5th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2014 Hatch-A-Long

[MontanaDolphin]

I candled..and I swear, that I have two that are internally pipped! Lock down tomorrow for me. I may get some early birds.

Congrats! How can you tell there's an internal pip? Can you see sumthin?? How bout with dark eggs??

 

[Pozees]

LOL, sounds like my weather here in Virginia for the day! Dropped down to 23 overnight (currently 29), high temp today of 61, then drop down to 37, with a high of 42 tomorrow. Weather needs to make up its mind

See, and I would have thought VA was more stable than CO, but would have been wrong!

3 chicks hatched now

No new pips. Today is Day 21 for these, so I won't really give up until tomorrow, unless when I move chicks to brooder tonight I see no movement and hear no peeps or pecking in the other eggs. I need to have the hatcher disinfected tomorrow night for Monday move of NYD eggs. Thought about moving tomorrow, but I've been having better luck moving Day 19 so I will stick with that for now.

 

[Pozees]

Congrats! How can you tell there's an internal pip? Can you see sumthin?? How bout with dark eggs??

Candling as you move from incubator to hatcher, if there is an internal pip you can see the little beak/head inside the air cell.

 

[MontanaDolphin]

OMG, it really is!

EXACTLY like it. Dreaming you drop the baby, it comes out with 5 eyeballs, someone switching babies with you in the hospital...I will never forget those!

Never dreamt of dropping the baby, but every single pregnancy I had, I would dream about giving birth to half animal, half human babies. Once it was half alligator. Another time it was half cat. One time I had a dream that while I was giving birth, our town was being attacked by pterodactyls. Gah...the dreams we have while pregnant!!!

Ha! I wish he would show interest! He rolls his eyes when I talk bird and says what are you going to do with all these chicks? I don't want them crappin all over the house! He is such a downer!

LOL sounds EXACTLY like my DH!!! Only it's not "I don't want them crappin all over the house", it's "I don't want all that dust again in the house!" and "You already have enough chickens, we don't need anymore" and "Great, now when it is time to do something away from the house, you'll use the chicks as your excuse to stay home cuz the "need" you to be here just in case". I tried to show him a baby one candling session, and he sighed, like it was such a bother for him to get up off his butt to come look.

That's ok, though...I always end up getting my way when it comes to my chickens, regardless about how he feels about it. All I have to do is pout

 

[Pozees]

LOL sounds EXACTLY like my DH!!! Only it's not "I don't want them crappin all over the house", it's "I don't want all that dust again in the house!" and "You already have enough chickens, we don't need anymore" and "Great, now when it is time to do something away from the house, you'll use the chicks as your excuse to stay home cuz the "need" you to be here just in case". I tried to show him a baby one candling session, and he sighed, like it was such a bother for him to get up off his butt to come look.

I don't know how many movie buffs there are here, but this reminds me of a scene in the movie, "Phenomenon" where the Dr. played by Robert Duvall is talking about how George (John Travolta - one of the few movies I actually liked him in) "loved her chairs."

If you've never seen it, and care LOL, Travolta's character is in love with a woman (Lacey) played by ... oh darn it, Kevin Bacon's wife, what the heck is her name? Anyway, she is doing whatever she can to keep the bills paid and raise her kids, and makes chairs she sells. Travolta keeps buying them to "sell" at his garage, except it turns out he's been taking them all home. When she finds out she takes it as a slam, and he says, "But I love those chairs, Lace!" In a later scene when townspeople are making him out to be some kind of freako or alien because of what a brain tumor is doing to him, the Dr. notes one of the men in the room is obviously fighting with his girlfriend because his clothes don't match, and then gives everyone a lecture about how to treat people they love, holding George up as an example, and said, "He loved her chairs."

 

[MontanaDolphin]

Candling as you move from incubator to hatcher, if there is an internal pip you can see the little beak/head inside the air cell.

omg, that's so cool! I don't have a hatcher, I won't be able to candle after lockdown, so I guess I won't be able to see internal pips! I'm on day 16 now (well, will be at 1:30 this afternoon, since I set on the 12th at that time)...and I swear I heard clicking coming from the bator this morning. It sounded like a little beak pecking at a shell. When I did my first egg turn, I looked closely and didn't see anything. Do you think I should candle just to make sure I don't have an early hatcher? The eggs I set are from my own flock, and I collected and set within 2 days, so I can't imagine any reason why I'd have any early birds, but who knows...I had issues with temp and humidity in the beginning, I had a couple nights where when I checked temp in the morning, it read 102 on top of the eggs...and I heard that high temps can mean early hatchers. Ugh, incubating is so stressful!!!!

 

[roostercluck]

I just moved mine into the hatcher late last night, and I have 5 (YES, FIVE!) pips tonight! I heard one chirping, and once I started looking, there they were! I'm going to bed now, and in the morning, I may have babies!!

I got a call from the local petting zoo today. They wondered if I could provide them some chicks just before Easter.............

Congrats. I talked my local feed store and unfortunately they only want females, and I don't know how I could sex them.

 

[ESofVA]

I have already culled several. Infertile. There are probably more but I can't tell due to the dark egg shells. I would not be surprised if none hatch! I have been watching my chickens in their pens a few times a day when I am out having coffee on the porch, and it seems as the roos just aren't doing anything and even if they get a notion, the hens are all running away. Maybe due to the cold temps outside??? The bantam Cochin chicks I hatched out earlier this month are doing great...I ordered those eggs and the hatch rate was poor. The PO did a real number on some of them others I am not sure but I lost 6 out of 6, 5 out of 6, and 13 out of 22. It was quite depressing but at least I got a few. Will candle this am again, then lock mine down, and just keep my fingers crossed on the ones I have left!

 

[roostercluck]

Candling as you move from incubator to hatcher, if there is an internal pip you can see the little beak/head inside the air cell.

If you have an early hatcher and pipper, do you still rotate them and can you still open the incubator to prepare for lockdown?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

This late, will there be much you can adjust if the weights are off?

Probably not a lot but it gives me information to work with.

This is what we all have one another for! While DH has taken a decidedly greater interest this year, last year I was on my own. His participation was limited to poking fun when I could not get the heated waterer flipped correctly and dumped it all over myself twice in a row in 20-degree weather. This year he did it himself and told me how terrible the design was
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I've done the same thing. the heated waterers are seriously flawed. They have to be perfectly level or completely drain. The retaining flanges are too wimpy. I don't try to fill more than half full since having soaked feet at zero F.