Mission Control...we have LIFTOFF!!! Ooops, I mean LOCKDOWN!

How exciting! I'm going into lockdown this afternoon- I've got some silkies, too! Good luck! I can't wait until Friday

That's great to have some California company! Hey, our names are similar and we are sort-of neighbors! (Napa is so beautiful and only about an hour away.)
Are you incubating your chicken eggs or were yours shipped? Mine were shipped from Georgia, but made it safely.
I started with 16 - 4 were clear and 1 quit around day 10. And, the lid bumped a day 4 egg with a developing embryo.

Happy Hatching to your California Chicks too.

I just put mine on lockdown last night. Due sometime overnight on Thursday/Friday morning! It's been a hard run so far. I started off with 32 eggs in the bator (15 shipped) then pulled all but 13 that were clear on day 10. When I locked them down last night I had 4 more late quitters, so now I'm down to just 9 in lockdown (and only 2 from my shipped eggs). Fingers crossed that almost all 9 make it! And I think I'm swearing off shipped eggs for the rest of the season.

Can't wait to see lots of chick photos by the end of the week!!

Awesome, ggarratt! Welcome from the 'other' coast!
Here's some hatching hope for your 9 little babies -that they ALL hatch!

Shipped eggs can be a real gamble, but in some cases it can be worth that risk. I'm a little concerned about the aircells in my eggs as very few are "textbook". Most of these eggs have wavy/lopsided air cells...but other people still had successful hatches with weird aircells so I'm trying to stay positive.

I will definately post pictures and updates when these fuzzybutts hatch. They are Black/Blue/Splash Silkies.

I've been trying to get a decent hatch from shipped eggs for about 3 years now. I've heard of a fabled 50% average hatch rate for shipped eggs, but I've never had more than a couple hatch out of every dozen or more. My husband recently figured out how much I spend on shipped eggs and is gently (or not so gently) encouraging me to focus on hatching from our own flock. It doesn't mean I'll never get shipped eggs again... I'll just wait until I really need them to better my flock.

I'm somewhat baffled by the infertility in my own eggs though. I have 5 roosters with 13 hens (I need to cull some roosters but am having trouble deciding who to keep) so they should all be more than fertile. My only thought is that some of them must have gotten too cold before I got home from work to collect them. Hopefully I'll be getting better fertility when it gets warmer!

Anyway, most of my flock is Blue Laced Red Wyandottes, but I have a blue roo, a buff hen and and orange hen (all Wyandottes) in there with them, so who knows what I'll get for colors. This is my first hatch of the year, so I'm excited to see what I get.

I'm so glad to have some company with this hatch! I was late looking for a hatch-a-long thread and thought I was going to have to go through the excitement alone!

Sometimes if you have too many roosters, they interfere with each other and the hens don't get mated. I try to keep two maximum per 12 hens. As for hatching shipped eggs, what helps me is to let them settle 24 hours and then when I put them in the incubator the next day, I leave the turner OFF for two full days. When it's lockdown time, I put them in spare turner racks so that they can be positioned fat end up, but at a slight angle.

Good luck with your silkie hatch! Remember to post pictures!

pawtraitart said:

Sometimes if you have too many roosters, they interfere with each other and the hens don't get mated. I try to keep two maximum per 12 hens. As for hatching shipped eggs, what helps me is to let them settle 24 hours and then when I put them in the incubator the next day, I leave the turner OFF for two full days. When it's lockdown time, I put them in spare turner racks so that they can be positioned fat end up, but at a slight angle.

Good luck with your silkie hatch! Remember to post pictures!

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pawtraitart-That's very interesting about roosters. But, I wouldn't know because I currently only have 3 hens. Someday I would love to be able to watch the whole chicken cycle with my own backyard flock.
I let mine rest (fat side up) for 24 hours. Then I laid them on their sides in the bator and gently rolled them to the other side 3X a day. There wasn't room for egg cartons in the Brower I used for Day 1-18 so I just crossed my fingers and the aircells look better than I expected. I really think these eggs had a chicken angel watching over them.

ggarratt-I can totally relate to your husband not wanting you to order shipped eggs. My husband has not been very excited or supportive of this venture of wanting more silkie chickens-especially shipped eggs! He didn't think any would develop because of my inexperience in incubating. I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch, but this has been such an informative (and stressful) experience for my son and me. We paid $40 for 4 silkies last year and they all turned out to be roosters, so we gave them away. I figure we spent $30 on a dozen here...so, if 6 hatched, we would be getting a bargain. Plus, the parent stock of these silkie eggs are just beautiful ShowQuality birds.

I hope we ALL have nice pictures of our hatch to share by weeks end.

Day 19 is drawing to a close. Today was rather uneventful compared to the first 18 days! You would think that I could sit back and relax now that I don't have to turn eggs or check for constant temperature variations in the old Brower...But no, I wrang my hands and "looked" at the eggs about a hundred times. I did manage to burn my hand 3 times on the heating bar when I was adding sponges or re-arranging thermometers! Don't tell anyone that I opened the incubator.

No pips, chirps or even wiggles today! They are saving their energy for the big day. Maybe tomorrow night -Day 20- we'll see some action.

Wow, hand turning is a lot of work! I hope you have a great hatch. We'll forgive you for messing around this one time, but after this we'll have to slap your hands away if you keep trying to open that incubator!

Day 21 starts at 11 a.m. for me today (I'm a bit ahead of you), but so far there's no action at all. Not a peep or a wiggle. I'm hoping that no early pips means my temp was spot-on. But I'm starting to get antsy to see some signs of chicks!

Luckily I get to work from home today and tomorrow, and my incubator is in my home office so I can sit watching them all day. I'll let you know when I see any action. I have my camera here and ready!