December Hatch-A-Long!

[CrazyChickLady7]

10 hrs 31 minutes until lockdown!

 

[hodor]

Can anyone have an Xmas day hatch

 

[chonsey]

Yep,my LaBresse chicks hatched last night & this morning - they were supposed to hatch Christmas.

 

[hodor]

Yep,my LaBresse chicks hatched last night & this morning - they were supposed to hatch Christmas.

Haha, chickens are good at ruining good plans from what I have read.

Mine are about 2.5 weeks and are able to fly into the brooder wire roof almost 2 foot up.

 

[CrazyChickLady7]

LOCKDOWN!!!

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Quote:
Chonsey - Here's my incubator as it sits tonight. The eggs in the pink tray to the right are the ones that are due to hatch Boxing Day at 3am. I stopped turning them yesterday. and increased the humidity today to approx 85% with my high tech method of wet paper towels and a yogurt container of water. The yogurt container alone keeps my bator at 40% humidity, the paper towels jump it to the 85%. They slowly dry and humidity drops back down to 40% if I don't watch closely. I hope to add a couple of pudding cups (they'll fit better) to the wire stationary racks so the humidity stays stable while we're gone for Christmas dinner. I normally have the container of water on the floor, but I don't want a chick to hatch and drown.
The rest of the eggs are due to hatch for New Years. I'm still turning them as usual. Heat and humidity jump right back up after I replace the lid. I did all my hatches this summer/fall like this and I did get chicks. I do hope to improve my hatches and I'm just seeing how things go with these hatches.
1) This time I'm running things 2 degrees higher since I checked thermometers and they were wrong, wrong, wrong. That's why the large thermometers say almost 102. The aquarium thermometers appear to be accurate.
2) I ran the first 18 days drier this time.
3) I increased humidity on day 19 instead of day 18. I saw Ron mention increasing the humidity on day 20 for a staggered hatch (I think) but I have a feeling that the chicks may hatch closer to tomorrow than on boxing day because it was hotter.
4) I'm running a higher humidity than before on "lockdown"
So we'll see what happens. I hear peeping tonight. I candled and all I see at the air sac is light...I don't see internal pipping or anything actually...lol. I'll just wait for the pips.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Yep,my LaBresse chicks hatched last night & this morning - they were supposed to hatch Christmas.

Congratulations on the chickies!!!

Maybe exclaiming "surprise" is in order too? Those sneaky chicks of yours...arriving early like that!

 

[Wickedchicken6]

Quote:
I hope if I get chicks that mine behave...I'm so not ready yet.

 

[Wickedchicken6]

LOCKDOWN!!!

 

[chonsey]

I ended up using wet papertowels to keep my humidity up, too.