Our second hatch of 2017 resulted in Easter Egger, Oliver Egger, White Leghorn, and Delaware chicks.

DEVELOPING

Candling an egg on Day 5. This egg looks good. You can see the embryo in the middle surrounded by blood vessels. You can also see the air cell at the top of the egg.

Both our egg turners have quit working. So, I set these eggs right in the incubator and turned them by hand.

HATCHING

One egg pipped!

CHICKS!

I adore this one. It has a unique pattern for our flock.

White Leghorns

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This first hatch batch of 2017 was in preparation for the Spring Poultry Homesteading Faire.

In the past, many people at the Faire have shown interest in Marans. Currently, we do not have a Marans rooster. So, instead I focused on Olive Eggers. I also hatched White Leghorns and Delaware chicks.

Love this! Farm Girl asked if instead of reading to me she could read to the eggs. “Yes! Yes, of course you can!”

THE EGGS IN LOCKDOWN

WHITE LEGHORN

DELAWARE

I banded the Delaware’s to identify them from the White Leghorns. A word of caution if you use bands: watch them carefully and remove them before they get too tight on the chicken.

OLIVE EGGERS

Many of our Olive Eggers hatch looking quite similar to our Black Copper Marans – makes sense since many are crossed with Marans hens.

The egg tooth is easy to see on this dark friend.

I adore this fluffy little fella. He/she even has feathered shanks. Most of our chicks that have feathered shanks are black, so this one is unique.

This hatch many chicks do not have feathered shanks.

But, some do.

Another successful hatch of cutie patooties.

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Most birds and reptiles have an egg tooth, which is an essential part in the hatching process. On birds, it is small, sharp, and sits at the tip of the upper beak.

The egg tooth is the cream colored pointy object at the end of the beak of this chick:

While chicks are developing they need oxygen. Since egg shells are porous, chicks receive oxygen through the pores. As hatching day nears, though, the chick gets too large for oxygen to flow well. It is then that chicks use their egg tooth to break into the air cell inside the egg to get more oxygen.

There is a limited amount of oxygen available in the air cell, so soon they use the egg tooth to pip a small hole in the outer shell. Then they rotate and unzip the egg shell.

In the cracked part of the shell the beak and egg tooth are visible in this photo:

White Leghorn chick pushing itself out of the unzipped egg shell.

This Easter Egger is resting after a long day.

This 2 day old chick still has its egg tooth, but within the next day or two it will fall off.

HAPPY HATCHING!

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Candling chicken eggs is an exciting part of the incubating process. I don’t always candle them, but I usually do.

Candling the egg gives you a glimpse at what’s happening inside.

When I use an incubator to hatch eggs, I typically candle them a couple times within the 21 developing days. I don’t bother candling them until at least day 4 because I can’t see anything before then. And, I don’t candle after day 18 because the eggs are in lock down.

Most often if a broody hen is sitting on eggs I don’t candle them. I leave the broody to tend her eggs. The exception is if I think her eggs aren’t good. Before taking them away I will candle them.

MY CANDLING METHOD

My incubators came with candling tools, so I use those. But, I’ve also had success with a flashlight. I go in a dark room, hold the candling tool to the egg, and inspect the egg.

DAYS 1-7

The first couple days there is little to see when candling. Usually on days 3 or 4 is when the veins just become visible. By day 6 those veins should really be easy to see.

DAYS 8-14

The embryo starts to grow & fill its shell, but still has room to wiggle around. Often you can see the shadow of the embryo moving inside the shell. It’s absolutely great to see.

DAYS 15-21

Days 15 – 18 the chick is filling most of the egg. When candling, nearly the entire egg is black except where the air cell is.
Do not candle the eggs past Day 18, as they need to be in lock down and not disturbed.

EGGS THAT AREN’T DEVELOPING CORRECTLY

Sometimes the eggs don’t develop into a hatched chick.

Left: This egg is clear – meaning it never started developing. It’s possible that it was never fertilized. If I think an egg is clear, I leave it in the incubator and check it again a couple days later. If it’s still clear, I take it out.

Right: This egg has a blood ring. For some reason, the embryo started developing, then quit. This one gets taken out of the incubator.

Some hatches I candle more than is recommended. Some hatches I candle 2 or 3 times & some hatches don’t get candled at all.

It is recommended to candle only 2 or 3 times within the 21 day period. That really is all that is necessary to check the development of the eggs. But, some hatches I’m more antsy and curious about what’s going on. So, I candle more often. Hands-on experience is how I learn best. Candling more versus candling less, hasn’t changed my hatch rate. Although, I could see how messing with the eggs more than necessary could be a bad idea. So, please use your best judgement when deciding how often to candle your eggs.

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The previous hatch did not go as expected. I wrote the company from where I ordered the eggs. Their policy is no refunds, etc. since they can’t control what happens with the eggs after they leave their farm. Understandable. I still wrote them, though. Number one, as a company I would want to know when things didn’t go as planned with one of my products. Number two, I was wondering if they had any tips on how to have a better outcome if I ever decided to order hatching eggs again.

I was pleasantly surprised when the company offered to send me a replacement batch, free of charge. I graciously accepted.

When the eggs arrived I let them rest a bit longer this time before placing them in the incubator. Then I placed the 19 shipped eggs and 2 eggs from our farm into the incubator.

Well… long story short. I didn’t have any better outcome this second time around.

Of the two eggs from our farm, within the first week I knew one wasn’t developing. I don’t even think it was fertile. So, I took that one out. I was left with one of our eggs. It hatched just fine.

Of the shipped eggs, not many even made it to lock down. One hatched. A Cream Legbar this time. The last time a Black Copper Marans hatched. So, at least I got one of each.

Cream Legbar at 5 days old. Pretty cute!

Cream Legbar & Olive Egger x BCM at 3 weeks.

Hatching eggs shipped across the country apparently isn’t going to work for me. It must work for some people. But, my experience was crummy. Out of 38 total eggs shipped, 2 hatched. Not good. Not good for me mentally, not good for my pocketbook and certainly not good for the chicks.

Live and learn, I suppose.

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Warning: this is not a happy hatch day post. If reading about the bad days doesn’t interest you, you should probably skip this post.

Cream Legbars have been a breed I’d been wanting for awhile. The timing never seemed to work out and there aren’t many breeders nearby. This summer I finally decided to take the plunge and order hatching eggs from a company in the Midwest. I read good things about them. So even though I was hesitant getting eggs in this manner, I did it anyway. With all the good reviews I read, I assumed it must work out most of the time.

Shipping costs a fortune, so I ordered a few Black Copper Marans eggs to make me feel better about that expense.

I’m not gonna lie, I was teenage giddy when I unpacked this box. #soexcited

I let the eggs sit and rest for about half a day before placing them in the incubator.

When the time came, here’s what went in the incubator:
6 Black Copper Marans
13 Cream Legbar
2 Olive Egger x BCM (from our farm, similar to the ones hatched earlier)

About 36 hours into incubation I decided to check on the eggs. I went to pick an egg up to give it a slight turn and found it was stuck to the turner. We’ve done many hatches in these incubators and this was a first. The egg was stuck like glue. We had to use a scraper to get all the egg shell off the turner. There ended up being a couple more stuck in the same way.

I don’t know why they were stuck. The only thing I can think of is that the egg leaked and then hardened to the turner. But, why would they do such a thing?

All the eggs came out and I quickly washed the incubator and the turner. We got everything back to the way it should be and hoped for the best.

The next day I checked to see if any more were stuck. One Marans egg was stuck. But, just a tiny piece of shell stayed stuck to the turner. The membrane seemed intact, so I put tape over the missing shell piece and placed the egg back in the incubator.

This is not a good sign. You should not see liquid oozing from from an egg.

Between stuck eggs, rotten eggs and eggs not developing I was down to a fairly small batch at lock down:
3 Black Copper Marans
5 Cream Legbars (although, from candling I thought only 3 were actually viable)
2 Olive Egger x BCM’s (from our farm)

Just like clock work on day 21 the 2 eggs from our farm hatched perfectly.

One Cream Legbar pipped, but never finished hatching.

The other 2 I thought were developing correctly appeared to quit growing very late, not quite making it to the 21 days.

One Black Copper Marans pipped and just couldn’t zip. When there is a big hole like this, you know there is a problem. They should be zipping all the way around the egg, not staying in one place.

I have had this happen before and learned that helping them out rarely does them any favors. If they are too weak or have some other problem why they can’t get out of the egg, they usually aren’t going to survive.

However… Farm Girl and my niece had been watching all this and they begged me to help the chick out. After telling the girls the chick may still not make it even if I help it out, I carefully pulled the shell from the chick.

The poor thing didn’t look well. Shell was stuck to the feathers. Feathers were missing. It was weak.

After letting it rest, I took a warm wet towel to wipe off all the stuck on goo. Then had the girls hold it, while wrapped in a towel, to dry him/her off and stay warm.

I am happy to say the little guy pulled through. He/she is the one in the middle.

About 6 weeks later:

A quick note about the band on the leg. I put the band on to mark which chick was the full Black Copper Marans. If you use a band, make sure to check it often. As the chick grows the band gets tighter. If it gets too tight it can cause problems for the chicken.

This was a disappointing hatch. I have never had so many things go wrong.

I don’t know the reason behind the hatching troubles, but I do know the 2 eggs from our farm hatched perfectly.

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It had been awhile since we hatched eggs, so back in June I set some in the incubator.

We have 3 main coops. These eggs are from the coop with Roost, an Olive Egger, as the papa. The hens are Black Copper Marans, Rhode Island Reds, and Easter Eggers.

These mixes are a first for us, so I am interested to see what color eggs the hens eventually lay.

All went as planned, and on day 21 chicks began hatching!

The majority of the chicks are primarily black, but there are a few buff ones, as well.

I love that they were following Farm Girl.

The chicks stayed in our brooding pen until about day 11 when they really decided they liked flying out. Then they got moved to a different cage, with a top. Since they like to fly on things, as an experiment I place a log chunk in their cage. They loved it. Almost nobody flew onto their water dish to hang out. Why didn’t I think of this before?

On day 21, they were moved once again. This time to an outside brooder.

Here they are at about 2 months of age:

This batch of chicks has the most feathers on their shanks I have ever seen.

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We knew hiding in the shasta daisies was one of our free range Easter Eggers sitting on eggs. Eventually, our farm grew by a two chicks.

This hen has mothered previously and she’s great. However, she is quite a spazzy chicken. She doesn’t want to be bothered. Don’t even look her way or she’ll fly off. So, her and her babies stay in the daisies most of the day.

Here, the babies are about 2 weeks old and I was finally able to get a good look at them. I love the coloring on the dark one.

Seven chicks have hatched this year. That’s not near as many as the last few years. But, it’s just what we needed this go ’round.

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We chose not to hatch chicks this year in the incubator. However, we still ended up with a few spring chicks thanks to one of our free range hens.

She’s been a good mama. Over the years, all our Easter Egger mama’s have done well with their babies.

I do enjoy setting eggs in the incubator and watching the hatching process. But, there is something extra special about a mama hen and her brood.

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MAMA HEN #1

This mama we knew was sitting on eggs. We don’t always let our broody’s stay broody, but this one was out of the way, in a secluded area behind rakes, brooms & shovels in Farmer John’s Man Shack, so we let her continue. I’d check on her occasionally and she was always sitting super still without making a sound and sure enough eventually her eggs hatched. Thirteen chicks total. She was such a good mama. I wish all broodies would be such good mothers.

MAMA HEN #2

The next day – Surprise, another mama & 11 more chicks wandering around. Complete shock. I still have no idea where she was hiding and sitting on her eggs.

MAMA HEN #3

Often in our main coop a hen will go broody. Usually we end up taking her out, so she doesn’t disturb the laying process of the other hens since they all seem to lay eggs in the same nest box, which also happens to be the nest box they tend to sit in when they go broody. Well, we weren’t so diligent about it the last month or so. And, the day after spying Mama #2 & her chicks, I saw our Welsummer hen with one baby in the main coop.

MAMA HEN #4

One more mama to be. I found her behind the goat fence in the brush, under a tree. This is probably not the safest place for her or her eggs, but I’m going to hope for the best & not disturb them. I’m not sure how long she’s been sitting here, but she’s got quite a collection of eggs.

And, I thought we were done with chicks until next spring. Ha! Now that the weather is turning colder & wetter, though, we’ll move everybody back to the enclosed coop and have a better handle on babies in the making.

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