or a new addiction! You decide.
So, the best Christmas Gift this past year was an incubator! It was gifted to our Mother Clucker Sandi, however, she doesn’t have to be in charge of it just yet. Al – the gifter, has become the egg setter extraordinaire! Our first set was 41 eggs going in day 0, with 25 or so set in lockdown on day 18 – to 19 healthy new baby chicks! 17 of the 19 are bantams, with the last two a couple of small eggs added in from our new full size layer chickens – resulting in two chicks that are clearly our rooster Melba’s children!
We’re trying to decide who to keep and add to our Legendary Acres farm, and share the love by allowing some to find new homes. Online research tells us that if they have early pin feathers they are likely to be hens – and slower to develop pin feathers may turn into roos. we’re not sure, but we’ve checked and are now watching to see if this theory holds true. We’re also looking at wing shape, rounded vs. the hatchet shape – we’re not as sure about this theory. One more questions holds true – when we added Melba to our chicks last year, we believe she had a white dot on the top of her head. Is this indicative of a roo? We shall find out as both of the 1st round hatching chicks had prominent white dots on the crowns of their head. We named them Melba III and Melba IV. They are both gentle, confident, and willing to be held and interactive with us early on. Do we keep them? Or do we assume with the dots they are both potential roos? Hmmm…
