Today we set 36 eggs in our ReptiPro incubator. Incubation should take 21 days, and our planned hatch date is April 11th, the day before Easter...although like always, I'm sure the bantam eggs will hatch in 20 days instead of 21, like normal chickens. So I'd say start checking in on day 19 of incubation--April 9th--for updates.
Eight of the eggs were a gift from our kind neighbors down the street who have some white Leghorns and lovely, fluffy buff Brahmas...but I'm afraid they refrigerated the eggs, which likely killed the embryos. It broke my heart, when they gave us the egg carton and it was cold. But what the heck, we'll try them anyway--so eggs numbered 1 through 8 are the neighbor's eggs. The other thing is that most of the eggs they gave us are large, white eggs--and buff Brahmas lay light brown/tan eggs.
We'll just see what we get, it'll be an adventure!
The rest of the eggs are from our flock, and in all sizes, shapes and colors--a mix of standard size and bantam. For daddys, we have Milton, our bantam Cochin/Belgian d'Uccle mix roo, Bacon, our tiny bantam roo whom I believe is a Quail D'Anvers (we got him at Tractor Supply last year so he's a bit of a mystery) and Rafiki (Rafe), our Russian Orloff roo that we got at a local poultry swap last year. None of our rooboys are big, even Rafe is on the small side.
So pictured below are our 36 starters--I'll candle the eggs at 10 days in (March 31st) and remove any duds.
Other local folks around here that I contacted had no eggs to spare, as people are panic-buying eggs. Even when I offered to trade my eggs for theirs, they had none.
Another issue may be difficulty in getting used major appliance boxes for me to knock together a brooder box with, as I usually do. Since non-essential businesses here in Nevada have been ordered to close, the local appliance store we usually get boxes from may be closed for the duration. We may have to get creative...
Damned virus anyway, interfering with my chicken plans--!
As incubation progresses, I'll update our Chickam Twitter account: Chickam Twitter
and our Chickam YouTube channel--inactive until the hatch actually starts. If you tune in to our YouTube channel and see eggs, the hatch has begun!: Chickam YouTube Webcast
Right now we only have a couple of broody hens, all are bantams that we hatched last year so their mama quality is unknown. Hopefully some of the bigger girls will step up sometime in the next three weeks and we'll have a mama for the chicks--but usually we have too many chicks for a banty hen to successfully mother.
But dang it--whatever happens, there will be baby chicks here in three weeks! Hang in there, Chickam fans, baby chick fun is on it's way...
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