Love love the double Decker[/URL]
Getting a late start but I want to give you the scoop on how I got this successful Catdance hatch.
I think you'd have better luck with a good rooster and some guinea hens.Well...would a single peacock to be used as a "watchdog" be more expensive than keeping a dog? I'm not thinking about a whole flock, just one that hangs out and terrifies hawks!(If that would really work, that is!)
I agree LM. I like to show off my library.
This coop isn't Del's coop. It was on the McMurray blog. I posted it because it was something I considered for our barn plans. This coop is really nice! Ours will be much bigger though.Love love the double Decker
They are so cute!! Names yet?Getting a late start but I want to give you the scoop on how I got this successful Catdance hatch.
Step 1. I bought the Genesis 1588 specifically to up my odds for the Catdance and Fogle HRIR eggs. These are the most expensive eggs I've ever bought. The Genesis isn't the best bator out there but it is the best I could afford this year.
Step 2. I hand turn my eggs X to O and upright every six hours. Starting when I get up in the morning and lastly just before retiring for the night. The hatching journal and pen stays next to the bator. I fill out each days turning and the time.
Step 3. I live in the Pacific North West. Humidity here remains moderate to high most days. Even when it's sunny out. I dry hatched in the still air LG until lock down. That didn't work with the Genesis. The fan sucks the humidity quicker. I punched a hole to fit an aquarium clear tube that I pushed into the hardware grate into the first channel. Using a large syringe I got at the feed store in the cattle section, I pumped a teaspoon of water into the bator whenever the humidity started to dip below 33%. No need to ever do this lifting the lid with this method. I dripped the water in (distilled with blue food coloring added) a few drops at a time. Then slightly tipped the bator to move the water back into the channel. The food coloring allows me to see this movement of water through the window. It generally takes a half hour for the humidity to move up. It's important not to add too much or too little.
Step 4. I candle three times and in stages. I remove half the eggs for candling at a time and leave the lid closed on the rest. The first candle at day seven is the most critical for not damaging the embryo. They are very fragile at this stage. Most Silkie quitters for me have been in the seven day margin. I then candle at fourteen days and then eighteen just before lock down. I had two fourteen day quitters this hatch. I looked back through my journal and noticed I had used these two eggs to candle more often than the others. I believe I handled them too often. Silkie embryos are fragile.
Step 5. Silkies sometimes start to hatch a day or two earlier than most other chickens. I waited until the first egg pipped before lock down. Keeping humidity around 40%. After the first egg pipped, I slowly raised it to 50% a teaspoon of water at a time. At lock-down I inserted another tube through a hole I punched into the lid on the right side of the lid and then could syringe water directly onto a sponge. I didn't use the second channel at all. The sponge dries out very fast so I had to keep on this. Keeping humidity under 65% through lock down and hatch was tricky. Silkie chicks drown very easily in the shell with too high humidity. I keep the eggs flat for hatching on a shelf mat. The mat is soft and yet gives good traction for those five toes. It washes in soapy water and can be reused too.
My hatch started the evening of day 19 and ended day 22.
They are such scrumptious chicks. Such tiny little bumble bees of fluff. I am so in love with them all.
All I do is sit and play with them all day. Getting little else done but enjoying these tiny ones very much.
