ilultham

We're certainly taking advantage of having our own breeding flock at the moment! More eggs hatched this week. From 25 eggs we had 25 hatch but unfortunately two chicks weren't good. but that's still some great odds. A dry hatch is the way to go, no messing with water. Switch it on and forget it until it's time to get them from the cradle 2 days before.   These are all Indian game and the plan will be for most of them to go in the freezer unless anyone wants to buy hens. So for once I'm hoping for lots of cockerels!  The 6 juveniles hatched out 3 weeks ago got moved into another pen, we had to borrow a heat plate for a few more weeks but they're not using it much.  They've been loving the grass, and so spend a fair bit of time squaring up against each other - does this mean more males I wonder?  My youngest has been spending hours just watching the chicks. It's funny as we hatch so many sometimes the children don't pay that much attention once they...

Now I would have preferred a better hatch rate but considering the incubator jammed and it was some days before I realised it wasn't turning I'm surprised we got any! So we had 7 hatch, one unfortunately had to be dispatched but the 6 that are left seem healthy and happy.  No matter how many times we hatch chicks out I'm always excited. These are some pure breed Indian Game, after setting up the breed flock last year (and doing some miles to do it!).    We'll have to see what we get from this batch. The hens they came from are mixed colours run with a dark coloured cockerel so it'll be interesting to see if there is much of a mix. We might put another set of eggs in the incubator straight away to hatch some more, as these are much slower grown than Ross Cobbs we will need to keep some hatching through the year to supply us with meat.  Anyone else hatching eggs at the moment?

This year we've been plagued by bad hatch rates, I've kept changing my methods but I think having posted eggs really doesn't help things.  These chicks are from our own eggs, with a Indian Game cockerel over some Colombian Plymouth Rock hens.  What a difference in hatch rate!  I put in 16 eggs and it looks like we'll get 15 chicks (one is still hatching at the moment - as I write this we have 14 chicks). Two are Indian Game bantams which are still a useful bird to hatch out. The one egg I knew hadn't developed at 10 days so I had already discounted that. This was with a completely dry hatch, no water added at any point during incubation.  I love how this is our 6th or 7th hatch this year and the kids (and me) are still super excited about it. I'm hoping these birds grow quickly and have a good size to them. The plan is to kill them at 18 weeks(ish) although I might keep a few hens and cross them back to a different Indian Game cockerel to see what happens to the...