June 25, 2012 - UPDATE

It's been a couple of months since I posted anything that has been going on with my chickens.  So much has been going on and it's been a great & busy summer mostly.

 A hearty and big welcome to another new follower Whittni - *** WELCOME***

I've hatched 2 more batches of baby chicks since April and given them all away but one.  The one is housed with another baby chicken a few weeks older that was given to us.  They are both Leghorns.  I wish I had some pics handy right now but I promise to get some up soon.

I never really followed up on my 1st hatch this year in April.  My enthusiasm was squelched the night before the chicks were due to hatch by finding out about the untimely death of a former boss and friend.  Spent the hatch day at a memorial and with his family.  The whole thing still bothers me.

The next batch of chickens I kept for a few days and hubby took them to work to someone wanting to start with chickens.  Actually both batches have gone to different co-workers.

I put new eggs in the incubator yesterday and will be candling them in about 3-5 days for signs of life.  I hope I get a better hatch rate.  My hatch rate this year has been abysmal compared to last year.  I've only had about 6-8 chicks hatch each time.  I had one batch where the light went out about 2 weeks into the process.  I replaced the light bulb but it had gotten cold in there (73 degrees) so I wasn't expecting much.  One chick hatched and died in my hand 3 days later.  I was pretty bummed about that.

We also got rid of our 2 roosters the other day.  They were getting to be very loud and annoying and our poor hens needed a break badly.  Some of them are missing feathers on certain spots on their backs.  Next time we get roosters we will need to get some chicken aprons maybe?  Anyway, it is MUCH QUIETER.  Very happy about that.  Bob the rooster shown below was from a hatch last year.  He is part silkie/phoenix.  A real looker.  Also real loud.  Bob and the other rooster are now at their new home with lots more hens to keep busy.  

Looking forward to the next hatch and to learning more about my hens.  I do have a question that I am looking for an answer too which is:  Why do my hens constantly push the straw out through the wire????  I cleaned up a bunch the other day and it's annoying.  I tried to put up some cardboard/wood around the perimeter of the coop on the inside and I hope it helps.  

Next time I post will be when I candle the eggs  -  sure to be lots of pics!

Till then........

4 new chicks - 1 day early

Woke up this morning and saw one of the eggs had been pipped.  This wasn't a total surprise as I had seen eggs moving slightly in the bator.  

Was gone all day but came home a somewhat newly hatched chickie.  So cute!

It wasn't too long until Chick# 2 made it's appearance.

Went outside with the kids for a while and came back in to see Chick # 3 hatching and within 15 minutes Chick# 4 was hatching.  I got that one on video and I'll post it later.

Sadly one of the chicks died in it's egg.  It pipped but never made it out.  I don't know what to make of that.

I got another pipped egg and a egg where the chick is having a problem getting out. I know you're not supposed to help them but as usual, I am.  I've had some successes in the past.

Here's how the incubator looks now:

Here's a picture of the 4 chickies in their temporary home.

Three of these chicks hatched from the dark brown maran eggs.  I'm hoping some of the white leghorn eggs hatch tomorrow.  They were candled and all viable.  

Till tomorrow......

Double Yoke Eggs - Twin Chicks??

One of my eggs currently in the incubator is a double yoke egg.  I've only had a couple of them this year.  Funny how last summer I had tons of them.


I did try to hatch a couple of them last summer but after candling them and seeing no signs of life I gave up on them.


I've candled the egg a couple of times and have had an air sac.  However the egg is a brown egg so it is hard for me to see veins like I see in the white eggs.  

The difference between the double yolk egg and regular eggs is huge (no pun intended).  I candled it again tonight and I think whatever started growing has died.  I'll give it a few more days as long as I don't get any funky odors in my incubator.  


So I did some googling and found that it is very rare to even get double yoke eggs.  They usually occur every 1 out of 1000 eggs.  It is even rarer to hatch twin chicks out of a double yoke egg.  I think human intervention was necessary to facilitate a successful hatch of twins.  


Well we'll see what happens but I'm not very optimistic.   Still I'll be thankful to have the other eggs hatch and have healthy chicks.

April-2012 - Candling new chicken eggs. Day 14

It has been a long time since I last blogged.  I just can only write so much about my chickens.  That and I get busy and time just passes quickly. So I've been pulled back into blogging again by two things. 


1.  I've got another set of eggs in the incubator due to hatch April 20-21.
2.  I got a comment on one of my older blog posts.


So I guess some people actually read this blog.  I write this blog mostly for myself, an online journal of sorts. It helps me remember things I forget from my previous incubations like temperature, humidty, etc.  However I "attempt" to blog as though I might get a reader besides someone in my famly or my friends.


Welcome "gshabir15", my newest follower and commenter.  I hope you have had some success in candling your eggs and finding signs of life. Please drop me a line and let me know how it went.



I put over 40 eggs in the incubator on March 30 but had to remove some a couple of days later.  It was just too crowded and the temperature was too inconsistent on the bottom - a full 11 degrees lower.  Definitely can't grow chicks at 88 degrees.


I candled all of the remaining eggs the other night.  It was very difficult to see through the brown eggs.  I figured 18 of the eggs were no good as I saw no air pockets in them so I discarded those eggs.  


I candled some eggs a few minutes ago and here's some pics.  The top pic is a dark egg - you are looking at the air pocket inside.  The middle pic a closeup of the air pocket of a white egg and you can see the blood vessels.  The bottom pic is the air pocket of the white egg.

I also made a quick video on candling eggs.  It's on my youtube which is under the name "kitchenchickens" as my incubator is right on the edge of the open shelf/wall of the kitchen.  Here's the video:

Since there were so many eggs being incubated it seemed logical to use a different method instead of manually turning all of the eggs.  This time I put the eggs into egg cartons and I lean them sideways.  I just change the sideways direction each time I "turn" the eggs.

I've read you're supposed to turn the eggs 3 times a day which I usually do.  If you forget sometimes don't worry.  I forget sometimes and my chicks have been fine.   Here's a shot of my current setup in the incubator.

We are keeping these chicks but we have someone who wants many chicks so we will be doing some more chick egg incubations after these ones hatch.  


I've also met more "chicken lovers" out there with way more chickens then I have so I'll be posting about them too.  After all, I can only blog about my chickens so much.


Stay tuned - I promised it won't be so long....I'll make an honest attempt to blog regularly.