Lorri-d Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 Hi guys, We have decided to hatch our own chicks - so excited! Although we are new to chicken keeping so is there anything we should take into account or should we really not be attempting to hatch our own with no experience? We have had a good read up and feel reasonably confident etc and it would be a wonderful experience for the children to see our hens actually hatch! Can someone give some advice as to the different breeds of sex linked chicks please? We will be keeping 3 of the hens we hatch and ideally would like 3 different coloured eggs from them. I know a cream legbar will lay blue eggs but can you advise as to the other two breeds please? The people we are hiring the incubator and broody from are going to take the chicks we don't want but how many eggs should we attempt to hatch to give a good chance of having 3 different hens at the end. Any advice gratefully recieved! Thanks x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sjp Posted February 19, 2011 Share Posted February 19, 2011 any of the breeds that end in 'bar' are autosexing like cream legbar gold legbar (white egg) rhodebar(brown egg) to name 3. but it depends on how 'pure' that the parent stock is as to how easy it is to sex them at day old it's also pot luck as to how many girls and boys hatch out.I'm on my 2nd brood of chicks first last year 5 hatched I got 1 pullett this batch 6 hatched and I think there's 6 boys. that was 6 eggs both times and 4 breeds in both Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorri-d Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share Posted February 20, 2011 Thanks very much. Does seem like you would need to hatch quite a few to guarantee girls . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
