the sultan thread

[yellowherb]

I think they have a lot more than Marans, but about the same as silkies. Each chicken is different, some more than others

 

[RonoKT]

In the end only two of my sultan eggs hatched. The incubator is Stik running but I expect I'll **** it off when I am home from work.
The two sultans are hanging out with a vorverk hatch mate and two light Sussex week old chicks. One of the sultans seems to have imprinted on one of the LS.
One sultan is allot fluffier than the other, has the puffy cute cheeks and has down on all of it's toes, the other has legs like my silkies, just the outer toes are feathered.

 

[yellowherb]

I love that head bump. When my first chick hatched I actually did not realize it had the head bump and I thought it was deformed. I thought the poof on the head was just feathers haha. Luckily I waited to see what the others looked like.

2 chicks is better than none, but I know it's always nice to have MORE How many eggs did you start with?

I am finally getting signs of fertility in my sultans eggs. Yah!! But in the meanwhile I have 12-14 chicks (they wont hold still long enough to count them) from a hatchery. I was disappointed in them because their head bump was not as large as the bump on the chicks I hatched through eggs. I've also determined that in the case of the hatchery I used, 1/2 of the chicks are missing toe nails. My adult roo is missing a few toenails too as is my young roo. None of my hens are though so I'm speculating it might be a male based genetic issue which could make me sexing them way easier. But I don't want chickens missing toenails I want to improve them, not carry on breeding the crap hatcheries use, but I have to start somewhere.

Flossy is my best looking hen I think, but she hasn't started laying yet although she is getting close. The rooster is topping her.


Most of my flock of sultans (and Bauk Bauk the mille fleur hen)


Little Roo and Meilikki, they are about 5 months old


And my hatchery chicks, mille chicks and pullets for a project involving a sultan rooster one day.


I think your chicks already look better than mine.

 

[RonoKT]

My eggs where bought on eBay, that set, I had 6 sultan and 6 vorverk. The vorverk where packed well but the aircells where a real mess. The sultans where packed upside down and they rattled in the polybox some. I settled them for a couple days before setting and the aircells seemed pretty good. Three from twelve, 25%.

 

[yellowherb]

Ow, yeah that's pretty bad. But better than I've had lately. My husband built a new incubator and hatcher for me and "assumed" it was all working right after the first day's real test. Turns out he added tiles to the hatcher which put the temps at 106 and cooked some eggs which had done well in the new incubator until they were moved to the hatcher. Test two, the turners stopped working in the new incubator and I lost ALOT of shipped eggs. 0% hatch out of salmon faverolle, blue mille fleur and Spitzhaubens and turkey eggs. He's over there right now replacing the turner motor in two of the trays and adding quail rails since he decided we need to hatch out nearly 200 button quail..OMG! And he says I have too many chicks as it is. Luckily I have my original incubator which holds two trays of eggs and put all my sultan and mille fleur's eggs in there while the new one was waiting for parts.

 

[RonoKT]

Wow. Lots of chicks on their way . Sorry you lost so many eggs.
I have allot to learn, so I can accept low hatch rates, I will probably not do any more hatching until I am getting my own fertile eggs, as with my hatch rates and the price if the eggs, I am getting very expensive chicks! When I am confident at my process I would go back to buying eggs. But probably try to collect them.

 

[yellowherb]

Flossy laid her first egg yesterday. All in all I got 4 sultan eggs yesterday and my 2nd pullet is starting to test out nesting areas while her clutch brother is starting to grab hens and attempt to top them before the head honcho knocks him off and number 2 head honcho chases him around the yard. No2 is the mille rooster. He's been a bad boy and is now penned with his hens since I caught him topping all the sultan hens today. Odds are my old boy is probably beyond his fertile years and all my "sultan" eggs will be mille crosses..ugh. I'll give little roo a month to get pointers by watching and pen the head rooster to give Little roo his chance to prove he can do it and possibly get real sultan chicks. Right now even the hens beat him up.

My hatchery chicks are starting to leave their brooder area each day for short periods when I open the shed door for them. I have one very adventurous little sultan who often gets lost and peeps his head off until I shoo him back with the others.

 

[fishnet1971]

2 fertile sultan eggs out of 5 and on day 5!

 

[yellowherb]

Yah! congrats

 

[yellowherb]

My first sultan chick hatched from my own chickens. Yah!! I was so excited to see the chicks this morning. I had two sultan eggs due to hatch and several Mille Fleur. 1 Mille Fleur hatched early and hatched a large white chick with 5 toes and a black blotch on it's side..Sully!! you dog. So I was curious to see what the sultan hen eggs had since I know my Mille Rooster has been a busy little bee when Sully doesn't catch him.

Sultan hen eggs contained 1 pure bred sultan and 1 black/charcoal sultan type baby. This is fantastic. I was about to start a side project and am growing out some pullet chicks to breed into sultans for colors. But these little mixed babies gets me a 6 month jump on that project.

The pure baby has a nice little head bump, although not as large as the head bump on the chick in my avatar..
the mixed babies do not have noticeable head bumps. 1 dark blackish baby has the sultan comb and 5 toes. The white baby has 5 toes and a straight mille type comb Beards, ear muffs, vulture hocks and feathered feet are a given since that's also a Mille Fleur D'uccle trait.

Here are the new babies. 1 pure, 2 mixed