Little Chicken Girl
Songster
Love your golden-laced babies! Thanks for the photo for comparison!
I purchased the eggs online from a reputable breeder. They arrived very well-packed, but I knew that hatchability was still likely to be zero to 50percent at the most because of getting shaken around in the mail. I put them under a super-broody Cochin who'd been nursing ceramic eggs. She seemed to accept the real eggs just fine (I did it in the middle of the night, LOL). However, she abandoned the real eggs after a few days. So it was incubator time!
All eggs were the same size. Four eggs pipped. My little dwarf hatched all by herself, and was very active from the start. The other three died in shell within 24 hours -- when I opened the shells afterwards, they were REALLY large chicks, much bigger than my dwarf. Two were malpositioned for hatching. None of them appeared to have enough room to move to finish hatching (I wish I'd intervened now!). No "shrink wrap" of the membrane or anything like that.
So it was an atypical situation from the start - mailing, the broody hen quitting, and then being in the incubator. Enough stress to make a dozen things go wrong!
Love your golden-laced babies! Thanks for the photo for comparison!
I purchased the eggs online from a reputable breeder. They arrived very well-packed, but I knew that hatchability was still likely to be zero to 50percent at the most because of getting shaken around in the mail. I put them under a super-broody Cochin who'd been nursing ceramic eggs. She seemed to accept the real eggs just fine (I did it in the middle of the night, LOL). However, she abandoned the real eggs after a few days. So it was incubator time!
All eggs were the same size. Four eggs pipped. My little dwarf hatched all by herself, and was very active from the start. The other three died in shell within 24 hours -- when I opened the shells afterwards, they were REALLY large chicks, much bigger than my dwarf. Two were malpositioned for hatching. None of them appeared to have enough room to move to finish hatching (I wish I'd intervened now!). No "shrink wrap" of the membrane or anything like that.
So it was an atypical situation from the start - mailing, the broody hen quitting, and then being in the incubator. Enough stress to make a dozen things go wrong!
She is definitely unique!
I love Tolbunts and she is an exceptional one. 
I think that as long as she is well taken care of and appears healthy and happy, she'll do fine. I'd advise keeping an eye on her when you do introduce her to the big chickens though. She'll need plenty of space in the coop/run so she can get away from the chickens higher up on the pecking order when she needs to. 
