LFG

18? Wow! That's awesome! I'm so glad I sent the eggs from the young girls. I rarely see the chickens during the week, so I wasn't sure if that rooster was getting the job done yet, but I'm seeing good fertility in my set as well. I did get to spend some time with them this weekend, and it was like Caligula in that pen I'm surprised the big eggs are the ones not developing, but maybe they were more susceptible to disruption during shipping. Maybe those smaller, compact eggs kept the yolks from getting shaken up too much. I really hope you have a good hatch rate. With that many developing, you should at least get the number of girls you wanted for yourself. If you have room to grow the roosters until they are big enough to take to that butcher, BCM are some of the best eating chickens around. The other good news with those younger eggs developing is that rooster is the best I have. He has a great body type, his color is fantastic, and the girls with him have a nice green sheen to their black feathers. You will have Bev Davis show chickens as your backyard layers ETE: When you add water, is it warm? That will help bring the temperature back up quickly, especially in Styrofoam. I may be telling you something you already know, just trying to pass along a trick or two

Just got to where I could see your charts on PC. You need a job?

Petee, if it helps, I hardly ever see veins in the eggs, they're just too thick. I candle from the fat end down. I can see the air sack, and if the egg is developing a dark shadow. Infertile eggs will be opaque, and the light will go all the way through the egg. With eggs developing you won't see much past the line of the air sack, especially after day 8 or 9. This doesn't help determine the quitters, but it will let you pull infertiles at lockdown

My second year black coppers lay a lot of 80+ gram eggs

I think it would be a lot of fun for everyone. I'm hatching every few weeks, but hatch day is always exciting. I think people will learn a lot from your documentary

You're much more hands on than me. When the incubator is full of chicks, I'll take them out.It's easier to do that on this set. All my eggs are from the young girls in the same pen. If I had eggs from two pens, I would put a divider on lockdown and band the chicks with different colors

Just did a full candle of the ones I set the same day as you. 16/24 developing, so keep your fingers crossed

Kind of. More like shining a flashlight through one end, but all the light has to be directed into the egg, if light escapes around the sides, you can't see. A candler has a rubber cup to set the egg in. A good, cheap, homemade way is to use a toilet paper roll and flashlight

Best chicken forum on the internet. Hands down

I had been told that, but was asked not to post it online until it was made public. I'll bump the thread for you

Petee, have you tried candling yet? I peeked at a few of them on day 6, and it looks like I have some swimmers in the medium eggs. I am giving them a few days to develop more, and I'll do a full candle this weekend

Say all you want about how slow the south is, but I planted my tomatoes 2 weeks before Easter

I have not figured out the sexing of chicks yet. I have heard and tried several old wives' tales, but none have proven effective. I go by combs and wattles, unless they are peacombed like Ameraucanas or Easter Eggers. Those combs develop so slowly that it's hard to tell. Thankfully with the marans I have a good idea at 2 weeks, and am about 95% certain at 4. I wouldn't call myself a full fledged breeder yet. I started with good stock, culled to the best of those, then mated what I hoped would produce the best results. You are actually one of the first recipients of what will be considered my line. Marans are notoriously hard to breed to the Standard, and if you are culling for egg color at the same time you will keep about 1 in every 10 chicks hatched. Like I said, for eggs it doesn't matter, but a lot of my customers show. Every chicken has faults, some are more egregious than others, and if you don't cull then those faults are magnified in the offspring. Some faults can actually be combined to reduce other faults, such as too much/too little copper color. A rooster with too much color is a good match for a solid black hen. Hatcheries don't cull, they can't afford to. Everything that hatches is bred and reproduced, so faults are magnified to the point of being a DQ at show. Again, fine for egg layers, but not for picky customers

Thanks There's nothing wrong with feed store chicks for pets and eggs, but there is a differece when buying from a breeder. They also cost 4 times more, and quite often I will recommend feed stores to people just looking for a few layers

Do you have an incubator?

Those are your parents

As promised, here are the two flocks Petee's eggs came from:

I've debated that for a few. The roosters definitely have their favorites, but usually a few extra girls will give them... options If I can keep 8-10 girls per pen, that usually spreads them around without hurting fertility. I have a Brinsea candler, but not the HI. I need to get one. Like I said, usually by day 10 you can at least see a developing air sack. I don't have a lot of hope for those medium eggs, but my fingers are crossed. Those two roosters are the same age, but the hens in the blue pen were trained to submit by another rooster. He kicked me one too many times, and I have a smoker

I used to get really nervous when the power went out, but it seems anything under 2 hours pretty much has no effect. My incubators even have a setting where they will purposely shut down the heater for an hour every day to mimic the mother getting off the nest. The fine print said that the tests showed an improvement of one more hatched egg for every 48 set, so I haven't messed with it. I hate that another one broke. Maybe I had it too close to the edge of the box when I packed it. I hope it wasn't another big one. That rooster is starting to strip the feathers off the girls, so I know those eggs are fertile, but the young girls I still don't know about. I'll try candling Thursday or Friday and see if I can make out anything. If for some reason you have no luck at all with these eggs, we'll do it again

In the short time I've been on this forum I have learned one thing. It ain't the Olive Garden

I have 5 big roosters that have varying lengths of deep crows. I have one silkie rooster that weighs about 4 pounds that can outdo every one of them. It's a higher pitched crow, he drags it out, and the sound carries for about a mile

Dang...I'm hoping some of the younger girls are fertile. I guess we'll find out in 7-10 days. Those eggs are tough to candle. Sometimes I can see veins, but usually I'm just looking for a shadow and developing air sack

What is that?

I hate that one was broken, hopefully it was one of the smaller ones. I set 2 dozen last night, all from the young girls, so I'm 12 hours behind you rolling the dice. Those are pretty big eggs, huh?

I know Petee is probably gone for a while, so for you guys keeping track, if she set this morning they will be due on May 18. The hatch usually lasts 18-32 hours, so they could start hatching around the evening of the 17th, and it could stretch into the 19th or 20th