Catching Up

The Salmon Faverolles and Silkies that I hatched are now 6 weeks old. Yesterday the temperature was almost in the 60s and the chicks had their first day outside of the brooder. I ended up with 4 Cockerels and 2 Pullets. One is feathering in much darker than I would like, so I may end up selling her eventually. In addition to the Faverolles, I have a Splash Silkie that I named "Trousers". I also had a buff Silkie but I sold it last week to someone who bought up a bunch of the silkie chicks I hatched out on Feb. 6th.

I hatched out 17 Silkies and 1 Faverolles out of 26 fully developed eggs on Feb. 6th. I am still not sure what went wrong with the hatch. I used a Hovabator Genesis. Temperature was constant, never went above 100.2 even during hatching. Humidity was 45-53% during sitting and 60-71% during lockdown. I opened the eggs that did not hatch and this is what I found...
1 - Alive, but died shortly after I opened egg. I think I may have nicked a blood vein as I did open a small hole in the membrane for it to breathe.
2 - Huge chick with absorbed yolk, pipped but did not zip.
3 - Drowned in shell, lots of liquid.
4 - 8 All were fully formed and dead without pipping. Membrane was not shrink wrapped and did not seem to be drowned in shell from too much humidity. Could not tell what went wrong with these.

New batch of Silkie chicks hatched Feb. 6th

Two things I noticed about this hatch....the first being I did not disinfect the incubator before using it again (oops), and the second that the shipped eggs I hatched had the biggest air cells I've ever seen, and that they were saddle shaped air cells. I don't know if that had anything to do with the chicks not being able to pip right. I thought that bacteria would cause blood rings early on and not so much when the embryos were fully formed. I only had a couple of blood rings.

Regardless, of the 18 that hatched I had one that was a sticky chick and the other chicks had pecked out the egg yolk from its navel until it was completely hanging out and busted. I ended up having to euthanize the poor thing. I had another chick that was born and could not stand up. It was not spraddle leg. His right leg was sticking straight out and he kept flipping onto his back. I taped his legs and put him in a cup so he would sit upright but he ended up dying overnight.

I also had one chick with a curled toe but I fixed that by making him wear a little bandaid "boot" for a few days. He is doing fine now.

I don't know what went so wrong with the hatch but after this hatch and the hatch before it not being good, I'm started to get discouraged. ): I fully disinfected the incubator this time and I've got some Salmon Faverolles eggs due to be mailed out on the 24th.....*crosses fingers* If this next hatch isn't any good either then I may sell this incubator and get something else.

Anyhow, I sold most of the Silkie chicks and am keeping 2 white/splash (can't tell the colors apart yet), 2 blues, and 1 black in addition to the older splash silkie I'm keeping. The Faverolles I hatched with these is looking like it might be a nicely colored pullet (YES!) but I won't know for sure for a few more days.

Good and Bad News

I now have 8 new chicks! They are a week old today. I ended up with 6 Faverolles and 2 Silkies. Two of the Silkie eggs did not hatch. After opening them up, it looks like they drowned in the shell from too much humidity so next time around I am going to incubate with the plug out of the incubator vent hole and stabilize things around 45-48% humidity. This last hatch was around 56% humidity the entire time and I guess that was just too much for them... though it is weird that the Faverolles eggs did not have any trouble. I'm almost wondering if the Silkie eggs are more sensitive to humidity because they're smaller or something.

Bad news is that a raccoon got into the barn last night and killed Penny, my Faverolles hen. The remaining chickens, Derp (Faverolles Roo) and Lucky (Ameraucana Pullet) have been moved back to their outside pens and the pens now have a 3-strand hotwire perimeter. We'll see how that does for them. Hopefully I'll be able to save up for a nice, secure chicken coop once I start selling the chicks I hatch.

Speaking of which- the Silkie breeder who sold me the last batch of Silkie eggs sent me 16 replacement eggs! And I just ordered 12+ from ebay that are by Glen See. I should have around 30 to hatch this time around and I will only be keeping a select few BBS ones.

Update

On the 19th I put 15 Silkie eggs and 7 Faverolles eggs (from my pair) into my new incubator. I checked them at 7 days and, unfortunately, only 5 of the Silkie eggs were developing. I cracked open the clears and they looked like they were not fertile. I checked a couple days later and one of the 5 Silkie eggs had a blood ring so I had to throw it out. Right now I have only 4 Silkie eggs that are doing well. 1 Cuckoo, 1 Splash, and 2 White. I also threw in 7 Faverolles eggs from my pair and 6 of them are developing great. One of those also had a blood ring and I had to throw it out.. which I expected because all but  2 of the Faverolles eggs that I put into the incubator had been washed and in my fridge for eating! I didn't expect much out of them but I've been pleasantly surprised. I can't wait to get some babies from Derp and Penny!

Sorry, no pictures this time!  Lockdown is due on Sun. Jan 5th.

Update

It's been a while since I last posted. The first set of chicks that I hatched out (D'uccles and Silkie Crosses) were killed by a skunk that dug underneath the coop. I tried to keep the next batch of chicks safe (Ameraucanas) by releasing them in one of my barn stalls when they were old enough to go outside. I thought I had blocked up every hole into the stall but the same skunk that killed my first chicks ended up finding a way to get in and killed all of the second batch of chicks except for one hen who got up onto the roosting pole. Her name is now "Lucky". Lol. At first I was devastated that I had put so much time and effort into raising chicks that ended up being skunk food. After the initial shock, I realized that it was a learning experience. The chicks did not survive because I did not teach them to get up onto a roost before putting them outside and because I did not plug the holes into the stall well enough. The first batch of chicks died because I had the coop sitting on soft earth that was easy to dig through and I did not have a way to prevent whatever from digging up through the bottom of the coop.

I forgot to close the coop door one night and something came along and killed my silkies. I suspect it was a fox as all I found of one was its feet and the other was gone completely. Whatever it was, it was large enough that it attacked Derp, who is every bit of 8lbs. Derp was all right, but he was missing quite a few tailfeathers!

So now, going into 2014, I have three chickens total. Derp and Penny the Faverolles, and Lucky the Ameraucana. The skunk is gone and I have not had any trouble from predators since I dispatched it into skunk heaven. I will be adding a wire bottom to my coops and making a brooder with roosting poles inside of it.

I sold my Brinsea Mini Advance Incubator and purchased... a Hovabator Genesis 1588! Now I can hatch out up to 42 eggs at a time. I am going to pick up 12+ Silkie eggs tomorrow that I purchased from a local breeder through Ebay and add around 6 of Penny's Faverolles eggs as well. I'm curious to see how Penny's eggs will hatch out because I've had quite a few of them stored in the refrigerator.

My new Hovabator Genesis 1588

Hatched!

The chicks have hatched! Half of them decided to hatch on day 20 and half on day 21. All 6 of the eggs that were developing hatched. Though... I opened the incubator more than I should have.. like five or six times. I kept panicking thinking they were stuck or that I had to take the egg shells out that they were tripping over. I guess that's normal for a first time hatcher like myself, lol. Though NEXT TIME I will sit on my hands and not open the lid!!

Three had hatched at this point.

I'm waiting until tonight to put them in the brooder so they'll be nice and fluffed out since I don't have a lamp, just a Brinsea Ecoglow which they huddle under to stay warm.

Also, my Ameraucana eggs arrived today! Going to let them sit a day while I clean up the incubator and start all over again, lol!

Egg Update

The D'uccle eggs should hatch between Monday and Wednesday next week! I am excited. (: Hope I get at least one blue mottled bird!

I checked on the eggs my Silkies are sitting on yesterday and all five of their own eggs (Faverolles x Silkie) are developing. The leftover D'uccle egg, however, was not and I tossed it. Oh well, it was worth a try. Hopefully them hatching their own eggs will cement their broodiness so I can use them to hatch shipped eggs I purchase in the future.

Will update with pictures when the hatch begins!

Sooooooo I just bid on some Blue Wheaten Ameraucana eggs... if I win the auction, they'll be the last chicks I hatch this year. I am trying to get my stock established for next year so I can start selling hatching eggs. Im planning on having a Blue/Black Mottled D'uccle pen, Faverolles and Ameraucana pen (Faverolles x Ameraucana = Easter Egger), and a Mille Fleur bantam Cochin pen. I guess I'll have to hatch out the Faverolles and Cochins next year but that's all right. I'm getting there lol.

Also, I found this while looking up Silkie color genetics. Mottled Silkies! There are very, very few of these in development right now. They're made by crossing a mottled Cochin with a black Silkie for several generations. This would be a cool project but I would hate to end up with tons of culls from each generation and have to try to find homes for them all. Never the less, they still look cool!

Black Mottled Silkie

Update- 7 Days to Lockdown!

There are officially 7 more days until lockdown! I suspect some of the eggs might try to hatch a little early just because they were transported in the summer heat, but we'll see what happens.

Took this yesterday. Now it is on Day 9.

The two silkies, Brenda and Phyllis, are still brooding. I took some of the eggs that were underneath Brenda and put them in a separate nestbox and moved Phyllis over to it. (Phyllis has been nesting ON TOP of Brenda) The next morning I went out to the coop, Brenda and Phyllis had switched nestboxes..but at least they weren't on top of each other again. They are sitting on 4 of their own Faverolles/Silkie cross eggs and one D'uccle egg I snuck in. I haven't tried to candle these eggs yet even though they've been sitting on them for around 5 days now. I'll candle them tonight and see what is going on.

Brenda on the left, Phyllis on the right.

 

 

The eggs that Phyllis is sitting on. One of these is the spare D'uccle egg.