Oh boy, it's been a while since I updated this thread. Twelve months in fact. Well we have learnt a lot and had a lot of fun. We have bread loads of Gold laced wyandottes, Australorps as well as quite a few Rhode Island reds. My personal opinion is that if you want just egg layers, you can't go past the Hylines, they are almost guaranteed to lay eggs by the time they are twenty weeks old. A vast comparision to the Rhode Island reds which are perhaps one of the fattest meat birds, but did not lay until around 7 months old
My favourtie is probably the Gold laced wyandottes as we recently had two hens hatch out and successfully raise a total of sixteen chicks between them. They are leading the stakes in the egg laying and if they grow to be roosters have a reasonable amount of meat on their bones. They are good looking birds too. The silly Australaorp hens went broody at the same time as the Gold laced wyandottes- hardly any eggs were being collected
-(good reason to keep the Hylines on hand) they sat for weeks and ammassed a heap of eggs, one chick survived and dozens of eggs had to be ditched. Well many of the Australorps, more than fifty per cent were roosters, although we plan to one day butcher some of our own, $4-00 per bird for processing was too good to knock back.
Attachment:
P1030073 (Custom).JPG [ 81.69 KiB | Viewed 15380 times ]
The total weight of the six chickens was over fourteen kilos.
Attachment:
P1030076 (Custom).JPG [ 82.07 KiB | Viewed 15380 times ]
This chicken was the samllest of this batch weighing in at 1712 grams, the largest tipped the scales at over three kilos.
Attachment:
P1030085 (Custom).JPG [ 87.67 KiB | Viewed 15380 times ]
Backyard Farming Forum
So far we have a variety of breeds including silver and gold laced wyandottes, hyline (isa brown) and australorps. Have also found another space for another run- might be allowed Light susses as well 
If my internet wasn't used up by the son who returned home I'd post more pics 
Oops, charged the phone at the expense of the incubator 
A few hours that the temp dropped can be critical in the formation and development. I guess we will be able to tell soon enough.
Today is day 20, fingers crossed they will soon start chirping, now that the eggs are not being rolled around. 
Luckily they have hatched and appear to be all okay at this stage, the news came through yesterday "5 red ones so far". What a relief. And then to walk in to the office and hear lots of chirping, and they say laughter is the best medicine, 
