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

[RingedTeal]

Hello everyone I just read athis whole thread and thought I'd share some pics of my babies for those of you who haven't seen them !!!!!

Here they are at a day old

 

[StevenW.]

Hello everyone I just read athis whole thread and thought I'd share some pics of my babies for those of you who haven't seen them !!!!!

Here they are at a day old

Cuties!

 

[Country Chickens]

Okay, peeps, as promised...even if very late! lol Here'a a couple pics of our imported chocolate keets in with some purple, lavender and coral blues of our own. Plus some others.

Here's at hatch


And here's a pic of them at a month or so...

We lost several birds when the heat wave hit, including two chocolates, but we still have five so I'm counting myself lucky.

Oh, and here's a couple pics of the new Dickey's cabinet incubator. It's doing great and churning along. They got it out to us the same day we put in the order and we had it by a few days later. Figuring temps has taken a bit to sort out, but that's more a theremometer thing than anything else. We're still playing with how to add water without seeing a drop in temp that takes a long time to come back up. But, those are finesse things. Whatever we set it at, it holds rock steady!

From the front:


The side with the turner control so we can brings the egg racks quickly to flat:



And the on off which we keep to the wall so our kids can't accidentally toggle it.



One of the deciding factors for us in getting the Dickey instead of the Sportsman (aside from faster ship-out and cost!) was the back up thermostat so we won't lose our eggs to a temp spike if the first thermostat goes bad. Over all, I'd say we're pretty happy with it!

 

[PeepsCA]

YAY PICS FINALLY!!!!
That almost looks like one of my hatches!!! ('cept you need some Pieds!) Nice mix! Glad you hatched out and still have plenty of Chocolates to work with for next season, they are adorable as babies, gorgeous as adults. In pics and looking in my brooders my eye always goes straight to that color.

And love the Dickey 'Bator too, Congrats on getting such a great machine. Glad it's working out for you/your hatches

I think I am gonna have to get one too before next Spring, or I'm not hatching next season lol. Back-up thermostat sounds nice, one less thing to stress about.

I was just looking thru all my hatch notes... and it looks like I have hatched 15 different Chocolates (1 is Pied) and 4 Blondes (1 or 2 of these are Pied too) so far this season...but with the triple digit temps setting in for this time of year it looks like my Guinea hatching season will be coming to an end pretty soon, (which is fine, I'm about done stressing over hatches, lol). I've been keeping every body shaded and giving them wet/damp places to dust bathe until the eggs are laid each day (then they get out to free range), but the egg production has just petered out anyway. It's just too dang hot, cannot blame those poor girls one bit for not wanting to lay any more eggs.

I've wing banded all my Chocolates and Blondes and have been keeping tabs on the birds as the mature... sigh, I think only one of my Chocolates is a male (and that's just a maybe). It has decent sized cupped wattles and I noticed that it was acting tuff today... (being aggressive, standing tall, wings lifted) towards whoever else in the flock looked at it sideways. But it's super dark colored, so it has me wondering. I need to separate it, see if it buck-wheats and also get some really good pics showing the differences in the colors of the Chocolates and Blondes since they are maturing now. I just rounded up the 4 oldest Chocolates and the 2 oldest Blondes I have out in my biggest grow out pen, and have them in a cage settling/cooling down (it was a total fiasco separating all6 of those bird from the rest... so hopefully pics soon. Maybe, lol. It's the hottest part of the day right now and all I really feel like doing is siting on my deck under the misters with a cold beer, lol.

Here's a bunch of pics I took the other day (not the best pics, and please excuse the messy pen), but pics none the less. It's really really hard to get pics of certain birds when there's 20+ others in different colors in the same pen getting in the way and being hyper idiots! I kept WAY too many Buffs and Pied Royal Purples from my hatches... so I need to weed thru them, keep a few of the best and sell the rest of them... and soon, cuz I need the pen space, lol.

My 2 Blondes (pretty dark huh?):


Blonde # 1


Blonde # 2


My Pied Chocolate:


And another Chocolate (dark too):


And the darker Chocolate that might be a male... with Blondes for color comparison:




Guess I'll wander out and see how the photo-op situation looks... I may wait 'til this evening when it cools off tho, I despise sweating... lol.

 

[StevenW.]

Look at all that eye candy!

My mom bought me some eggs today... Guinea eggs! Of course they are Chocolates! Either it was Chocolates or Sky Blues.
Here's a picture of the breeders that the eggs are coming from.





Hopeing, praying that they make it here alright and that I get a good fertility and hatch!

 

[PeepsCA]

Look at all that eye candy!

My mom bought me some eggs today... Guinea eggs! Of course they are Chocolates! Either it was Chocolates or Sky Blues.
Here's a picture of the breeders that the eggs are coming from.





Hopeing, praying that they make it here alright and that I get a good fertility and hatch!

Aww your Mom is awesome, more eggs for you!!! Crossin' my fingers for a great hatch!

I took some more pics of my Chocolates and Blondes tonight... I'll go thru them tomorrow and post more pics if I got any good/not blurry shots of them. The one I was thinking might be a male seems to be... not one peep (or buckwheat) out of him while I had him caged and separated. He's just a really weird color!

 

[PeepsCA]

I took a lot of good pics that I need to post, but I'm over my data usage limit on my wireless again...
So I hafta wait until the 10th before I can upload any more pics

 

[StevenW.]

I took a lot of good pics that I need to post, but I'm over my data usage limit on my wireless again...
So I hafta wait until the 10th before I can upload any more pics

Oh the shame! I think everyone could wait that wrong until you post more pictures! )

 

[JLeigh]

Too funny. I clean the brooder EVERY MORNING, and by noon, it looks like a poop fest has been going on. No one told me how much/often they poop, and no one told me how bad it smells (but to be fair, most poop does

. ) I love them all anyway. I think I'd have to photoshop a picture of a "no-poop" brooder with keets in it. Never in my life have I seen such prolific poopers.

Edit: I think I accidentally posted this to the wrong thread. Oh well.

Silly me.

I think I enjoy pictures of adult guineas more than I do keets. It's all good of course, and keets are painfully cute, but the adults are just so interesting and I like seeing other peoples' guineas.

I just love guineas. Maybe I need to "see somebody". Lol

 

[perchie.girl]

Too funny. I clean the brooder EVERY MORNING, and by noon, it looks like a poop fest has been going on. No one told me how much/often they poop, and no one told me how bad it smells (but to be fair, most poop does

. ) I love them all anyway. I think I'd have to photoshop a picture of a "no-poop" brooder with keets in it. Never in my life have I seen such prolific poopers.

Edit: I think I accidentally posted this to the wrong thread. Oh well.

Silly me.

I think I enjoy pictures of adult guineas more than I do keets. It's all good of course, and keets are painfully cute, but the adults are just so interesting and I like seeing other peoples' guineas.

I just love guineas. Maybe I need to "see somebody". Lol

I discovered wire floors..... especially where the food and water sits. I use a rabbit cage and cover that wire floor with a plastic 1/4 inch mesh. Not too hard on the feet and poo and goo go throo. I am also using a rubber door mat for half of the cage. roll it up pull it out hose it off and back in.

for the Wittle ones you can use paper towls towls or Rubbermaid shelf liner right over the wire.

deb