Day 6 Incubation - Candling Eggs and update on the Silkies

Today at 3:34 started Day 6.  I just couldn't stand the suspense anymore so I candled some eggs.

I first candled the eggs from our chickens since I thought they may/may not be fertile.  Much to my surprise four (4) of the  six (6) eggs from our chickens proved to be fertile and I could clearly see the beginnings of a chick growing.  It was hard for me to get these pictured clearly.  I took one picture earlier and a few more when it was completely dark.  Notice how you can see the "chick" and then veins through the shell.  

I tried candling the darker eggs but they were too dark for me too see what was going on inside.  I took out the 2 eggs that I knew were not fertile and thus not developing.

Also took some new pics of the silkies.  The white one appears to be a silkie and some other breed as it is growing feathers.  Here's the new pics. They sure are cute.  A stinkbug got in their "home" tonight and agitated them.  This stinkbug had their entire attention and it was kinda cute to watch them.

About 2 weeks ago, I was at the library and I got about 3 years worth of "Backyard Chicken" magazine for FREE.  Yeah, I was excited.  We've all been reading them and I have been learning a lot more about chickens.

One question I get from a lot of people is about the chicken eggs.   A lot of people seem to think you need a rooster to get eggs from your hens.  This is simply not true.  Hens will lay eggs with or without a rooster.  However, you do need a rooster to get eggs that are fertile and can be incubated and thus reproduced.  It is perfectly fine to eat infertile or fertile eggs.  I hear that fertile eggs may have a bit more of nutrients but that is nominal.  Honestly, I can't vouch for that 100%.

Can't wait for new chicks! 
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New eggs incubating (Day 4) and New eggs from Feb Chicks

We started a new batch of chicken eggs the other day.  We will soon be ending day 4 and starting on day 5 around 3:30 PM.  There are 19 eggs in this batch.  Six (6) of them are questionable because they are from our current chicks.  Since we know we have (2) roosters perhaps it is possible they are fertilized?  We're not sure.  We'll be able to candle them soon and see if there is anything growing inside of them. Here are the eggs before incubation.  I broke one by accident.

  Here they are in the incubator:

We have kept the temperature around 99.5.  Thus the thermometer fluctuates between 99 and 100 degrees.  The humidity fluctuates between 25-30%.


The chicks we hatched back in February are now around 15 weeks old.  We think we got 2 new eggs from them today.  They didn't look like our other eggs and they even had a somewhat rough shell texture.  They were also smaller then our other eggs.  A hen laying eggs at fifteen (15) weeks is early but not unlikely.  Hens usually lay eggs around 18-20 weeks.  That has been our experience in the past.

Here's a pic of the new eggs:

Here's a pic of one of the 'new' eggs next to one of our regular eggs.

 So what do you think?  Is it an egg from a new laying hen or one that is already established?

Backyard Chickens update + new Silkie Chicks

Our chickens are continuing to grow and thrive.  The ones we hatched last are doing nicely along with the other hens we had.  We now know that two (2) of them are roosters.  Their crows are weak and uneven, it is kinda pathetic but in a cute kind of way to listen to them.  My hubby said that one of them was trying to get it on with one of our older hens.

Hmm?  Wonder if he was successful?  If he was maybe we have fertile eggs again???  I saved 3 of the eggs yesterday to go with the next batch to incubate. More on that later.

We took my stepdaughter to get 2 silkie chicks last Saturday.  The guy we got them from had about 25-30 of them.  He had a nice coop and was very knowledgeable.  She picked out a black chick and a white chick.  The black one is very calm and the white one is hyper.  Here is a picture of her holding them.

My hubby, ever he awesome handyman that he is buit some new boxes for the chickens to lay eggs.  The chickens however are very unappreciative and have yet to use them.  They kicked out all of the straw.  We need to remove the old ones and make some modifications on the new ones.  Here's a couple of pics of the new boxes.

The best part is we can now collect the eggs from the outside....well if we want too....when they start using the boxes.  Tomato (the chicken shown is above) just hates my hubby.  She seems to hate all men actually, I don't know why.  She is also at the top of the pecking order and the is THE BOSS.  She always tries to attack my hubby when he gets eggs, so I usually get them.  She's fine around me. Here's a view out the outside of the boxes.  Just lift up the lid (secured with a lock so chickens can't escape) and collect the eggs.

The chickens have been enjoying the nice weather lately and so are we.  Here they are roaming around in their run. I'll have to get a better picture next time.  It doesn't look like it but there is a lot of room.  We have a big yard for them to roam around in too.  This was taken on one of the many rain days in between the nice weather.

 Check back soon.  We are going to incubate and hopefully hatch a lot of new little chicks.

Passings of Chicken Little & Spartacus

It's been a while since I last wrote.  How much can I write our chickens?  Not much.  I could write about any chickens or do a while chicken education type thing but that is not likely to happen. 

Have some sad news.  Chicken Little has passed on to that great big chicken coop in the sky.  Blame it on the other chickens, that is all I have to say on the matter. 

We are also down another one, specifically the Rooster, Spartacus.  We had always planned on using him for food.  It was time.  He was crowing all hours of the day and night.  God Bless out neighbors for being so tolerant.  We didn't really hear him crowing until the weather got nice and we were able to keep our windows open for air.  RIP Spartacus.

All of the baby chicks I wrote about previously are integrated out in the coop and doing nicely.  At first the older hens ignored them except for Pilot.  Here's a pic of that, taken at night time.  They were all crowded together. 

Now they all seem to be acclimated to each other. Here's some pics I took a couple of days ago.

They are also enjoying the warmer weather.  We let them roam around freely when we are outside to keep an eye on them.  We spend a lot of time outdoors during the nice weather doing gardening and spending time with the kids.

Check back soon, we are going to incubate some more egss and hopefully get a lot of chicks hatched.