My SLOs are also having huge fertility issues.
I'm sorry, that sucks. Is he successfully mating with them? Or has he just not gotten the hang of it very well? I've noticed almost everyone of Victoria's eggs are infertile when I set them. But I've also never seen Hollywood breed her. I don't think she'll let him. And she lays the biggest eggs. He does breed Duchess, her mother, Mel and Sue, and the "new" pullet I still haven't named. I really should do that now that I'm thinking about it.
I set about 10 SLO eggs in the incubator which are due to hatch tomorrow. Only 2 developed. I have no idea if they'll even hatch. About 6 days ago I set another 8 eggs. So far they all look clear, but I'm going to wait until day 10 before tossing any. (Just to be 100% sure) My lavs are doing fine.
I set the N360 the last time, completely full of eggs. I tossed over half the eggs in there and all but two in the
Brinsea. I took almost 60 eggs to my friend with a cabinet and she tossed 19 clears and quitters on the first candling. I'm going to clean the incubator up tonight, carton up the freshest eggs to sell to the vendors at the poultry swap tomorrow, and set whatever is left tomorrow.
I can't believe it's June and I have yet to hatch a single SLO. It hasn't been for lack of trying. I started in Feb when my bantams started going broody, and I have been setting their eggs ever since.
I really feel you. My first two sets were completely clear this spring. Then I got some really good hatches off but I'm getting a lot of Recessive Whites popping up in the SLO pen. Which is great, because I need more pullets, but out of the first set of chicks, all the SLO were cockerels except one. Thankfully the White is a pullet. As is the little Blue girl fathered by Caspian. She get's prettier every day.
I had my 4H Cloverbuds over today. We talked chickens, learned the parts of an egg, and candled some developing eggs. The classs went well and they looked adorable in their little masks!! (Life during Covid19)
Aww that sounds fun! I used to do 4-H when I was much younger. We had a really small show, so the only poultry were broilers. I usually showed rabbits which did have a meat and a breeding class so that was more fun.
The NR360 incubator works well for the seramas but is so short for my orps.
Only the serama can stand up. The poor lav orp hits its head just by sitting.
My Orps don't seem to have too much trouble in there. But once they are running amok it does get crowded quick. I left the turner in this time and that seemed to help tremendously with the chicks not rolling the eggs all over creation.
If I didn't mention, out of the six eggs I took from Prudence so she'd get off the nest with the chicks that had hatched, I did end up with one more chick. I went to candle the eggs under Duchess last night and low and behold, eleven of them were fertile. Which I suppose I should expect since she never gets off the nest, ever! I pried her off of them last night and sat her butt down in front of the water and she just drank and drank. *rolls eyes* Drives me crazy. As soon as these babies hatch I'll be so glad because then she'll have to eat. I've never had a broody that poops on the nest or gave me this much trouble taking care of herself while she was incubating. And of course she's the loud, obnoxious broody that puffs up and screams like a dragon queen before she starts biting you. Prudence just fussed gently and did the little high pitched "I'm annoyed, don't touch me" noise.
On a sad note, Darling left the nest today. It looks like her only egg hatched. I found a dead lav orp in the run. It was still wet from hatching. Not sure if Darling did it or if the chick was discovered by another hen when Darling was off the nest. And why would she leave just as the chick hatched???
Not sure if I should move another chick under her. (She's back in the nest now.) This hatch was supposed to be hers.
That's so odd. Prudence lost one when she was still on the nest. A little SLO of course. The other eight have been doing well. I can only hope that Duchess will be as successful. I've been having to help Prudence take the babies to bed each night because they haven't all figured out the little ramp up into the nestbox area of the prefab coop. I went out yesterday evening to help her get them wrangled up and she'd decided to sleep on the floor under the coop with them. All of Amanda's Silkies and my oldest started Orpingtons had evicted her and were sleeping up there. I need more pens! lol
