15th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-Along

[Chive]

My eggs are on day 15 today, and all 41 are doing good. I'll candle one more time when they go into lockdown.

 

[MandyMusshafen]

My grumpy girl with a week or so to go!

 

[MandyMusshafen]

I have EE’s, RIR and a barred rock rooster. And I too have lots of hatching eggs. I am hatching Orpington eggs that I bought at the Maud Auction. Lavender and Buff. I want to incorporate some lavender with my barred rock. I accidentally got a blue barred pullet in last years hatch and I love that color. View attachment 3768855

She's pretty!!!

 

[TRALALARA1]

Thank you! She’s my baby.

 

[WeeRadish]

Yesterday was day 7 for me. Pulled 2 clears that turned out to be infertile, and 2 early quitters. Now to be patient until lockdown

 

[ChickenTenderKesha]

Update on Incubator A on Day 08!

Pulled 2 quitters with the red ring, two others had the same state the now red rings were in on the first candling so I pulled them as no veins were present just a dark settling to the bottom of the yolk area

The photos aren’t the greatest quality with life in them; I wasn’t the one taking them, I was candling the eggs. Most were too dark to be able to tell easily and definitely weren’t able to get photos of judging by how this one that wasn’t even that dark went lol

We watched another embryo swimming around and is definitely one of the more developed eggs set to hatch first I’d guess. No videos/photos of that one we were too awestruck watching how big the chick already was

Had to remove 10 that weren’t developing at all. Which I had expected as my one blue layer is young and hasn’t accepted my roosters yet, plus I held the eggs for a good amount of time before setting them so not all were going to be viable still with me having some of the eggs sitting for a few weeks before hand.
Although I did this with my first batch on accident just due to timing on everything and still got around a 65% hatch rate from that set. I’m not expecting a drastic amount of eggs to develop from this set but that’s the fun thing about learning, you get to do it all over again after

Incubator B and C are on Day 03, I’ll most likely check them on Day 05 and then mark the questionable developers and check on their Day 08 as the Marans might be hard to see through like the blue eggs

 

[ChickenTenderKesha]

I started with a new NR360 a couple years ago. Last year I found a used Brinsea 56EX. So those two are what I've been using.

How does the NR360 work compared to the Brinsea 56EX?
The Brinsea I’m using has an auctio magic dropper for humidity levels, basically a set and forget type model. Wondering if the NR360 needs water added periodically by hand or if it’s got something similar to the Brinsea?

NYesterday was day 7 for me. Pulled 2 clears that turned out to be infertile, and 2 early quitters. Now to be patient until lockdown

Do you only check once throughout your incubation process? The manuals I got with the incubators I’m borrowing do say to check them at least twice, days 07 and 14 of incubating. I know the manuals aren’t always written by accurate or experienced Individuals but, wouldn’t it be good to check for any quitters at that point before you get to lockdown? Or do you check at lockdown time?

 

[Debbie292d]

How does the NR360 work compared to the Brinsea 56EX?
The Brinsea I’m using has an auctio magic dropper for humidity levels, basically a set and forget type model. Wondering if the NR360 needs water added periodically by hand or if it’s got something similar to the Brinsea?


Do you only check once throughout your incubation process? The manuals I got with the incubators I’m borrowing do say to check them at least twice, days 07 and 14 of incubating. I know the manuals aren’t always written by accurate or experienced Individuals but, wouldn’t it be good to check for any quitters at that point before you get to lockdown? Or do you check at lockdown time?

I have the "set it and forget it" Brinsea 56EX (two of those now). The NR360 you have to add water usually twice a day, like morning and night. It has two ports that stream the water through mazes. The first one, A, is a smaller amount of channels and B is more channels, so you get used to what you need to put in each to try keep it maintaining, but mine hits 25% often. Humidity thank goodness is an average, so a few hours too high or too low isn't going to kill them.

As for the candling, for sure I try to do around Day 7 to get rid of the clears, and that's the easiest candling to me as it's most obvious what's viable and what isn't. After that, I might do one in the middle somewhere, but for sure I do it at lockdown so if I can tell any quitters or non-viable for whatever reason, I can remove them then. I have often questioned some of these eggs at lockdown and put question marks on some I'm not sure about. I've hatched a few question-marked eggs!

 

[WeeRadish]

How does the NR360 work compared to the Brinsea 56EX?
The Brinsea I’m using has an auctio magic dropper for humidity levels, basically a set and forget type model. Wondering if the NR360 needs water added periodically by hand or if it’s got something similar to the Brinsea?


Do you only check once throughout your incubation process? The manuals I got with the incubators I’m borrowing do say to check them at least twice, days 07 and 14 of incubating. I know the manuals aren’t always written by accurate or experienced Individuals but, wouldn’t it be good to check for any quitters at that point before you get to lockdown? Or do you check at lockdown time?

I'll check once more at lockdown I'm hatching bantams so I decided to put them in lockdown on day 17. I usually check on day 14 too, but since it's not too many days in between Im going to wait the extra bit before pulling out any other quitters.

To be honest I usually candle a lot at the start because I can't help myself lol. But I figure I should try to leave them alone now.

If anyone has advice on the best days to candle/ how long it's safe to leave them without checking, please chime in! This is only my 4th incubator hatch!

 

[Auntiejessi3]

And I may have ordered another incubator...

I hate it when that happens