I cracked open one of the last three eggs to find that embryo had stopped growing at a very wrong age, and by candling the other two eggs I found similar results---so those are out, and the incubator is shut down.
However, I do have eight beautiful new babies in my bedroom to accompany the other four!
I've got four Wheatens, (the yellows)
Three Splash, (the grays)
And one Black Copper, (take a wild guess.)
All are feathered-shanked, except for one splash chick (named Cloud).
There was some speculation on the survival of the second and third splash chicks, which had piped early and remained in their eggs without progress for a whole day. I ended up having to help each out of their eggs because there was some shrink-wrapping, but they're doing fine now.
If all goes well and these chicks survive to adulthood, I should be able to mix the black copper (male or female) with the splashes to produce more BBS chicks. While splash x splash = splash...splash x black = blue, though the copper gene (which colors the males differently, and puts an amber color around the hens' necks) may cause some throw-back color differences.
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