Nobody here but us chickens

That's the result of our latest chicken hatching endeavor. A reprieve for the rooster, since I don't want to slaughter before I am sure I don't need him any more. What hatched looks pretty good, lively and vigorous, but I wanted more than 7. I think it is my own fault though. I let the hatching eggs get too cold while I was storing them to get enough for the incubator. Our trap room, a cool room that gets no direct heat, got down into the thirties. It was that really cold spell in December. I should have kept them in the pantry that is closer to the wood stove in the kitchen, more like 50's. It also didn't help that it took 10 days to get enough eggs for the incubator.

So it looks like on rock barred, at least one Americana and the rest are Buff Orpingtons mixed with our Brahama, maybe Buff Cochin rooster. All the light colored chicks have the side stalkings, showing the rooster's trait. I have not seen it on the dark chick, though. Interestingly, the previous chicks that a hen sat back in November did not get their side stalkings till later. These chicks had pretty downy side stalkings from day one.

I was looking through Murray McMurray's spring catalog and Buff Cochin is what the rooster looks like the most. He was a the extra free rare breed they throw in to keep everybody warm / generate interest in rare breeds. I did note that the Buff Cochin's are listed as poor layers and small eggs to boot. Luckily, it isn't eggs I figure he brings to the table, so to speak... He is looking huge these days. He is twice the size of our laying hens. I would not want him to hear it, but I am looking forward to finding out what he tastes like. He is broad and heavy in the breast. I wonder if he has trouble mounting the hens like they talk about broad breasted turkeys having. Probably not since at least 70% of the eggs showed at least some development when I candled them.

2009 Incubator

That's our mighty rooster. He looks like a Brahma. He was one of the free ones the hatchery threw in to have enough warm bodies in our shipment of chicks last spring. Just a bit of luck. I am not much for fancy chickens, and when I saw his side stockings and I didn't think he was going to last long with us. But he has turned out to be a gentle rooster who does not harass the hens. He is a big bird, maybe twice the size of the hens with a pronounced large breast. We are hoping we have found a good eating chicken that we don't mind keeping.

This is our beat up old incubator, I think a little giant. We have a similar hovabator also, but the auto egg turner fits in this on. This one also has the fan unit that keeps the air moving around the incubator, helping to cut down temp variation in the incubator.

We bought all of it off eBay. No complaints. And that auto turner makes for much better results. Maybe the constant turning is better, maybe not opening the incubator keeps the humidity / temp more constant. I like it, though.

Today was the final day of egg collection. Not quite enough eggs to fill the racks, but I didn't want my collected eggs to age out. We didn't have the best storage temp, a little on the cold side. I hope it doesn't destroy our hatch. We stored the eggs in our cold room and with the cold temps outside, we got well below the 56' optimum storage temp.

Given that, I think I am going to hold off slaughtering the rooster until we see the results of this hatch.