~ 5th Annual Cinco de Mayo Hatchathon! ~

[SonnyLTPI]

Total hatches for Cinco de Mayo 15 including 1 turkey
Set a batch of 25 in the hatch lockdown so I hope to get 30 more hatches in the next 4 days fingers crossed for the last 5 turkeys also

 

[BantyChooks]

One bantam chick has hatched, and one malpo pip that I think is dead. Nothing else.... Come on chickies!!

 

[freejpony]

Enjoying reading everyones posts. Just got back from vacation last night and snuck a peek under the broody turkeys and ducks, no babies yet. It has been cold this spring so mabybe they will be late to hatch. Hopefully,I will get some today.

 

[Manningjw]

I still have 3 eggs in the incubator, 2 with pips, one without a pip, I candled it just to be sure, it looks like it is 2+ behind in development - I wonder if there was a colder area of the incubator or something very odd happening? Maybe it was right by a vent hole the entire time? I can still see obvious veining and movement it looks as though it should be going into lockdown today - very strange. Going to let the 3 eggs keep going a while before I think about intervention.

I candled 2 others without pips and found one was a quitter right before lockdown and the other sometime after lockdown, no internal pip but fully developed.

 

[Manningjw]

Here are the 9 blue chicks that have hatched so far:

 

[GerbilsOnToast]

Because I can convince myself I see movement where there is none, I water candled last night. Alll but two turkeys failed, as well as two of the Dorkings. Being unable to give up on some things, I moved those into the LG & filled the wells....
One Dorking is currently unzipped, the rest are still in there - some are internally pipped, obviously alive at 3am but , like Manningjw's egg, appear to be not ready yet. Leaving all living eggs in the hatching basket - off to check cattle again. Two calves so far today. Forty something more to go.

 

[wabbit1964]

Because I can convince myself I see movement where there is none, I water candled last night. Alll but two turkeys failed, as well as two of the Dorkings. Being unable to give up on some things, I moved those into the LG & filled the wells....
One Dorking is currently unzipped, the rest are still in there - some are internally pipped, obviously alive at 3am but , like Manningjw's egg, appear to be not ready yet. Leaving all living eggs in the hatching basket - off to check cattle again. Two calves so far today. Forty something more to go.

Sorry about the turkeys and dorkings didn't make it. I had 5 turkeys cooking and 3 were alive but died before hatch the other 2 were quitters.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Hello everyone!!

Love reading about everyone's hatching!
Congratulations on everybody's new chicks!

I am SO late at getting anything written.

I had a slightly eventful incubation period. I set OEGB and a bantam egg under 3 broody hens. (3 Silkies and one sweet little OEGB who's due later)
Of course two hens were incubating the eggs in the nest boxes and one underneath in a box nest I made for the occasion.
I'm very lucky my broodys are so easy going because the rest of the hens used their nests daily, either setting on them, or beside them...or in the OEGB's case...kicking her right off her nest!
So 3-4 times daily I've lifted them up to check for new eggs under them...lol. So that made things interesting. I've got a few extra eggs in the incubator from days where the eggs might have been sat on long enough to start the embryo.

But my worst incident was being gone to the city and coming home and finding at 2am in the morning a nest of very cold eggs (coop was 9C, 48F) that had most likely been that way since the laying was finished at 3pm the day before. (11 hours)
I guess the broody hens got shifted about. Instead of nests 2,3,4 being occupied....nests 1 3, 4 were occupied.

So I candled the eggs and there was nothing, no movement at all. I placed each hen back on their own nests and brought #1 nest eggs in and stuck them in the incubator.
I stayed up and checked the eggs about 2 hours later.
Every embryo was moving and still moving when I candled 2 nights later.

I'm amazed at how resilient the embryos are!

I had to be gone for the day this week and I chose Tuesday 3rd so I'd be home when the eggs started hatching.
My husband phoned me when I was halfway to my destination and told me the one egg had started hatching (he was gathering eggs).

I got home at 6am Wednesday morning...and after I took our son to school got home to see the following...lol.

Nest #3

Nest #2

Box nest underneath


So I missed the hatching and everything!
Everything was hatched and done by the early am on the 4th...lol.
Everything hatched except for one shrink wrapped chick .
And that egg had been visibly losing more volume than the rest so it was expected.
I also had a large EE egg that I didn't know how far along it was so I left it under until now. I moved it to the incubator. I'm guessing it is about 14 days old.

I moved 2 hens and babies to the bottom of the brooder the evening of the 4th. I moved the last hen and babies over the morning of the 5th.
The hens are sisters and appear to be co-parenting the chicks...lol.

 

[GerbilsOnToast]

Sorry about the turkeys and dorkings didn't make it. I had 5 turkeys cooking and 3 were alive but died before hatch the other 2 were quitters.

Thanks, and my condolences on yours

. I'm happy that I have already hatched a small batch of turkeys, and I have 97 more in the 'build' incubator. (2 different sets) Hens are just thinking about going broody, so there will still be plenty of turkeys.

The Dorkings are shipped eggs - and very hard to find. Last year I got 2 healthy hens from 48 eggs (post office was in FINE form last year!) This years' box went UPS - and came in looking worse than either of last years, but the eggs looked good. So far, two have hatched. The first hatched cleanly - but took about 20 hours from internal pip. The second had a small bit of goo but not bad. The others, if they hatch, I expect to be quite sticky. Now that the temp is fully adjusted on the build, I think it's taken care of / won't happen next time.

I have two turkey eggs and twelve more Dorkings in the 'wait and see' basket of the build, and the rest in the LG have shown nothing (as expected)
BUT!!! I have TWO Dorkings that I didn't have before, and I know my incubator build works! I've also figured out a few 'add-ons' that I'd like to do (besides auto-turning) to make it easier to use. All in all - it's been a good use of the month.

***edit to add - and a third baby calf this evening = 19 done!

 

[GerbilsOnToast]

...make that FOUR Dorkings...