Wyandotte hatching update day 18

Day 18 of the hatching of Silver Lace Wyandotte Bantams in the new incubator is proving to be exciting, for me anyway!

Hatching egg, candled at 18 days

I candled the eggs again last night and saw what I am hoping is a chick, moving around in the egg.  The photo is to the left and you can quite clearly see the blood vessels.
There are some quite strange air sack shapes going on in both of the remaining eggs.  I hope this is not a bad sign.

As it is 3 days before hatch, I have removed the 4 non-fertile eggs and the dividers separating the eggs and the auto turning mechanism has been turned off.
It is recommended to increase the humidity for the hatching period.  I had no idea how to do this until I read Katie Thears Incubation, A guide to Hatching and Rearing book and the instructions that came with my incubator.

Apparently you may not necessarily need to add more water but just reduce the temperature by half a degree to 37 degrees c and this increases humidity.

My Incubator manual also helped my understand things a little clearer.  Its not the level of water in the incubator dish, but the surface area of water.  So if you fill two dishes with water a quarter full each, it will produce higher humidity than if you fill one dish to the full capacity!

So, I am still clinging onto a little hope that the two remaining eggs will hatch.  If they do, it will go a little way in helping me set up my little project of breeding pure breed poultry, 1) to ensure their survival, 2) for fun and 3) to encourage other chicken keepers or want to be keepers, that pure breed is an option over hybrid birds.

Wyandotte Goldlace bantams at 14 weeks

Here are a few photos of the Gold Lace Wyandottes, taken more recently in the snow!

Not happy hens on the snow

I seem to be getting as addicted to taking photos as I am keeping hens and hatching chicks!  Nevermind!  Could be worse!

Wyandotte Chick with mum

I resisted the urge to drone on about it.  The hens did not like it at all but I quite enjoyed our little wintry spell.  Certainly made a change to all the mud!

Hens and chicks, sheltering from a hail shower

In the last half hour we had a heavy hail storm.  I had let the Chickens our earlier in the day.  Seems the boys climbing frame has another use in the winter!





Thanks for reading.

Candling Eggs on day 11

Excitement, enthusiasm, anticipation!  Words that I would used to define how I felt when I received my hatching eggs through the post back on the 10th January.

There is something special and addictive about hatching chicks.  Sadly my hatch rates have never really been high.  My first attempt under Treacle my Speckledy hen resulted in just one chick hatching out of 3 eggs.

The second attempt in October 2012 resulted in two chicks hatching out of 6 eggs, again under Treacle!

My third hatch is in my new incubator. A Corti AF25 - the automatic turning model.
I set the eggs back on 9th January and candled as recommended on the 7th day.  Being relatively inexperienced at candling, I was happy to leave the eggs for a further few days before discarding any that are unlikely to hatch.

I candled the eggs again tonight the 20th January at 11 days and took photographs of each egg.  I think this may be a useful guide for anyone candling their own eggs.  Apparently you should not candle to often and for too long! So here goes with the photos!

One of my own chickens eggs - Not Fertile

First incubator egg - not looking too promising - I would say this is NOT fertile.

Second Egg - something defiantly going on in this one - good to leave   in the incubator.

Third egg - Not Fertile! :-(







I cant go on really, sad that only one other egg below seems to have something going on. 
2 out of 6 again!!

Hopefully the other fertile egg!








Lets hope the two do hatch and there are no complications.

Thanks for reading! 

Gold Lace Wyandotte Photos 12 Weeks

They are hardly chicks any more.  12 weeks old and they look like mini versions of the real thing.  Gold Lace Wyandotte Bantam chickens.

I'm hoping that in 4-5 weeks I will find out if they are hens or cockerels.



At the moment one of each would fall nicely into my plans going forwards.








I have 6 Silver lace Wyandotte eggs in my incubator, due to hatch on the 30th January, the day Rhys turns 4!  Could be a nice birthday surprise.....well for me anyway.  He gets a little stressed about animals.

The plan going forward is to breed Wyandottes and I will be selling hatching eggs.

A local school has asked if I will help set them up with a hen house and chickens so that the children can look after them during term time.  They could be the first recipients of the offspring. :-)

I know a lot of schools have been taking on hens, but there is always the little problem of holiday's to sort out.  I guess that's where I would come in and happily take them in for 6 weeks during the summer holidays.  Free eggs - can't complain at that!

Anyway, next on the list after that will be chocolate Wyandottes.
I am very tempted by the Frizzle Pekins, but more recently have been investigating the Silver Appleyard ducks and Buff Orpington Ducks.  They would definitely be an allotment project so lots of work to do before then!

 

I best get my feet under the table with the Wyandottes first of all and the quail that are arriving via the West Midlands on 19th Jan!!  Still work to do on the coop as you can see.  The top level is way to dark.  I have all the materials, just need an hour to knock it together!
I have taken the hardwood panel from the back of the run on the bottom level and replaced with a frame and mesh.
Fingers crossed they will like their new homes.
Next stage is to do the same with the panel at the top level and install mesh on the solid door!  

Hope you enjoyed the photos. Thanks for reading!

Merry Christmas - Hide and Beak

Pudding

Merry Christmas everyone.
I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas.

Hide and beak?  You will see what I mean shortly.

My hens have been getting a real treat with lots of free range time and corn treats in the garden.




So much time that I actually thought I had lost Pudding the other day.
We have a 6 foot fence all around our boundary, so I naturally think this is acceptable to keep chickens in and my neighbours should not have a unexpected visitor.  However Pudding is a particularly good "flyer" and I say flyer in the broadest sense.



Photo from richard-seaman.com

 Chickens tend to take off a little like a harrier jump jet.  Not necessarily with the same grace and effortless way the jet does, but they some how manage to get "airborne" for several seconds, before plummeting to earth like a giant water filled balloon!  The landing is similar to a water balloon hitting the floor as well.  Splat or Sploosh are quite good sound effects!

It was boxing day around 11am and Custard, Pudding, Treacle and the 2 chicks (currently Pinky and Perky) were having a good old explore of the garden.
I peered out of the window just to take the register, and check all were present and correct.
4 out of 5.  Pudding had gone AWOL.

Rather than running out into the garden and checking all sensible places, I decided she must have made her way over the fence, either into my neighbours garden or into our front garden.

I ran upstairs and peered into the neighbours gardens from the back bedroom window.  No sign at all.

I checked the front garden.  No sign.

Then I heard a gun shot!  Not good.

Now thinking rationally, who would want to shoot a domesticated chicken.  You could hardly mistake Pudding for a pheasant!
I decided to don the waterproof trousers, coat and wellies on and venture into the mud and the driving rain!

I spent 10 minutes looking for her.  The last place I had not checked was the nest box................now normally this would be the first place I would check, but recently I installed a piece of wood on a hinge so I could block off the nest box in the evening as both pudding and custard like to sit in the nest box all night and make a right mess of it.

To let them out of the hen house I have to close off the nest box.  Not ideal, but not a major problem.  I thought!
I ignored the nest box, because I thought it was inaccessible.
How wrong I was. 

I can only guess that she managed to open the next box by nudging the door open with her beak and head, similar to a dog when they open doors!
There she was, sitting in the nest box, next to a lovely warm egg!

So for 30 minutes I had been playing hide and seek with a chicken, and she was cuddled up in her nest box the whole time!

Moral of the story, check the most obvious places first, even if they are not necessarily the obvious place at the time!  That makes no sense!!!!!!!!!!!  I know!

Thank you for reading, I hope you had a fantastic Christmas and that you have great fun seeing in the New Year!

Wyandotte Chicks, dogs, and food?!!!!

Well the cold snap is hear and it's been -2 to -3 degrees C over night!

I woke to a thick frost all over the car, and to bring me a little happiness a reasonable frost on the grass.  So the walk to the girls and chicks this morning was as though I were walking over crisps rather than the more recent walking through treacle.

I find it strange that Custard the Light Sussex has decided this is a good time to go into full moult.  She must be freezing!  It does not make sense to me.  

We used to have a German Shepherd and she would moult at sensible times to bring in winter and then summer coats.  If dogs can do it, why not the chickens?  Someone with more knowledge will no doubt be able to answer that! 

I think that the covered run will be helping the chicks, Pinky and Perky and the girls, Treacle, Pudding and Custard.  It probably keeps the worst of the frost off their run area.  It certainly helps keep the drinkers from freezing at -2 to -3 but how long that will last for I am unsure.

Many people talk about insulating their hen houses in winter.  Perhaps this is necessary in the very cold parts of the country or over in America where there are sever cold snaps.  But in sunny (ha ha) Wales half way up the Garth Mountain (famous for the Hugh Grant Film, The Englishman who went up a hill but came down a mountain and for Lucy Jones off Xfactor) I do not find it necessary.
Plus I would like to think not doing this helps control some of the red mite!

I do tend to add more wood shavings in winter to help a little with insulation.  I have used shredded paper as well but found this was a little messy and needed cleaning out more regularly.

I mentioned the chicks earlier.  They seem happing whatever the weather.  They are getting quite flighty.  But I suspect this is the Bantam in them and something I will have to get used to.

They are looking very pretty with their markings now.  I am starting to convince myself they are hens, but I know this is not a good idea having gone through it with Rodney the Rooster earlier this year, who was originally Rosie!!

I have been thinking about names for the chicks.  Pinky and Perkey were only temporary names.  I like the idea of sticking with food.  So if they are both hens I will see if I can get board approval (from my 3 boys) to call the Apple and Blackberry.

Quite cool, hip and now with all the celeb children names. :-)

Thanks for reading!

Wyandotte chicks at 5 weeks

I promised to update on the chicks progress.
Well here they are!!


A few days old

I am surprised how flighty they are, and they seem quite nervous when I am around.  One chick continues to try and ride on Treacles back, but she is not suffering this too aften now.
  


5 Weeks old



At 5 weeks old they are looking very different to 3 or 4 days old as you would expect.

I have been told that they can time a long time to mature, so I guess I am not going to know anytime soon if they are hens or cockerels.  Having said that it took me 15 weeks to finally accept that Rodney the Rhode Island Red cockerel was actually a cockerel! 

Either way Pinky and Perky are looking quite happy and cute.

I love the markings on their wings.  When I first saw a Wyandotte in a magazine I thought I was looking at a computer generated image.  I honestly did not think it was possible to achieve markings like this. 

I have recently applied to join the Laced Wyandotte Club.

The club caters for silver, blue, gold and buff laced Wyandotte's.  Full size and Bantams.

I'm hoping to gather information on standards, breeders and eventually get along to the club show.

I don't know how these little guy's or gals are going to turn out but if they are anything like this I will be very happy!

I'm considering attending the Royal Welsh Winter Fair in Builth Wells.  They apparently have a poultry show on the second day, and of course there are all those lovely stalls with potential Christmas gifts to look around.

I will update the blog with some info if I manage to get there!

Thanks for reading.