I think next Sunday when I set eggs I'm going to set only tan eggs and blue eggs. The 5/5 hatch is going to be almost all dark brown eggs, and I'm finding that a vast majority of the chicks I'm hatching out are black... Black with white tips on their wings, black with white eyebrows, white with yellow tummy and chest patches, but black... Almost all have been black. I've gotten two so far that aren't, and both came from blue eggs. It must be that Doodle (our French Black Copper Marans) is fathering most of the chicks. Not surprising since he's the dominant rooster, but still a little discouraging, since I don't want a monotone flock. I have a couple eggs in the incubator now that I know came from a cochin. Maybe we can get some fluffy babies. I know a couple of them in the mix right now have beards. Fluffy little chicks. But then again, Sherlock was a fluffy black chick last year... and he's gorgeous now!
Today was a productive day. I cleaned out the refrigerator, started to muck the barn, and got the living room brooder cleaned out and set up again. There are 17 chicks in there now. Nine that I'll be holding back, and eight that will be leaving on Thursday. Yes, I've already lined up a home for them, including the bigger one that was left over from last week. There are still two more eggs pipped and one chick hatched and drying in the incubator. I figure since I plan to keep the four chicks we picked up at Tractor Supply last week (three California Whites and a Golden Comet), I may as well seriously consider some that we're hatching here. I marked all three that came from blue eggs (one black, one brown, one chipmunk marked), and one from a dark brown egg (black) as potential keepers. Then the kids fell in love with one from a tan egg that has penguin markings (must be an Australorp cross). Here's the line up for potential keepers so far! Hi, my name is Amanda and I have a problem. We already have a decent flock (25 hens, 3 roosters, 4 geese, 2 guineas, 10 ducks) that produce more eggs than we can use ourselves. I've already ordered more guinea chicks to fill out the flock, and a couple Dark Brahmas because I love the look of them. I'm already hatching out new potentials to add to the flock to produce some olive eggers, more Easter eggers, and more dark egg layers. But here I am, back on the hatchery website. They have a "weekly special" for a random assortment of their "rare breeds" - which include Polish, Cochin, Yokohama, Spitzhauben, Sumatra, Phoenix, and a few others. We got one Polish (Buffle), a female Spitz, our four beautiful Cochin ladies, a Golden Duckwing Phoenix (my dearest Ralphie), and two Sumatra chicks last year in the surprise box. All but the cochins died within the first six months. If I pay an extra $10 they'll vaccinate for Mereks. I don't know if that's what killed so many of our chicks, or if it was just they were raised in an incubator with no mamma hen to teach them what was safe to eat - and they kept getting into the potato beds... But when shipping and everything is added in, they end up being something like $4.22 each. Still a good deal if I can get some more of the birds we lost last year. The kicker is that to order them at this price, you have to buy them in quantities of 15, and they must be shipped within the next two weeks. That's quite a bit earlier than we were aiming for, and would mean chicks would have to be indoors, as we're still hovering around the freezing mark at night. Do I give in and buy more chicks I don't really need in the attempt to have a more visually pleasing selection? Or do I say enough, and just work on my rainbow egg project and be happy with my current selection? I think next Sunday when I set eggs I'm going to set only tan eggs and blue eggs. The 5/5 hatch is going to be almost all dark brown eggs, and I'm finding that a vast majority of the chicks I'm hatching out are black... Black with white tips on their wings, black with white eyebrows, white with yellow tummy and chest patches, but black... Almost all have been black. I've gotten two so far that aren't, and both came from blue eggs. It must be that Doodle (our French Black Copper Marans) is fathering most of the chicks. Not surprising since he's the dominant rooster, but still a little discouraging, since I don't want a monotone flock. I have a couple eggs in the incubator now that I know came from a cochin. Maybe we can get some fluffy babies. I know a couple of them in the mix right now have beards. Fluffy little chicks. But then again, Sherlock was a fluffy black chick last year... and he's gorgeous now! Added Note: Tony just told me to go for it and buy the rare chick box. Enabler, or wise investment?
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