With all the hatching, I did learn a few things! Well, maybe I should say: I learned enough to have more questions!!!! :)
>> The Blue Andalusian rooster was gone January 4th. I began to save eggs for my mom's incubator 22 days later... and yet now that the youngsters are 4 months old... there is one young pullet that shows very much Blue Andalusian traits!!! She is definitely from the Blue A. rooster.
SO: Hens and roosters must be seperated more than three weeks to insure 'clean' eggs.
>> Two week old eggs may hatch as well as one day old eggs. In one incubator, I had the same percentage of eggs hatch from two-week old eggs as from one-week old eggs, and more of the older eggs hatched than eggs laid the day they were placed in the incubator.
>> At least here in Montana, 65% humidity in the incubator during incubation is the minimum for good results.
>> At least in our experiences this year, hand turning 6 times a day is somewhat better than hand turning 2-3 times a day, but the auto turner does as well as hand turning 6 times a day.
I think there may be more interesting observations, but at the moment, as I type, I can't remember them! :)
The MOST IMPORTANT OBSERVATION, so far, is that my GREY over GREY produced 100% GREY. I didn't specifically know if I hatched a speckled over black egg... in fact, I don't think I got a single chick from my good old speckled rooster, over any hen. But if our old 'heritage' grey were 'blue', there should have been at least one or two black or speckled chicks. My speckled hens gave me speckled and greyish chicks when with the grey rooster, and the black hens gave me black chicks when with the grey rooster. But all the grey/grey ones produced grey chicks!
