The Heritage Rhode Island Red Site

[onarres]

Picture taken at day 10.
Surprised how quickly feathers come in.

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

Picture taken at day 10.
Surprised how quickly feathers come in.

Nature's built in survival device. Vulnerable chicks can fly at an early age to escape from predators. Beautiful chick...

 

[gander007]

Picture taken at day 10.
Surprised how quickly feathers come in.

Good look chick you have there and by day ten you really should have some great feathering going on

 

[cmom]

Picture taken at day 10.
Surprised how quickly feathers come in.

Most of my chicks were hatched a week ago today. More in the hatchers and another batch going into the incubator.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Due tonight. Can you see the two lines in this batch by egg color? Pretty easy to see.

These little homemade hatchers allow me to keep the assembly line going. I can set eggs every 5-6 days for freshness. Just pencil the set date on the eggs and take from the incubator to the hatcher and keep on keepin' on.
Incubators have run steady, continuously, for over a month now. 40 bantams and 20 LF hatched to date, but I need another 20 Large Fowl for sure. More if anyone orders some chicks.

 

[Fred's Hens]

The Rhode Island Red standard does not precribe any particular shade of egg color, other than "brown". Unlike certain other breeds known for a dark or fanciful colored eggs, the Reds lay just a tannish, light cream colored egg, for the most part.

However, the old line I've kept alive has always had a few females lay a much darker egg. There's no reason to care about color, but I've always rather liked the darker eggs and just think they present better for table eggs. No particular reason except visual effect.

(as an aside: Most Plymouth Rocks lines have also "faded" their egg color over the decades and most now lay an egg that can scarcely be said to be brown, in all honestly).

Anyhow, just thought I'd share this trivia for what it's worth. A lot of people are surprised somewhat when they see the egg color of a Rhode Island Red, as they were, perhaps, expecting something darker brown.

More egg photos below. Most of the Red's today lay a very light, cream colored egg.



Typical Rhode Island Red eggs.

In the front row of the incubator, some not-so-typical colored eggs.

 

[cmom]

Here are some eggs from my Reds.

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

@cmom tonight's candling results are:

Set # 1: 11 viable, 3 blood rings, 1 highly questionable (reasonably sure it's not going to develop, but will give it a little more time), and 1 slightly questionable.

Set # 5: 11 viable, 2 blood rings, 1 clear, and 2 highly questionable (reasonably sure it's not going to develop, but will give it a little more time), and 1 slightly questionable.

I pulled the 5 blood rings and 1 clear, and put the questionable eggs back in the bators. There are 24 eggs cooking, and all will most likely stay in until next candling. I'm almost positive that the 3 highly questionable eggs won't make it, but even so... I'll be extremely happy if I only lose those 3 from here on out...

 

[cmom]

More chicks hatching. I filled my cabinet with my last hatch for this year. After this last hatch, everything will get stored for next years hatch. Hubby is building me a new coop, with my help. I'll be putting up the wire for the pen. We started on the frame. For my other pens, I have all my new wire up except one last pen on the inside side. All new perimeter wire is up. I think welded wire is actually easier to work with than chicken wire. The perimeter wire is chicken wire but all the fences between the pens is now welded wire. Houdini hasn't found a way out yet since I put up the new wire.

 

[Ur-ur-ur-urrr]

More chicks hatching. I filled my cabinet with my last hatch for this year. After this last hatch, everything will get stored for next years hatch. Hubby is building me a new coop, with my help. I'll be putting up the wire for the pen. We started on the frame. For my other pens, I have all my new wire up except one last pen on the inside side. All new perimeter wire is up. I think welded wire is actually easier to work with than chicken wire. The perimeter wire is chicken wire but all the fences between the pens is now welded wire. Houdini hasn't found a way out yet since I put up the new wire.

Looks like you have had a successful hatching season this year, cmom. Congratulations! I agree, welded wire is much easier to deal with. I have it on all my runs... but due to the cost, I ended up buying 300' of 6' chicken wire for the pen I'm in the process of building. I simply couldn't afford to build it the size I wanted with welded wire. This is just a perimeter fence, and any pens inside will be like yours... build of welded wire. I love welded wire. Nothing gets in, and nothing gets out.