Finally First Serama...

After 0% hatch of mailed Serama eggs I've set a total of 33 eggs of my personal Serama flock as soon as they started laying. I went to lockdown last night with first set of 10 viable eggs, this morning I had first pip and first little peep hatched about an hour ago, they aren't due till the 13th but this little Buggar wanted out....lol... Better yet this eggs are set on a full size fridge bator I built ... Not bad for a newbie. 9 more eggs to go and second lockdown starts on the 14th for 4 eggs and keeps on going on lockdowns every four days as i set eggs 4 to 5 days apart of my seramas and silkies.

nice, I have a staggered hatch coming here, 7 due by the 16th, but 3 of that 7 due by the 13th the rest due the 20th...

I hear peeping...

gimmie birdies said:

nice, I have a staggered hatch coming here, 7 due by the 16th, but 3 of that 7 due by the 13th the rest due the 20th... I hear peeping...

Click to expand...

I guess we're gonna be hatching side by side

I am guessing the 13th... for some my goofy hatch is so spread out.

So I went to lockdown with 4 more Serama eggs last night, I candles them and only one showed signs of life the other 3 looked good in development but no movement at all. Out of the 10 eggs I went to lockdown on the 10th only two hatched the other 8 were fully developed but just didn't try piping thru the air sack.......this **** seramas are driving me nuts. Hopefully my broody Serama sitting on 6 eggs does better. Found her today after 3 days going awal.

The little yellow one hatched, the older chick hatched out from a diff. batch, around x-mas. I went a way a couple of days around the time I set these. House got cold. .. the older made it out of a batch of 5 (house was cold a couple days before due date) the yellow came with a later group that kept developing so I thought I made it past the danger zone of the cold house, I guessed wrong....Plus the eggs from this last batch were all ex/lg. they say don't set those. any how most were due 16th, the yellow was due a bit earlier, probably a large test egg. 3 quit, 2 peeped but died in egg. (too much liquid, normally I dry hatch.) 2 are waiting to hatch tomorrow.

I have 9 due on the 20th, I am going to count separate from the others because They never got cold. I still have 5 days. and I have had 100% hatches with this incubator, I believe it was just the whole going away thing, plus I moved incubator to a diff. room in the house from my other hatches, and was using a diff. padding in incubator. I switched back to good padding, I am going to dry hatch till lock down to avoid the whole watery thing, and these eggs are smaller instead of jumbo sized. Either way I have more chickens than I need. I can be just a pride thing.

Nice little group you got there. A friend of mine went down to Mexico for a wedding this weekend so I'm taking care of his flock while he's gone 30 chickens (mutts) and 50 courtnix quails, he said feed the birds and keep the eggs, not a bad deal. Anyway, I just came from feeding his flock and found this little bugger running around my bator...... Third Serama!!!! This is the one that showed life out of the 4 I candled last night , they are due for tomorrow, so I grabbed him and put him on the brooder of my king size bator I built out of a full size refridgerator. I just finished it and it's been running steady 100-100.4. I brought along 105 quail eggs and 20 chicken eggs from my friends flock, they are laying 20+ Jumbo eggs a day so I'll have a good 80-100 eggs by Tuesday when he gets back. I already set them on "The King" bator and planning on trying the dry method, what are the temps and humidity for the dry?

Dry method for me was small homemade bator didn't use a hydrometer, because I could feel the moisture. would only add water at lock down. I switched incubator size and had some great hatches all summer, but I was over thinking and decided to use more water this hatch, not a lot but constant dish

see the dish? that was always full but in my small incubators I only added water at lockdown and my lock downs were day 19. Any how, back to the formula. below is an article Backyard Poultry published about my hatching methods. this was may last year.

I opened up the last eggs due the 16th they didn't develop very far, they were dark so I could not see in them. my being gone screwed up the heat.

but the eggs due the 20th, should be good, I started out with 10 eggs and only pulled one clear, so I don't count that one. what is nice is I am not starting from scratch. I got 5 days to go...



also about 5 days ago I started this crock pot hatcher because I was bored,






I added way too much water, so I am going to dry hatch till day 11 then add a smaller amount of water till lockdowm.


day 4/5

Boo! my crock pot was so even temp, but it warmed up today and I checked, the temp was 109, I took out the eggs they still candled fine. I don't know how they will do. I will finish up in my big incubator.

The pink dots are the 9 due on the 20th, the green dots are WCBP but I don't know if they are fertile. at the very top are 2 gray eggs. the carton eggs were crock potted, and now they are not. The crock pot cartoned eggs are due the 2. the last should be finished by the 6th of feb.

green egg hatched today, tan egg hatched yesterday.

one more has a pip. 9 were due the 20th one egg did not make it but the others are in the air cell