More hatching

My next chicken project is to breed two small flocks, one for Vicky and one for my son. I want good layers and the ability to sex link their offspring. I can do this by using Rhode Island Red cockerels and Light Sussex hens. Both are good layers and also good table birds.

This cross (called a gold/silver cross) is the basis of all commercially reared chicken in the UK, giving the ability to sex the offspring as day old chicks by the colour of their down. The obvious advantage here is that you are not feeding unwanted cockerels for 6 months until they can be sexed, unless you want to rear them as table birds, in which case you know which ones to feed for the table. The other advantage is that the egg laying ability of both parents (which is already quite good) is significantly improved genetically in their offspring by a factor of around 50%.

The offspring are generally called Rangers or Warren and are the most prolific egg laying hybrids, laying around 320 eggs a year.

Anyway, that's the theory. Looking forward to testing it.

Chickens are hatching

The six eggs I put in the incubator are hatching now. I bought six assorted cross breed eggs on eBay for £2.99 three weeks ago. Four of the eggs were different shades of brown, one was white, another blue. The white egg hatched around 5am this morning, making such a racket it woke me up, the egg had been chirping for the previous 24 hours. He/she is a lovely fluffy white colour. I hope it's a pullet as I could do with some white eggs but it is so large and noisy I'm afraid it may be a male.

The chick in the blue egg is less noisy and is attempting to break out now, again I hope it's a pullet as a few blue eggs would add some variety. I'm hoping I can sex the chicks within the next six weeks, as there is no way I could keep cockerels in a terraced house and being cross breeds no one would want to take them. There is no sign of movement in the four brown eggs yet but I'll allow them another 48 hours.

I have set up the brooder which will be their home for the next six weeks in the back bedroom. I checked the temperature in it last night and I could only get it to 85 degrees (it should be 90 to 95 degrees for the first week). I'm hoping it will be enough.

Well, as you can see from the photo one brown egg did hatch and it was pretty quick too. It took about 3 minutes for that chick to cut a hole and break out, whereas the blue egg chick took over 4 hours and needed some assistance. I have now put these three in the brooder and am now waiting to see if the other three eggs will hatch.