) opened and it was fertile as well. The other 12 are developing as they should. Very good job thus far WISHER!
In the past my experience with shipped eggs are as follows; I had less than 50% development mostly due to severely scrambled air cells in the mail. Only 70% of the shipped eggs were fertile. Of those that developed I had only approximately 25% hatch rate (mostly due to quitters half way through).
Wisher here are your stats so far:
16 eggs shipped
1 broke in shipping
3 clear at 7 day candling (2 scrambled air cells)
12 developing (Extremely Good)
100% fertility (Amazing)
I need to make a good candler the flashlight just doesn't work that well but here is a pic of the development thus far

That is awesome!

It was worth a shot

I don't want to wait til next year to have some of your chickies, but I will have to. We ran out of tax refund about $500 ago

I want to build a nice brooder next year to go into my shed, rather than well... cardboard and ducttape.

Nothing wrong with a cardboard brooder. Unless it doesn't have a top. Then about 2 weeks into brooding chicks you come home to chickens (and chicken poop) all over your house from the great brooder escape.
Before... note the nice plywood behind the brooders.




So... we upgraded to something with a containment device. These aren't expensive to build at all if you already have the tools and someone handy:


And the other two brooders that I posted pictures of yesterday. Because EVERYONE needs at least 32 square feet of brooder space... right?

Wisher - you should have reminded me of the duct tape helmet. Brains could have used it.

 

[Tomtommom]

Those OSB brooders are something I have in mind for my 10x20 storage building. I have some bell peppers on top of my current brooder, since they prefer 80F for germination and well, sitting 12 inches above the lamp is nice 'n toasty. I plan to make some sort of OSB brooder, with a nice seed germination rack above it ^_^ Kill two birds (apologies) with one stone.

 

[superchemicalgirl]

Those OSB brooders are something I have in mind for my 10x20 storage building. I have some bell peppers on top of my current brooder, since they prefer 80F for germination and well, sitting 12 inches above the lamp is nice 'n toasty. I plan to make some sort of OSB brooder, with a nice seed germination rack above it ^_^ Kill two birds (apologies) with one stone.

That's a GREAT IDEA! I have a separate seed starter that was pretty inexpensive to set up. We used an old metal rack, insulated it with the shiny reflective insulation, then hung up lights. I already had seed warmers, so just added those and a fan.

But I'm always running out of room. Think I need to hatch more chicks during seed starting season!





I also had him build me a cold frame which was out of one piece of plywood, but the winds we just had with the blizzard picked it up and threw it and shattered the plexiglass. Hopefully he fixes that one in spring and builds me a new one.
Posting here in case anyone is interested. Ah, how this thread got hijacked. Sorry, Wisher.

 

[bamachicks8]

Putting wire over the holes tomorrow

 

[Wisher1000]

Think I need to hatch more chicks during seed starting season!


Posting here in case anyone is interested. Ah, how this thread got hijacked. Sorry, Wisher.

No problem! First off, it was a natural progression in the conversation, Second, we need SOMETHING to talk about while waiting on Jess's eggs to cook. Third, gardening is my second hobby! Remember us talking about a seed/plant swap this spring? I think we should do that during the Cinco de Mayo Turkey and Tutor Hatch!

 

[Wisher1000]

We could change the name to "The Second Annual Cinco de Mayo Turkey and Turkey Tutor Hatch Along and Spring Plant Swap" or TSACDMTTHASPS for short. Think ChooksChick would go for that?

 

[superchemicalgirl]

We could change the name to "The Second Annual Cinco de Mayo Turkey and Turkey Tutor Hatch Along and Spring Plant Swap" or TSACDMTTHASPS for short. Think ChooksChick would go for that?

I'd sponsor that!

 

[buckabucka]

 Think I need to hatch more chicks during seed starting season!


Posting here in case anyone is interested. Ah, how this thread got hijacked. Sorry, Wisher.

[COLOR=800000]No problem!  First off, it was a natural progression in the conversation, Second, we need SOMETHING to talk about while waiting on Jess's eggs to cook.  Third, gardening is my second hobby!  Remember us talking about a seed/plant swap this spring?  I think we should do that during the Cinco de Mayo Turkey and Tutor Hatch![/COLOR]

Well, I could do some talking to fill the time...

I don't have Wisher's eggs, but I just set 30 shipped eggs today. Two things will be an experiment for me: first, one of the eggs I received was cracked and had oozed a little bit. I put melted wax on the crack and put it in the incubator anyway. Is that a bad idea? I figure I can pull it later if it doesn't develop or starts to smell.

The other experiment involves Marans eggs. I wanted to try ChooksChick's method of sanding the eggs. I was really too tired after work to carry this out properly. The first egg I sanded nicely, and then each one after that less and less until I finally said the heck with it and left a bunch unsanded.

I sprayed the sanded eggs with the povidone iodine solution. I think I kind of soaked them, as my sprayer is not that fine. Anyway, since only half the dark eggs are semi-sanded, I'll be interested to see if the sanded eggs hatch better than the non-sanded. It is too small of a sample to reach a real conclusion, but it is a first step. Now the long wait begins...

I'll be quiet now.