Uh oh... found an egg today! ... - A journal of sorts, from finding eggs to hatching them... Update

[perchie.girl]

Whew.... shipping eggs GOOD idea.... Hey I may do a dozen this summer. After I raise up my Sumatras.

woo hoo puttin in my order this weekend.

No way, lol 782 keets beat me hard enough last yr. I'm only hatching til I know my fertility rates are good, then I'm selling and auctioning hatching eggs, lol

 

[lcw1995]

heres a quick few pics as promised peeps






this is the 2 remaining from the pics above (below)


best broody hen ever(below)

 

[GuineaLady93]

Aww! How cute! I can't wait until mine start laying! The weather has been nice so maybe they will start early. Last year they didn't start until April, but since it's like 75 degrees maybe they will think its April! lol

 

[PeepsCA]

heres a quick few pics as promised peeps






this is the 2 remaining from the pics above (below)


best broody hen ever(below)

ADORABLE lcw!!! I especially love the batch with the broody, great mix of colors! Pieds are such cute lil babies

 

[Country Chickens]

Beautiful babies, LCW! Did your momma guinea hatch her keets inside the barn? Sorry if you already said and I missed it.

My hubby and I just signed up for this guinea fowl conference. http://www.guineafowlinternational.org/conferences/ Anybody else local and going to make it? It looks awesome!

Warming up the bator now for our tiny batch of keets to go into lockdown tonight. GuineaLady, I am NC too and have got some eggs (just a few!) so keep your fingers crossed!

 

[cowman1970]

I've people tell me they've had several nests the never hatched anything. My luck at incubation was really really poor. What is a good ratio of males to females? I have 13F and 5M.

 

[PeepsCA]

Most outside nests aren't successful, too many things can go wrong, for example if the Hen gets off the nest too long and the eggs go cold, they die, or if the Hen is bothered too much she will abandon the nest (and again, the eggs die), or if the eggs get rained on excessively before the Hen goes broody on them they can become infected with bacteria getting in thru the pores of the shell and not develop or die shortly after starting to develop. Then you have predator issues that also come into play. Some of us have great luck with pur Hens brooding their own clutches, but most of don't, which is why we incubate.

A few more males in your flock might get the job done a little better for ya if you have low fertility rates, especially if your flock is mostly free range, because they tend to pair off or form trios. Some of your Hens may not be getting bred, but supposedly a male can cover 4-5 Hens easily (I think this is the magic number for a breeding pen set up tho)... I have a very productive breeding flock of 11 Hens and 5 males, that only free ranges in the afternoons and had 100% fertility from their eggs last season... (they are not laying this season yet tho).


Your male to Hen ration may not be the problem with incubation tho... Have you cracked open some eggs to check for fertility before you incubate a batch of eggs? How old is your flock? What kind of incubator did you use? Other things to consider are the egg collection, storage and handling prior to incubation, the age of the eggs, making sure the incubation temp and humidity is set correctly and the incubator being set up in a room that stays stable with no drafts or temp fluctuations, and also the lock down humidity % can all be major contributing factors too when you have a bad hatch rate.

 

[lcw1995]

she hatched them behind a bored in my coop she hatched i think 6 total but theres 2 left now

 

[PeepsCA]

Here's all of Batch #3


I'm setting batch #7 this evening, hehe...yep, hatch-o-holic!

 

[perchie.girl]

Yep Yep yep.....