chicks!

Well, no more of this "I'm not ready to hatch chicks" stuff, because the first batch hatched this weekend. There are 14 of them. Not a great hatch rate but not much I can do about that. The plan is I'm going to hatch for four weeks (so there are three more batches in the incubator due the next three weekends). The only thing that will screw up this plan is that my Brassy Back male is at 0% fertility (uh oh!) and he's the only one I have that color. Same male I used last year and he was great last year. So.... I need to go sit and watch him and see if he's actually doing his job at all. I guess either way I'm going to have to switch roosters, which means putting in a Black male. Ugh, won't get consistent color then so I won't be able to sell eggs from that breeding pen. Bugger! I do need to hatch a few Brassies. I'll have to wait a while to set eggs again though, as I need all chicks to be outdoors and pretty self-sufficient by late June, because I'm going on vacation! (A real honest to goodness vacation with no chicken shows and no family members!) Woo hoo!!!! I'm sooo excited about this. ;-)

Anyway, chicks. There are BBReds, Blacks, and Golden Duckwings (err, maybe?). They are darn cute.

And once again I can't upload the video without some dumb error message, so here's a link.

Click here for cute chicks! >;-)