Adventures In Caretaking: Groups 4 & 5

After some research on our poor hatch rates, I was convinced that low humidity was the culprit so we bought a hygrometer and some inexpensive test eggs on ebay. Once again, the eggs were advertised as Ameraucanas, but were in fact Easter Eggers (not that there's anything wrong with Easter Eggers). They were also advertised as being blue, and represented by a photo of some beautiful blue eggs, but as you can see, they're not really blue at all...

Now, up to this point, I had been following the incubator manufacturer's instructions, which do not mention anything about using a hygrometer or provide any recommendations regarding relative humidity. They merely instruct the user to fill varous channels with water at various points in time during the incubation process. This time, I have a target humidity to shoot for, based on something I read on the internets.

Shortly after the test eggs went in, Christine must have been feeling lucky because she dropped a Benny on some Black Copper Marans eggs. She bought them from Greenfire Farms in Florida, an organic farm which raises several types of heritage breed livestock. They're at greenfirefarms.com.

It's not a good idea to mix hatch dates in the incubator, but we didn't really know that at the time.

When the Easter Eggers came due, we faced disappointment once again and got one single chick to hatch. This poor little peep was so lonely, it spent its first two days running back and forth across the brooder, screaming it's little head off for some companionship. Once picked up, it would settle down and go to sleep. We named it Posty because the seller, an illiterate redneck from Kentucky (heh, no correlation implied), continuously dropped the ball on shipping and wrote that he "wudnt able to run down to the posty today" and "wood mayk it to the posty tamarro". Unfortunately, Posty has turned into a little rooster now and must go soon.

So three days later, the Black Copper Marans were due and they did achieve the highest hatch rate to date at 33%.

Here are some of those adorable little Black Copper Marans...