Washingtonians Come Together! Washington Peeps

[mikeyb]

My (maybe not fixed after all) computer did something deeply weird and sucked all the electricity out of the battery while jamming the last year's photo library onto the chip and I need to go to bed sometime (downloading that many photos takes forever), especially since I got up early to check the hatchlings and then, after my husband came home at 9:20, finished taking the hoop house apart, loaded two BLRW hens into a size medium pet carrier (a bit like stuffing sausage) carried them a hundred or so feet uphill (ten feet changed in elevation) which: YOW those things are heavy. And then the real fun started, because they would not come out; I had to take the carrier apart and turn it upside down to get them out.

I'll take the tiny teeny splash or white Bd'A chick the size of fuzzy nothing, thanks, easier on my back.

So, anyway, no pictures to show you. And boy howdy am I babbling or what?

I haven't head the term "boy howdy" in a long time. A fav of my wife.

 

[JNB]

Hello Washington BYC folks
Its been awhile since I stopped in to say hello, Stopped by a few days back but looks like ya all had some maintenance..... RL has kept things busy but I still have my feathered friends as a matter of fact chicken math seems to have struck and I now have around 24 five or take a few.... This spring I added some Marans to the family. Im super excited to see how these girls grow and turn out. Today was the "babies" first day out in their outside pens an house. They love not being in the chick fence

We also did our second"freezer camp" a few weeks ago. Went well Much smoother and faster than last fall There seems to be a lot of interest in raising and processing in the local area. Kind of surprised .

Good to see some of the folks I know already are still here and Nice to see the new faces.... BYC is one of the best resources I found when I was a "new egg". Even if I have been absent for a bit.. This thread and all the folks here that answered my many questions a few years ago when I was starting out All have a special place in my heart

Ill try to pop in more often and share some pictures. Not be a stranger

 

[Stumpfarmer]

My (maybe not fixed after all) computer did something deeply weird and sucked all the electricity out of the battery while jamming the last year's photo library onto the chip and I need to go to bed sometime (downloading that many photos takes forever), especially since I got up early to check the hatchlings and then, after my husband came home at 9:20, finished taking the hoop house apart, loaded two BLRW hens into a size medium pet carrier (a bit like stuffing sausage) carried them a hundred or so feet uphill (ten feet changed in elevation) which: YOW those things are heavy. And then the real fun started, because they would not come out; I had to take the carrier apart and turn it upside down to get them out.


I'll take the tiny teeny splash or white Bd'A chick the size of fuzzy nothing, thanks, easier on my back.


So, anyway, no pictures to show you. And boy howdy am I babbling or what?

I haven't head the term "boy howdy" in a long time. A fav of my wife.

I dunno, my sister and I both say it (and it's her nickname for The Nephew). I think it's a Barney Fife thing?

Also, one more Hamburg chick today, plus one that died while zipping= eleven hatched out of thirteen fertile eggs which with a little giant is OK, I guess. On the other hand, six out of twenty-seven bantam eggs is just tragic.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

Okay, well...heh heh heh I figured out my camera problem: I had the wrong camera. OOPS.

(I have two Panasonic Lumix, one I bought inSeptember of 2010 which doesn't have a USD charging possibility, and the one I got last Christmas that does).

Well: sleep deprivation and too many chickenish thoughts vs a dead camera: I'll take the stupid mistakes for $500, Alex.

ETA: No new pics until after I eat, though.

ETA2: when I finally got out of bed forty minutes after my alarm went off, my husband was talking in his sleep about chicken rockets.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

OK, well, 16 chicks in two groups. with average age a day apart. One Hamburg came out of the incubator this morning, and I may see a couple more pipped eggs: don't know, the little high intensity flashlight I need to see clearly ran off the other night, somehow. I'm running the incubator as if more eggs will hatch until sometime tomorrow.


The six elder: Black Barb d'Anvers, Blue Quail Bd'A, four Silver Spangled Hamburgs hatched between midnight 5/19 and 9pm 5/19 and already showing wing and tail feather growth.:

The ten younger, five SSH, splash or white, quail, blue quail, silver quail, splash quail Bd'A hatched between midnight 5/20 and 8am 5/21. They were scattered all over the pen scratching for feed and drinking out of their bottle caps but when I took the topoff tey all piled up in the mama corner next to a radiant heater. The whole room is above 90F and they have spot heat, too.

There is also a Hamburg egg that zipped yesterday morning and never hatched and an egg from the pen with no rooster that got in by mistake, somehow. Which means 10 zipped and nine chicks from 13 Hamburg eggs, not perfect but not bad, and seven bantams out of twenty-seven eggs, which is DIRE.

So: why? my fault, the incubator's fault,or the eggs' fault?

And I'm making this bigger letters as seems to be the habit here in hopes of getting maybe an answer or comment?

 

[BGMatt]

I'd say the eggs' fault. Maybe not fertile (you said you had some issues candling yes? I think that was you.) Maybe weak genetics somewhere resulting in dead in shells, crack them open and see? I'd say you and the incubator did allright with the hatch rate on the Hamburgs. So it must be something going on with the fertility or genetics of the bantams.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

I'd say the eggs' fault.  Maybe not fertile (you said you had some issues candling yes?  I think that was you.)  Maybe weak genetics somewhere resulting in dead in shells, crack them open and see?  I'd say you and the incubator did allright with the hatch rate on the Hamburgs. So it must be something going on with the fertility or genetics of the bantams.

That was my thought, too- although I've got about 30% doubt because the temperature stability problems with the Little Giant would effect smaller eggs more than larger ones except the two smallest eggs hatched into roaringly healthy ridiculously tiny chicks... Kristin said that these were from color experiment pens, and what I pay is dependent on a discussion after hatch.

The really good news in the silver lining category: all of the Hamburgs are rose combs. This means that the hen that I lost was the one carrying single comb, and even though how ever many of the offspring are carriers, it's better than 1/3 single comb, 1/3 carrier.

eta: another thought: I'm going to see if, among the family collection of scrap there's a chunk of 1/2" plate I could put in the bottom of the incubator as a heat sink. Because I'm a suspenders and belt kind of girl.

 

[BGMatt]

That was my thought, too- although I've got about 30% doubt because the temperature stability problems with the Little Giant would effect smaller eggs more than larger ones except the two smallest eggs hatched into roaringly healthy ridiculously tiny chicks... Kristin said that these were from color experiment pens, and what I pay is dependent on a discussion after hatch.

The really good news in the silver lining category: all of the Hamburgs are rose combs. This means that the hen that I lost was the one carrying single comb, and even though how ever many of the offspring are carriers, it's better than 1/3 single comb, 1/3 carrier.

eta: another thought: I'm going to see if, among the family collection of scrap there's a chunk of 1/2" plate I could put in the bottom of the incubator as a heat sink. Because I'm a suspenders and belt kind of girl.

The heat sink might help stabilize things yeah. But you'd have to have some huge swings to really affect the hatch that much. I'd crack the unhatched ones and see what's going on to troubleshoot better.

Excellent news on the Hamburgs though. Every improvement to a line should be celebrated, just a great breed, hopefully you can start populating the NW with Hamburgs again, at one point one of the all-time greats raised Silver Spangled Hamburg LF out here in the NW so it'd be cool from a historical perspective.

 

[Stumpfarmer]

That was my thought, too- although I've got about 30% doubt because the temperature stability problems with the Little Giant would effect smaller eggs more than larger ones except the two smallest eggs hatched into roaringly healthy ridiculously tiny chicks... Kristin said that these were from color experiment pens, and what I pay is dependent on a discussion after hatch.


The really good news in the silver lining category: all of the Hamburgs are rose combs. This means that the hen that I lost was the one carrying single comb, and even though how ever many of the offspring are carriers, it's better than 1/3 single comb, 1/3 carrier.


eta: another thought: I'm going to see if, among the family collection of scrap there's a chunk of 1/2" plate I could put in the bottom of the incubator as a heat sink. Because I'm a suspenders and belt kind of girl.

The heat sink might help stabilize things yeah.  But you'd have to have some huge swings to really affect the hatch that much.  I'd crack the unhatched ones and see what's going on to troubleshoot better.

Excellent news on the Hamburgs though.  Every improvement to a line should be celebrated, just a great breed, hopefully you can start populating the NW with Hamburgs again, at one point one of the all-time greats raised Silver Spangled Hamburg LF out here in the NW so it'd be cool from a historical perspective.

Believe me, if I can do it that's exactly my intention: I like the feed efficiency a lot, and the pattern makes them more useful for free-ranging in the presence of large avian predators than, say, commercial white breeds which barely beat them for egg-laying. (Dazze camoflauge, like zebras and loons).

I'm unlikely to do any egg necropsies right now- maybe send them back to the source for that, if she's got time or interest. I'm trying to get the adult LF juggled about, bigger brooder built, and then set some of the splash AM over BlueAM/Australorp eggs under the australorp broodie, who's getting impatient. Also I still have one cow left to calve, and my daughter's wedding roaring up like a freight-train.

 

[SadieSue]

One Hamburg egg hatched, nothing else pipped; even though this is egg-zactly what happened to both other hatches (in Brinseas I borrowed from hallerlake and Sadie Sue) I'm freaking out because nothing else has even pipped. I will be freaked out for as long as this hatch takes,I know- especially because Stewie wants to watch.

Patience! Same thing happened to me last week. I had shipped eggs in the Brinsea and had a good sized pip and cheeping coming from one but none of the others. By the evening of the second day, ALL 7 that had gone into lockdown had hatched, but it took 2 full days for them to all pop out.

The amazing thing was that these were from eggs shipped from Florida from Cpartist. She had variety colored olive eggers I wanted. She shipped 15 well packed eggs. I gave 5 to my gf for her broody to set on and 4 of those developed. Of my remaining 10 7 developed, and those all hatched, so together we had 11 out of 15 shipped eggs hatch. I thought that was pretty amazing, considering they all had saddle shaped air cells.

So you know SF - sit on those hands - let nature take over, and good luck!

ETA: And I forgot to notice that I was already a few days behind here so you ended up having a nice hatch. Congrats on your new chicks!

Here are my variety colored Olive Egger babies. I can't wait to see how they feather out!