Topic: H-Day tomorrow

[elhuerto]

Thanks it really is the "ugly duckling" - at the moment anyway.

These are a local Catalan breed, Catalana La Prat. They come in 2 colours, white and brown - the breeder marked the eggs for us as we asked for 12 of each but it's clear which is which from the egg colour. Up til now we had 3 white and one brown according to the egg colour and markings on the egg. It may well be as Saddad said that it'll change later when feathers start to appear but it was quite a shock for my daughter who's currently sat in front of the incubator and filming for her YouTube channel. She actually screamed when it hatched.

[elhuerto]

Just uploaded the photo if anyone is interested.

[chickenmad]

Always leave for 25 days  ;) you may have late hatchers

[elhuerto]

Last hatched on day 23, which was number 10 - slightly short of expectations but worth the wait.

[mat]

Have you candled the rest to see if they were infertile or died in the shell?

Any more unusual coloured chicks appear?!

p.s. did you pick up the eggs, or did they get posted to you?  Did you rest the eggs for a day (pointy end down) before incubation?

[elhuerto]

The eggs were posted from the other side of Spain, they're quite difficult to get hold of. Thinking back on it now it seems the breeder did have problems meeting the request for 24 eggs, the delivery was delayed a couple of times. I'm wondering if we had a real mixture of older and more recent eggs - some maybe too old. No more black chicks, two that were marked as being the brown variety are a slightly darker (sandy) yellow than the ones marked as white so from the hatch and labels we have 7 white, 2 brown and the black one. Maybe the black one is just another brown but the difference is huge.

The eggs weren't rested before putting them in the incubator, didn't cross my mind.

[mat]

Hi

From reading on E-bay (better) breeders state that after going through the post, 50% hatch rate is what they would expect, as the postal system affects fertility.  They also say to rest the eggs (pointy side down) for at least 12 hours, preferably 24hrs.  I am not experienced, so not sure why, but it probably allows "everything to settle" down inside before starting incubation. I have only read about this, as I am considering at some point hatching some; so far I have only ever reared from day old purchases.

See if you can candle the eggs (hold them up to a strong light bulb if necessary) and see if the eggs have any "growth" in them.  if they don't, then they were infertile (too old, postage, etc)  if there was growth then they died in the shell for some reason during incubation.

You still got 41%, which after posting and no resting, may not be bad, tho disappointing.  It will be interesting to see what the black one turns into!  Please keep posting photos to your flickr site :)

This site http://www.rivercottage.net/forum/ has a poultry sub forum, with some very friendly, helpful experienced chicken "breeders" who post; they may be able to help in the future if you wish to ask questions from people who may not come to this allotment forum.

mat