Utah!

[RedIII]

Diana, the little ones are getting big! I love the colors! The brown and copper colored one is a frizzle. I guess i will have to wait and see how it turns out. The family says we are keeping it. The other one is a color i have never seen. They are living with a couple silkies the same age so far they are getting along with the Silkies. The momma hen hatched them and then left them in the nest box to keep three others warm that had somehow gotten out of the box. They were all most dead when i found them. Luckily my incubator was still on so i threw them in for a couple hours and they were good to go.

Heehee, look at the cute little fuzzy butts <3

 

[sundancenbare]

Diana, the little ones are getting big! I love the colors! The brown and copper colored one is a frizzle. I guess i will have to wait and see how it turns out. The family says we are keeping it. The other one is a color i have never seen. They are living with a couple silkies the same age so far they are getting along with the Silkies. The momma hen hatched them and then left them in the nest box to keep three others warm that had somehow gotten out of the box. They were all most dead when i found them. Luckily my incubator was still on so i threw them in for a couple hours and they were good to go.

ooooh if you don't keep the frizzle I want it even if its a roo

 

[Iluvmysilkies]

I'm reading you guys talking about your limits, and I have to chuckle... my limit is 6 hens... but I have a pocket size Dutch bantam as my 7th I figured she's like 1/4 the size of a regular hen... that she's more just a pet... like a dove... so she doesn't count

That's nothin lol I believe the limit is 8 here but I have 11 but I'm currently hatching some paints and going to have a breeding paint pen as well next year which will put me up to 15-20. Lol no one here cares. Our whole neighborhood has half acre lots and I'm the first house on the street and house the coop on the opposite side of our closest neighbors. No one will even notice I have them or care

 

[Iluvmysilkies]

...

Does anyone want some fertile Silkie/Sizzle eggs for free? I have 1 dozen available. The oldest eggs out of the 12 was laid 10-31. I have been selling them but i am getting more then i can sale. I hate throwing them away after 10 days and i have no broody's at the current time. I have people asking if i ship eggs but i don't know the first thing about doing it and don't you have to be licensed? Anyway some of these eggs are coming from a beautiful splash Silkie and a small paint Sizzle. Iluv wasn't you looking for some eggs to practice with? Also is anyone heading to Ephraim soon? I have someone wanting some eggs that lives there. Here is a picture of the of the Silkie and Sizzle took last month. They have filled out and are both very nice looking. Thanks Gary, I might have to take you up on that if I end up trying again after this next one. I just started a full batch of paint eggs the other day. I have never heard of needing a license to ship eggs. Maybe it's an out of country thing? Sending eggs is just like sending anything else. You package them in the same box from the post office that you'd use for anything, only you'd write hatching eggs or fragile eggs on the sides of the box. Although this doesent always do anything, as the mail handlers are still going to treat the box as any other. I've gotten lucky though and have received my box inside a flat mail basket which greatly increases the hatch ability and has kept most the air cells intact and in place on mine so I have some good mail carriers who are more respectful I think but that's a chance you take with shipped eggs. Then it's just a matter of packaging them correctly and there's so many ways you can do it. I'm going to sell and ship my own eggs next yr when I start breeding and I'm going to do them the same way I've been getting them. Shes packaged them great, and none have ever arrived broken. She wraps each egg in bubble wrap and places them in egg cartons and tapes it shut, then surrounds the cartons tightly with grocery bags. It really limits how much they move. I don't think there's much to it. Good luck!

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

That's nothin lol I believe the limit is 8 here but I have 11 but I'm currently hatching some paints and going to have a breeding paint pen as well next year which will put me up to 15-20. Lol no one here cares. Our whole neighborhood has half acre lots and I'm the first house on the street and house the coop on the opposite side of our closest neighbors. No one will even notice I have them or care

Did your two paint eggs ever hatch? I don't remember seeing you post the result, I think I missed it! I sure hope so

 

[Iluvmysilkies]

Did your two paint eggs ever hatch? I don't remember seeing you post the result, I think I missed it! I sure hope so

Sadly, no they didnt I didnt post anything about it cause I was sad. One baby tried though. One had died sometime right before or during lockdown, and the other was still alive at day 23 so I helped it. It was very smashed, its head tucked under a foot. I got it breathing for 15mins still in shell, and as I started to try to help ease the head out to breath better it just stopped breathing. I know I didnt do anything to the neck though, it just stopped. After that I pulled its head out further and discovered it was badly deformed with only one eye and crossed beak. It may have been deformed inside to and could only breathe in that one squished position, so when I tried to move it, it may have blocked an air way. I was very upset the whole next day, because I spent forever trying to get this one to hatch and thought it was going to pay off, but then she died. But it was probably for the best because she may not have thrived well like that. I wasent sure I wanted to try again after that experience, but the breeder sent me a whole new batch free of charge so we'll try one more time

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

Sadly, no they didn't I didn't post anything about it cause I was sad. One baby tried though. One had died sometime right before or during lockdown, and the other was still alive at day 23 so I helped it. It was very smashed, its head tucked under a foot. I got it breathing for 15mins still in shell, and as I started to try to help ease the head out to breath better it just stopped breathing. I know I didn't do anything to the neck though, it just stopped. After that I pulled its head out further and discovered it was badly deformed with only one eye and crossed beak. It may have been deformed inside to and could only breathe in that one squished position, so when I tried to move it, it may have blocked an air way. I was very upset the whole next day, because I spent forever trying to get this one to hatch and thought it was going to pay off, but then she died. But it was probably for the best because she may not have thrived well like that. I wasn't sure I wanted to try again after that experience, but the breeder sent me a whole new batch free of charge so we'll try one more time  

Oh how heartbreaking I am so sorry! So sad, I was rooting for you . Sometimes these things just happen that we have no control over it is so hard.
I am proud of you for not giving up though--truly wish you the best of luck with the new batch! That is so sweet of the breeder to send you more eggs.

 

[Iluvmysilkies]

Oh how heartbreaking I am so sorry! So sad, I was rooting for you

. Sometimes these things just happen that we have no control over it is so hard.

I am proud of you for not giving up though--truly wish you the best of luck with the new batch! That is so sweet of the breeder to send you more eggs.

Thanks, it was emotional and I probably would've stopped for a while if the breeder had not offered more eggs. She's been so wonderful and really wants to see me get at least a few paints. I filled the whole incubator this time and its been a good constant temp so far, so im really hoping for some good luck this time. Im going to lower the humidity just a little more during incubation as I fear the ones that died may have had too much liquid in the shell when it was time to hatch. I have a friend who incubates hers in the same room in her house, and the humidity was around 20-30 in the house like mine is. She did a completely dry hatch, no water and had the best hatch she's has so far. I did mine around 30 last time but even that might have been too much for some of them. Im gonna shoot for 20-25 this time, and then do 60-70 at lockdown. I dont think I had the humidity high enough at ld last time, and I had too much air flow letting it out. I am going to try to do everything as carefully as possibly this time. I am crossing my fingers i'll finally get some babies

 

[SilkieSmoooth]

Quote: Hello,I do not mean to butt in, but I just wanted to mention, I have raised almost my entire flock from shipped eggs. I can not tell you how many hatches have ended up with 0-maybe 2 chicks. It is heartbreaking and has cost me a ton of money. I followed everyone's advise on temperatures and humidities and monitored them to the T, but same results all the time. So I guess I started to get desperate to figure out what is going so wrong, I would start to help some that would pip in anticipation they would not die. In all this experience of my own hatches and observations, I think I have figured out what goes so wrong. Well first of all during lock down I would close the vents or close them more so during lockdown to prevent more humidity loss, but I realized I think this was suffocating the chicks, so I immediately stopped this and utilized other ways to increase humidity. Of course I did have a little better hatch rate in following incubations, but still not great. So next I played around with humidity and how that affected my hatches. And I have to say I have incubated eggs anywhere from 30-60% humidity during day 1-18, then raised humidity up to anywhere from 50-80% during lockdown. From what I can tell I think the sudden increase of humidity is what kills them. I notice if I stay consistant during incubation at about 45-50% humidity maybe 55%, then only raise it up to 60% I have a great hatch. Even on shipped eggs. If I incubate say around 40% then raise humidity to 65% during lockdown it seems like it isn't as good. I really feel like a sudden huge increase of humidity during lock down is not so good for the chicks. I really feel like it makes them die. Anyway, this is just my opinion that I have formed from my own experience, so please do not take me for granted but I really have spent countless nights staring in my incubator just waiting, waiting, waiting, and still nothing. And now I know they are going to come out, I no longer wait, and wait because they actually come out!!

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

SilkieSmooth, you definitely are not alone in your dislike for shipped eggs! They are a roll of the dice at best. I have had TERRIBLE luck with them.

Iluv-trying to rack my brain of any ideas to help you....regarding dry hatching silkie eggs---didn't you say your last air cells were still half the egg on one chick? That usually means they are drying out too fast? I can never get bantam eggs to hatch without decent humidity. Just my two cents. Thick shelled eggs like Marans have to be hatched with hardly any humidity, they are the opposite they are hard to get to dry out. Another idea I had--just like the other gal was saying---is there any chance you are leaving the red plugs in on top of the incubator? They need to be out to allow oxygen in...not enough oxygen can be one cause of birth defects....you can also use a damp sponge to keep your humidity where you want it rather than water in the channels if you need. Or paper towels in the channels like on this gals cheat sheet. Here is a great cheat sheet--but keep in mind this is for LF eggs and banty eggs usually need a little more humidity. ( See last paragraph in Q&A) Were your friends dry hatched eggs bantam??

This gal is a serial hatcher, and the advice on here is great! I think most of us have used this one to get started.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/chookschicks-incubation-cheat-sheet