Chicks are hatching!

On day 21! I see four lil beaks so far! I cannot wait to see what hatches, its very exciting my own chicks from chickens I raised! I will post pics when they are dry and fluffy. These are banties from silkies, golden and silver sebrights plus they run with marans and guineas so anything could hatch!!

whoowhee!!! so happy for you. have you ever seen a cross between a guinea and a chicken?

http://www.guineafowl.com/fritsfarm/guineas/GuinHen/

can't wait to see what all your chicks look like, keep posting!

Thanks! I saw them, thats one of the reasons I am gettting turkens, I am hoping I get turken/guinea, they look to me like a vulture! My neighbors will be wondering what the heck I am raising!

Hi Lora......I am hatching too. One of my chicks is from a silkie hen i have from you. Here is a pic. I have the 2 white&2 buff hens from you. Your bugg hen hatched and is raising them, but i have not idea which one the egg came from....but its definitely from one of your hens. My blue splash rooster is Daddy. I cant wait to see your pics. Anyway, here is the silkie chick, and the buff hen is yours.
Wendy

Here is the mommy

Aww, thats great! That chick is adorable! You ended up with some nice looking chicks! We will have to so some swapping this summer after we can tell hens from roos. Also, if you end up with too many roos I am having my extras processed if I cannot find homes for them this year with the Cornish rock x I am raising for meat so if you cannot find homes for them they can go with mine. My nieghbor has been waiting to try them. My husband will eat them, I don't think I could eat black skinned chicken.
The chick that just hatched looks like a silver sebright, the same color feet and legs and I cannot see any extra toes. Very exciting! Cannot wait for spring and guinea keets! I have 6 in the incubator right now with the chicks. The gals laid 10 in the coop so I figured I would see if the were fertile and so far so good, not sure if they will hatch, I will find out in a week.
My marans laid the tiniest dark egg today so I am going to hatch that and see if I come out with a bantam marans! I will post a pic of it later.

That first pic is the only silkie i hatched. All my other chicks are Eater Egger bantams. I dont think i will process any roosters, but thanks for the offer. I have one EE roo, and 2 hens and they are all the sweetest of all my chickens. Even the rooster is so sweet. I think i would only be able to cull the mean birds. I'm too much a softie. So i hope to have a lucky hatch and get more girls than boys. I'll be looking for some pictures of your chicks here :) I had been worried that it was too cold for hatching, but we have heat lamps in the coop and that ans the momma seem to be good. They are all strong and happy. Good luck with the rest of the hatching. Oh an BTW...i have read that a small egg from a big bird will most likely mean the chick will grow too big for the shell and not be able to get out. Just thought i would warn you.

Here's a link for guinea/chickens I LOVE the turken/guinea http://feathersite.com/Poultry/Guineas/BRKGuinHybrid.html

So far only four have hatched there are more piping. Three look the same the four was almost all black with a splash of white on its head and butt, just like my marans chicks! And it has the same look to the crest as the marans do when they are chicks its longer than then the silkies and sebrights. As far as I can tell only one has 5 toes some others do have feathered feet. I am going to start another thread about the hatching tiny eggs.

i'll be looking for your thread!

Posted!! Three of the lil faces are golden, hmmm, wonder if Gordon the Golden Sebright was busy?? One face is silver and two look just like marans as I remember them. I am cannot wait for them to feather out so I know what they look like. I have a couple people that are nice and reasonable that want some banties for bug control (and they get free eggs!) So I will hatching more! What are people charging for mutts these days? I was thinking $2 each is that too little or too much?

Oh LoraK, congratulation! I am always amazed at how cheap chickens are--considering all they offer. I'm sure people will pay $2.00 for bug-eating banties. I'd try and then go up from there.

Those guineas really seem to get around. What won't they cross with? If they can get a fertile hybrid it would open up a lot of possiblities.

OMG LoraK, I am not a fan of ANY naked neck bird......i have to look away. But i went to the link and i LOVE the guinea cross with regular chickens. I think most guineas are are kinda ugly too. I LOVED the blue/lavender colored ones at your place. I am now trying to imagine a blue guinea crossed with a silkie or cuckoo marans. I must say......your going to need to start building a BARN. (as am I) to keep up with the hobby. Gotta love it!!

First hatched and only lighter colored one so far

Several have this lil face!

The only black skinned one (has two tiny extra toes) so far, sorry kinda fuzzy

They are so cute.....That first one appears to be the silkie mix. They look great. Come on SPRING!!!!!

And a couple have a pattern on their back like my partridge silkie hen had when she was hatched last spring but different faces.

Oh they are definitely mixed silkies, I have a rainbow of silkie roos, a golden sebright, a silver sebright and a full size marans roosters (and male guineas) so they could be any combination of them.
I ended up with 11 banties (so far 3 eggs haven't hatched) and two didn't make it out. I only tried one marans eggs and its not doing anything, do full size take longer than banties? Oh well it was just one, I think I will put 6 in this time and see what happens.
Most are in a small cat proof brooder and I will add the others as soon as they are running around and totally dry.

I just hatched all bantams and they were all on time with day 21. I think sometimes they are late. Hold it up to your ear and listen for peeping. I could hear mine for 2 days peeping til the dug out.

I made this great brooder last year from a huge plastic dog kennel (I have cats the LOVE chicken especially really young chicken!) I lent it out and just discovered that I never got it back. I put together a quick cat-proof brooder from a glass tank I use as a parrot brooder. I just never have that many chicks at one time in it plus food and water! I am going to make another one tomorrow from a plastic tote and call to see if I can have mine back!!
So here they are all fluffy and happy except one that had a hard time hatching and is still in the brooder I made up some electrolite solution and dipped its beak a couple of times. Fingers crossed!
Heres a couple more pics, one that I know is half marans is so much taller and bigger than the others I wonder if he/she will be as big as marans 1/2 way between the two???? Hmmm, I am going to keep it plus maybe the beautiful silver one (second pic)

pics?

Ooops forgot pic

goodness so beautiful and tiny! any feather feet in there?

And I had to put plastic beads I use for my medium size bird toys (new beads) as marbles in the waterer! I need to call her in the AM!!

LoraK, i love that little blondie.

Yes 4 out of 12, only one with black skin/feet/beak. Cute lil babies they amaze me eating on their own in less than 24 hours, some parrot babies don't for months!

well, chickens aint' bird brains LOL i mean they are really smart for birds!

thanks for the pics.

And I had to go to another feed store because mine didn't have chick starter and I think the kid gave me game bird starter crumbles! Chick starter is more powdery so I put it in the blender and made it powder. I mixed in some crumbles just incase I was wrong. I remember it was powdery with lil pieces of corn and a couple of crumbles, but a different color much lighter than this stuff. I am taking it back tomorrow and asking them to double check it. I don't think they can eat the big crumbles just the tiny crumbles. Its my fault for not having all my ducks in a row, I only 21 days to get everything together!

the game bird staryte is going to be too high in prtein! not a prob if the crumbles are too big, just too much protien for their little systems. so mix it with some cornmeal to blanace it out till you get the right kind.

Ok I will put some cornmeal in right now

Well, I figured out where all those red lil faces came from, Gordon the golden sebright! Golden sebright chicks have those faces! He was a busy boy! I was looking on Feather site at the chicks of the chickens I have and there they were. I bought him and a hen last fall. I thought they kept to themselves, I guess not.

I am so happy for you - those are really good looking chicks. What was your ratio of hatched total? Did they come on day 21? I have four eggs in the hatcher that are peeping up a storm this am, will put up some pics if they hatch. Have fun with the little ones....Scott

I have one in the incubator he may or may not make it. From the ones that developed 12 out of 16 hatched, the others may have been my fault, I remember lightly washing them so I think that effected them. I put them in a day later and marked them differently. It was pretty well split between day 21 and 22.

Good luck with your hatching! fingers crossed!

The chicks wing feathers are coming in and boy were those sebrights busy, 4 silver sebright mixes, 7 golden sebright mixes and one marans mix! They are going to cute. I wonder if he has anything to do the golden sebright being the oldest??? He was mature when I bought him and his wife.