Yes indeed, one of the little black araucana's has begun to crow! He has a nice red, plump peacomb on him now and so there is the first gender proved beyond doubt!
It was this one (pictured previously)
Yesterday I moved the A-team from their palace into the second pen, alongside the main pen. Mumma hen (the boss lady of the big girls) went on and on with her clucking. 'Who are these strangers? Who authorised their entry into our spare pen' and so on.
I'm sure they will get use to each other soon enough and then I will be able to integrate the girls and chosed rooster into the flock a bit easier (I hope!).
The B-Team who are still in the incubator, have had many hurdles to overcome this week. After candling the eggs on Sunday night and discarding 16 of the 36 eggs, which were not developing, I was left with 20 eggs in the bator. Of those, 5 were 'maybes' which I left in just in case.
However the next day when I got home from work - I found the temps very high - 103'F. I moved the sensor to try and bring the temps back a couple of degrees and it didn't seem too bad as we left for a camping trip for Australia Day.
On our return on Wednesday afternoon though, I was shocked and upset to find the temps at 104'F at the top of the eggs. I spent all afternoon trying to get temps back to a normal range - moving the sensor etc. In the end I had no choice but to turn the knob (a big no-no as they are very sensitive). In the end I had to turn it several times because I came home from work on Friday and it was cooking again. I was so frustrated - I never had this trouble with the same type of incubator in the past. I hope this one is not faulty!
Anyway, temps stabalised after my last fiddling attempt on Friday night and have been fine since then.
Oh, on top of that we had a 4hr black out from 11pm - 2am on the Friday night!
So, I can only hope that some of my B-Team will survive.
I will do the final candling on Tues or Wed night, top up the waters and let them be. HOPEFULY I will have some chicks by this time next week. Although I may have a few feet to fix if the high temps have caused curly toes in some of them.
Anyway - FINGERS CROSSED that I will get 10 or so healthy chicks this coming week! (Is that a bit optimistic?? - I suppose I will be happy with any after all these issues!)
Will keep you posted!
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