We’re very late this year (been having the kitchen done, which rather put other projects in the shade), but at last we’re hatching some Ixworth chicks.
We put 20 eggs in the R-com on Friday 24th May, so tomorrow lunchtime makes it exactly 21 days. We have 3 early arrivals:
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged hatching chicks, hatching eggs, Ixworth chicks, R-Com 20 incubator, R-Com 20 Pro
We’re looking after a friend’s hens again this week. When he went away, he left two broodies sitting in nestboxes, so we’ve been keeping a close eye. One abandoned her eggs without a single one hatching. She was being pestered by other hens getting in with her and laying further eggs, which we think might be the cause. Or it might be the recent bitterly cold nights. The other hen was a little more successful:
I’ll explain why later in this post, but as part of our poultry keeping kit I felt the need for a very precise set of scales. Something like a laboratory balance. And indeed I eventually found exactly what I was looking for on eBay.
But imagine my surprise when I first did an eBay search to find around two and a half thousand sets of precision scales for sale. There couldn’t be that high a demand for weighing jewellery, lab samples, and suchlike, surely?
Posted in Allotments, Poultry
Tagged hatching chicks, hatching ducks, hatching rates, precision scales, R-Com 20 Pro
We have six more Ixworth chicks. This time from our own hens.
The chicks are two weeks old. They are developing beautifully; their wing feathers are now complemented by emerging tail feathers. Admittedly they’re also looking a bit scruffy, as they’re shedding their fluff to make way for the feathers.
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