Christmas Chicks! Serama eggs have been set, now hatching!

LaurieLovesLearning
LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

I have 7 eggs set. I will add one tomorrow if she lays. Lockdown will be Dec. 15th, with hatch to follow Dec. 16-18 if all goes well. Pure serama eggs are not known for their great hatch rate nor chick viability in the first 24 hr.

My hen still doesn't know what the eggs are. She announces & so does the rooster (in a lot of little quiet chatter noises). He will hang around their "window" to tell us. He seems proud or something when they arrive.

She lays them from the low perch and I put them into the nest box lined with timothy hay. Maybe she will catch on yet. It could take her a year or so to catch on just like some of our call ducks did.

These eggs that I set were pretty large. An average egg size should be about 20g/.7 oz. These current eggs are 27-30g...way too big for pure serama. I have been thinking that they are crossed with OEG (Old English Game), as the perfect V is not quite there in either bird...close, but not quite.


Comments

  • Silkiemamuska
    Silkiemamuska Posts: 99 ✭✭✭

    Congratulations!!!! It is so much fun to be incubating and hatching. Please keep us posted with your candling and the whole process. 😍

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Congrats. Hope all goes well.

  • I am a bit jealous. Frankly a big bit 😉

    But we have to less space for chickens and kids in the garden. And the kids are already there 🙄

  • Jack_Went_Splat
    Jack_Went_Splat Posts: 59 ✭✭✭

    Looking forward to progress reports as they come. Love to see this going on @LaurieLovesLearning 'cause my hearts desire is to continue to learn as well. :o)

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    I will keep all of you updated.

    Hatching the serama is new to me and comes with more risk. But, I have mastered hatching guinea eggs finally and learned about the difficulties with hatching call ducks (so very difficult), so I am wary, but still hopeful.

    This is only the second time I've used this incubator too, but it wasn't an issue last time.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    Candled, Day 6. All 8 eggs are good. There is a good network of spidering (blood vessels) and the very dark spot is an eyeball. The hearts have been beating since day 2. It is easy to see movement. I can't really demonstrate movement on here except for taking multiple pictures.

    We will candle again on day 12. That is the day if something has gone bad that explosions can start to happen. Haha I hear that they are bad...and you have to throw all of your eggs out. 😔 Everything is good right now, so I am not expecting that. I haven't had one explode yet. I am planning to keep that clean record.

    For those of you new to this sort of thing, you can smell a bad egg and of course, then, no movement would be visible either. Sometimes if you aren't sure, you risk it and leave it a little longer. Sometimes the baby is just sleeping. 🙂

  • Awesome, thank you for the photos! I'm really looking forward to hatching day 😁

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin
    edited December 2020

    Day 13, -1 egg, 7 good.

    One quit growing, so it has been removed. There were no blood vessels & it was juicy-ish looking with an unmoving (not independently moving) mass in part of it. We will break it open tomorrow to see what day it may have developed to. If I remember, I'll post a picture and say a bit about our assessment.

    The remainder of the eggs had great development & fantastic movement.

    Our next candling pictures will be just before lockdown (the best kind) & we will give the tally going in. We will be expecting to do that at day 17/18. We will watch the eggs for rocking movements at that time to determine the timing of lockdown. If we see the eggs rock, it means the chick is starting to turn into position to be able to pip through the membranes (there is a thinner & a thicker one together) to get to the air cell, which is called an inner pip. The head will be positioned with its head under a wing. The chick starts spasming to break it...it doesn't peck it open (just fyi).

    I will explain further processes at lockdown and try not to overwhelm anyone. 😆

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @LaurieLovesLearning Update, please?

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    Yes! Here it is...

    We are well into lockdown. We went into it with 7 eggs. Pictures wouldn't have shown much. They were pretty full.

    We had a day of nothing seemingly happening yesterday.

    This morning, we had one outer pip. This afternoon, it was followed by another. They are going around the circle in order so far. 😆 Both are resting.

    We haven't heard any peeps, which is odd. Usually by the time chicks pip internally, you can hear them from across the room. Maybe the incubator motor is just too noisy? I don't know.

    Here is a picture!

    We have to set up our chick space shortly. It wont be too hard, but they will be encroaching on the older birds space. I only have a large chick heat mat available.

    I really need to get a little chick heating plate for fewer & smaller birds. I have my eye on an extra small 10"×10" one from the US once they get them in again. It comes highly recommended out of 7 that were tested.

    Someday I will be keeping only small birds, and I want to be ready. Ah...but I want that anyway. Small birds/chicks are cute and I want to try quail at some point too.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    #1 is unzipping! We should have a chick tonight!

    It is the one on the left side of the picture. Look closely.


  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @LaurieLovesLearning that is way cool.

  • COWLOVINGIRL
    COWLOVINGIRL Posts: 954 ✭✭✭✭

    I love this stuff! @LaurieLovesLearning what are call ducks?

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin
    edited December 2020

    The smallest (27 gram) egg hatched. Here it is. Three more pips.

    @COWLOVINGIRL Call duck are the smallest duck ¥as far as I know anyway). They should be the size of a brick of butter. Ours unfortunately are a touch larger. They are noisy and were used to call in other ducks for hunting...the original decoy.


  • @LaurieLovesLearning congrats on the Christmas chicks. Nice pictures

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    Thanks!

  • Congratulations @LaurieLovesLearning !! Thank you so much for sharing. I'm such a sucker for baby animals 😍🐣🐥

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    We now have 3 & 1 pip. I am not sure if the others will hatch. The humidity spiked extremely high for a while, which could mean drowned ones. We will see.

  • Today? I sure hope they all hatch for you 🌹

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin
    edited December 2020

    I need to update.

    We have 3 busy chicks, and 3 DIS (dead in shell). One almost made it. It was so very close to completing its hatch and its death could have possibly been prevented. That is the hardest one to accept. But, you do, and move on.

    We are waiting for the last chick to possibly hatch. It externally pipped, but that is never a guarantee of a full hatch & healthy chick. I am hoping, but not expecting much.

    But...we have 3 spritely little, very little, chicks and all is well with them so far.

    @Silkiemamuska These are quite a bit smaller than silkie chicks. It is quite something. Three easily fit under a cupped hand.


  • How cute! The waiting was always the hard part for me. I suppose that speaks to my patience...or lack thereof 😂

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    I thought this was funny...we even had to grind the starter crumbles. They were too big.

  • blevinandwomba
    blevinandwomba Posts: 813 ✭✭✭✭

    They're so precious! Thanks for sharing.

  • COWLOVINGIRL
    COWLOVINGIRL Posts: 954 ✭✭✭✭

    @LaurieLovesLearning interesting. Thanks!

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @RustBeltCowgirl It appears as though the last chick has given up. I think it is now on it's way out after trying to give a good last fight today. :( It was just not growing. We have been left with three good ones. The feathers are growing in well already.

    On a good note I think, my hen has gone broody! On one egg. So...we put the others we had collected from her for eating under her, except for the two largest @30/31g, which we will just eat.

    She is pretty grouchy at the rooster, poor guy. He will just have to learn to be patient. Haha! Boy she can peck hands hard!

    She has, 7 or 8 eggs under her right now. So, here we go again. Another 21 days and counting. Lots less work for us unless she doesn't remain broody.

    Tomorrow...Day 1.

  • RustBeltCowgirl
    RustBeltCowgirl Posts: 1,403 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @LaurieLovesLearning Sorry that you're losing the last one. You were concerned about him making it from the start.

  • water2world
    water2world Posts: 1,177 ✭✭✭✭

    Love all the information-- so exciting! Keep the information flowing, and I might get brave and try!

  • VickiP
    VickiP Posts: 586 ✭✭✭✭

    Exciting thread. It makes me want to incubate some eggs. Question what do you do with the excess roos? That is the thing that holds me back.

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @VickiP Incubate! 😁 Yeah!

    With the seramas, I will try to market them as easy to care for, trainable, personable pets or as replacement roos. I might even do a "kit", without a cage. If you have an excess of pullets, each pullet goes with a roo...no exceptions!

    I don't know how they might compare to quail as far as meat goes. I can't imagine there being a whole lot. It probably wouldn't taste unique either...probably just like chicken! 🤣

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin
    edited January 2021

    We have 4 chicks out of 7 eggs. There are 3 yellows and one black. They are 1-2 days old. They make our older chicks (who are a month old) look huge!

    It's so hard to keep that waterer clean.

    Comparison of our largest older chick & a new one: