Pure Water Hollow Chick Days

On June 3rd, 4th and 5th we had 15 new chicks hatch, and they are adorable!

We had two hens go broody about the same time, and I was curious to see if these hatchery hens would be good setters and good mama hens, so we put some eggs under them.

As far as the eggs that are being laid by our flock goes, I like the largest ones I can get, and also the ones that are dark brown in color. The eggs we get tend to range from small to large and also from off-white to pink to light brown to dark brown.

These eggs could have been fertilized by either a Buff Orpington Rooster, a Black Giant Rooster, or a Light Brahma rooster. The eggs also have a variety of possible hen breeds. They could have been laid by Buff Orpington, Black Giant, or Light Brahma hens, or by Partridge Rock, Dominique, or Black Australorp hens. So there are quite a few differerent possible combinations.

I first chose the 8 darkest brown eggs we got over a couple day period, regardless of it’s size, to set under the broody Black Giant hen. 7 of the 8 hatched and she now has 4 dark chicks, 2 buff chicks, and 1 white chick. Black Giants, Black Australorps, Dominique, Light Brahmas, and Partridge Rock breeds all have dark chicks. The two buff ones look just like the Buff Orpingtons are supposed to, but I have no idea about the white chick. It is not yellow, like the buffs, but completely white. We have no breed that should give us a white chick, unless one of the wild game roosters somehow fertilized that particular egg, which is unlikely since they don’t hang out together much. Perhaps there was some White Rock back in one of our birds lineage?

I also collected the 10 biggest eggs we got over a couple day period, without regard to color, to put under the broody Partridge Rock hen. One of them hatched prematurely and I removed a dead chick almost a week before they were supposed to hatch. Of the remaining 9 eggs, 8 hatched out fine. She now has 6 buff chicks and 2 dark ones! The buff ones look like pure Buff Orpington, but who knows about the dark ones?

I don’t know if I can really tell anything about large eggs or brown eggs by this experiment, since I didn’t keep all the variables the same. It would appear that the large eggs are more likely to hatch out looking like Buff Orpington. I wonder if the 2 buffs from the dark brown nest were also larger eggs? I wonder if the two dark chicks from the large egg nest came from brown eggs? (I have been surprised that the Buff Orpington hens have laid eggs of all different sizes and colors, so I can’t tell by that.) Oh well, I like all the chicks anyway!

So far, both hens seem like they will be great mamas and I am pleased how they stayed with the setting job, even though they sat on plastic eggs for 3 or 4 days before we let them have the real eggs. (I also had an Australorp hen go broody at the same time as these and we gave her some eggs to sit on. She, on the other hand, broke her eggs and destroyed her nest. We know not to keep her for breeding, and we are planning on getting rid of her altogether.)

I have 5 eggs from Buff Orpington hens set to hatch under another Black Giant hen in 9 more days, so "Chick Days" at Pure Water Hollow should continue all summer long!

God is good!

(PS: We haven’t lost any more birds to our predator for the past week, but I’ve kept the pullets and cockerals penned up for most of the time.)