Bad eggs happen to good people.

I hadn't hatched in a while, no roosters. I had 7 of them at one time and the neighbour made a remark about the noise. He was right. Those stupid birds crowed all night long every night. I didn't want to get rid of them but I also was getting sick of not sleeping and in the interest of keeping peace with neighbours who are, thankfully, super great neighbours, we chopped heads. I was feeling pretty done with poultry for a number of reasons. Wanted a few hens for eggs but beyond that my heart wasn't in it. Then, for unknown reasons, or more likely reasons that I can't remember anymore I got the idea that I wanted to toss some eggs in the Noodlebator. Found someone selling eating eggs and asked if she had roosters with her hens. Yes. Would she collect me a few hatching eggs? Yes. Well isn't this going to be a fun time!

NO!

It seems to me when you tell someone that you want fresh, clean, kept coolish (but not in fridge!) hatching eggs, if they are taking $18 a dozen, then they ought to have a clue what they are doing. You might think that, as did I. But I was wrong.

She handed 18 eggs over wrapped in a towel and a big smile, "I wrapped them up to keep them nice and warm." Huh? I get them home and unwrap and open the cartons and they were filthy with poop and baked on egg youlk from a broken egg that has happened some time ago. Having an odd spidey sense I decided to candle before I set them in bator, which is something I never do. Sure enough, these were not hatching eggs. These were eggs that were in the middle of being hatched! Some poor hen had been sitting on these eggs for an undetermined amount of time because several of them candled at differing stages of development. Good grief! Others were clear. So I put the whole works into the bator anyway. 9 of them were not fertilized and were tossed. The rest, starting at different developments, did pip, but many didn't make it. Out of 18 eggs I ended up with 5 live chicks.(I think. Memory is not great) What a disaster!

I assume that anyone keeping hens knows a thing or two about hatching but I am wrong. You would have to be some kind of kook to sell someone partly incubated eggs and call them 'fresh' hatching eggs. That was about 2 years ago and I have not considered hatching since. That and I had managed to invent a breed of chicken that didn't lay more than 8 eggs a year. So if you like the LOOK of poultry and the WORK of poultry without any of the pesky EGGS of poultry, I have the breed for you! So this spring I ordered a batch and have young hens now that actually lay. Who knows. Maybe a renewed ACE will inspire renewed poultry enthusiasm? Anything is possible.

You should seriously consider Seremas. The roosters are relatively quiet and the hens are broody. They lay a decent sized egg for their size, and lay a lot! Small but mighty!

SchipperkeSue wrote:You should seriously consider Seremas. The roosters are relatively quiet and the hens are broody. They lay a decent sized egg for their size, and lay a lot!  Small but mighty!

Ooh. I had seramas. The roosters were great, but the hen once she was broody & then a new mom, was crazy. Even the rooster looked at her like, "What happened to you, woman! You're beyond nuts!" Lol He was pretty interesting and had an easy to read personality. A gentleman, a hesitant father (but he eventually got over his fear of the chicks & was excellent), and a patient little fellow. I love the roosters, but that hen...

So, my point is, seramas can be good. Just watch out for those crazy mother hens.

I kept one of their offspring, a roo. I would like another colorful one that could qualify as show quality (had one), but until then, I'm happy with the little guy I've got.