Hands on hatching and help

[Calichicken2015]

Got my

for you too!!!

WVDuckchick has hatched quail... I hatch Call ducks quite regularly, lol... lots of good help and plenty of support here...

AmyLynn is super for chicken help...

And I think we've got many different types of bators between us, lol...

Thanks! Glad that I joined a thread with experience! I have wanted to try hatching calls, but haven't been brave enough yet!

I know those babies can be tricky! I have the standard classroom issue bator...hov-a-bator circulated air, but they have hatched faithfully for me for years now!

Welcome! You are in for some fun with all those different things going on! Did you set them all at the same time, or did you make it so they are all due around the same time? Best of luck to you. Hope you will stick around and share this adventure with us!

Thanks! I did set them all at the same time because part of our classroom learning is how long it takes each type of bird to hatch, along with comparing the eggs and the birds once they hatch! Kids are going to be so excited to see all the eggs in the bator on Monday

 

[Calichicken2015]

I'm out! I feel like I should get some kind of medal or something. News not real good - 8 eggs left out of the original 28. Out of those eggs only 2 look okay to me. (our bathroom is always dark since there's no windows in there) Candled them while I let the incubator start coming back up after taking out the turner and getting the thermometers and hygrometer reset in there, then put them into their respective cheery baskets as I finished and logged each one. 1 Green Magnolia and 1 Olive Egger seems to be all I have left. And two with really wonky air cells...really saddle bag cells. I'm second guessing myself now and thinking I should have cut down an egg carton and used the cups to put those in. I still might.

If this is a learning experience, I think I flunked. I won't beat myself up though, because I am sure that I did everything right after they arrived....let them set, made sure the incubator was holding, turning, marking, and keeping an eye on development. But for sure at least two more that were moving a couple of days ago are now deathly still, and the others are so dark in there it's hard to tell anything. But they are all in their little welcome baby cradles and all I can do now is wait, watch, and take care of the new ones in the Brinsea.

How do you people DO this time after time??

Remember, you are starting with the hardest possible scenario - shipped eggs over long distances, change in altitude, first time, etc. If you survive this, you can survive anything!

You've done a great job so far, and remember that no amount of perfect incubation techniques can resurrect scrambled eggs.

Next time try some local eggs, or maybe some shipped from WY or an adjoining state, and you will see much better results.

Or you can be like me and keep ordering eggs from far away and only getting 1 chick per dozen set.

(Although my homegrown eggs hatch great!)

Agreed! hatching shipped eggs are always a gamble, because you never know how their journey was on their way to you

I have only tried shipped eggs out of state twice and had a 20% hatch rate both times

My most success with shipped happened when they came from instate so didn't travel too far....had 80% on that hatch. I don't have any roosters so unfortunately I don't have home grown eggs to hatch! Don't give up...each experience teaches you a little more about the process

 

[BigWeenMachine]

Here's the cute lil guys sleeping and hanging out on their big penguin sister, lol.




The two ducks on the bottom are the blue ones and the top two are the welshies. The one on the top right looks like he's dead sleeping like that. That's Archie, the first born and he is attached to that stupid stuffed animal, lol. They had a tough day today. Took them outside for a half hour to play in the duck pond I built. One of em got bitten and nearly drowned by Sghetti before I rescued it, one got stomped on by my our blue palm turkey, Mr. Puffles, who we thought was protecting them until he attacked the one and stepped on it, and they all were being constantly stalked by our cat Domino who has access to the pond that is outside of the coop (I free range all my birds to help keep the bugs down so their pond is outside of the fence). Bottom left is the lil blue one that took 60+ hours to hatch. He is obviously smaller but doing great!



Just to prove he wasn't dead laying on that penguin, lol.

 

[Calichicken2015]

They don't stink but they look scary. Black veins and black dots all over them. And I do mean black, not dark, but pitch black veins or worm looking things all over in them. A few are still moving inside the shell but most I am not seeing movement. I think I am definitely gonna be lucky to have half or even any survive. I will candle some when I pull them out to go into lockdown monday and show you guys the pics. I've spent the last couple days finding stuff to keep myself busy to not think about those eggs. Hope some live and aren't weak.

I did finally get that 4th duck in the hatcher to hatch. Took between 58 and 66 hours from pip to hatch (pipped overnight but didn't know what time exactly). I had to basically do everything for him to get him to come out but he is another blue baby. So 2 blues and 2 Welshies. Glad for those at least.

Lol, I'm askin myself the same question right now. The first 4 were a 3 day time suck and that was all I thought about. Now I'm worried about the 30 remaining eggs that are left in my Lyon incubator. I decided I would try to order more ancona eggs if these all die but I hate losing the lil guys. I'm too much of a perfectionist to watch entire hatches get decimated by a silly bacterial infection. Pretty sure that's what I'm dealing with right now and it makes me sick....

I had this happen with my duck eggs one year....eggs turned dark with black spots and unfortunately I lost them all

Never had it happen again, thank goodness! How does the infection happen? I clean my bators completely after each hatch.

Congrats on your 4 babies...I LOVE the one snuggling the penguin...LOL!!!

 

[BigWeenMachine]

Can't wait for tomorrow though!!! We have 3 female peacocks, an India Blue, a purple blackshoulder, and a pied. They are all one year old so we needed a boyfriend for them. Well, we've got a 2 year old 1/2 purple blackshoulder, half India Blue male coming tomorrow morning!!! Females will be ready to breed at 2 years old and males are sexually mature at 3 years old so we will hopefully have peacock chicks next year!

 

[BigWeenMachine]

I had this happen with my duck eggs one year....eggs turned dark with black spots and unfortunately I lost them all

Never had it happen again, thank goodness! How does the infection happen? I clean my bators completely after each hatch.

Congrats on your 4 babies...I LOVE the one snuggling the penguin...LOL!!!

I cleaned my hands with anti-bacterial soap and then rinsed them with hydrogen peroxide before every time I handle them, which was only 3 times on some, 4 times on the rest. Can't be that my hands were not cleaned. I think my problem is that my hygrometer was off after I cleaned it when pulling it out of my hatcher. I had to put 6 times the amount of water I had in it a week earlier to get my humidity to read 60% instead of 45. (I was trying to keep the air sacs from shrinking too much since they had gotten a few days ahead of where they were supposed to be). So I think humidity is to blame on this one..... The one thing I've learned from my first experience hatching is that you could have 20 thermometers and hygrometers and still not have enough of them that are accurate.

 

[Calichicken2015]

I cleaned my hands with anti-bacterial soap and then rinsed them with hydrogen peroxide before every time I handle them, which was only 3 times on some, 4 times on the rest. Can't be that my hands were not cleaned. I think my problem is that my hygrometer was off after I cleaned it when pulling it out of my hatcher. I had to put 6 times the amount of water I had in it a week earlier to get my humidity to read 60% instead of 45. (I was trying to keep the air sacs from shrinking too much since they had gotten a few days ahead of where they were supposed to be). So I think humidity is to blame on this one..... The one thing I've learned from my first experience hatching is that you could have 20 thermometers and hygrometers and still not have enough of them that are accurate.

Oh no! I use a digital thermometer that reads temp and humidity, It also tells e the high/low temp in a 24hr period, so I can tell if my temps vary at all. Helpful since I am hatching in my classroom and not always there to monitor what is happening! I think humidity was my issue too! I had moisture get trapped between the window panes of my bator and couldn't get it out. Fixed the problem after that hatch and hasn't happened since thank goodness!!!

 

[WVduckchick]

Can't wait for tomorrow though!!!  We have 3 female peacocks, an India Blue, a purple blackshoulder, and a pied.  They are all one year old so we needed a boyfriend for them.  Well, we've got a 2 year old 1/2 purple blackshoulder, half India Blue male coming tomorrow morning!!!  Females will be ready to breed at 2 years old and males are sexually mature at 3 years old so we will hopefully have peacock chicks next year! 

Pics of your peas please!

I cleaned my hands with anti-bacterial soap and then rinsed them with hydrogen peroxide before every time I handle them, which was only 3 times on some, 4 times on the rest.  Can't be that my hands were not cleaned.  I think my problem is that my hygrometer was off after I cleaned it when pulling it out of my hatcher.  I had to put 6 times the amount of water I had in it a week earlier to get my humidity to read 60% instead of 45.  (I was trying to keep the air sacs from shrinking too much since they had gotten a few days ahead of where they were supposed to be).  So I think humidity is to blame on this one.....  The one thing I've learned from my first experience hatching is that you could have 20 thermometers and hygrometers and still not have enough of them that are accurate.

There are simple tests for thermometers and hygrometers. Make sure you don't trust any out of the box. Find one that you can test, then compare it with the others, if you can't test them all.

 

[WVduckchick]

So my hatch is over. 14 of 15.

One golden sebright DIS, after drawdown, so I'll open it later to see what happened.

I was worried about the last LO, it had been internally pipped for probably 48 hours, so I drilled a safe hole around 9:00 last night. It was still rocking when I went to bed at midnight, but had not pipped itself. Got up at 6:00 and it had hatched. I pieced the egg back together and it did use my safe hole to start zipping, so I'm glad I did it. Not sure it needed it, but it was successful anyway.

Final count 2/2 lavender orpington
4/4 silver duckwing OEGB
8/9 golden sebright

e

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Here's the cute lil guys sleeping and hanging out on their big penguin sister, lol.




The two ducks on the bottom are the blue ones and the top two are the welshies. The one on the top right looks like he's dead sleeping like that. That's Archie, the first born and he is attached to that stupid stuffed animal, lol. They had a tough day today. Took them outside for a half hour to play in the duck pond I built. One of em got bitten and nearly drowned by Sghetti before I rescued it, one got stomped on by my our blue palm turkey, Mr. Puffles, who we thought was protecting them until he attacked the one and stepped on it, and they all were being constantly stalked by our cat Domino who has access to the pond that is outside of the coop (I free range all my birds to help keep the bugs down so their pond is outside of the fence). Bottom left is the lil blue one that took 60+ hours to hatch. He is obviously smaller but doing great!



Just to prove he wasn't dead laying on that penguin, lol.

Congrats!!!

Can't wait for tomorrow though!!! We have 3 female peacocks, an India Blue, a purple blackshoulder, and a pied. They are all one year old so we needed a boyfriend for them. Well, we've got a 2 year old 1/2 purple blackshoulder, half India Blue male coming tomorrow morning!!! Females will be ready to breed at 2 years old and males are sexually mature at 3 years old so we will hopefully have peacock chicks next year!

So my hatch is over. 14 of 15.

One golden sebright DIS, after drawdown, so I'll open it later to see what happened.

I was worried about the last LO, it had been internally pipped for probably 48 hours, so I drilled a safe hole around 9:00 last night. It was still rocking when I went to bed at midnight, but had not pipped itself. Got up at 6:00 and it had hatched. I pieced the egg back together and it did use my safe hole to start zipping, so I'm glad I did it. Not sure it needed it, but it was successful anyway.

Final count 2/2 lavender orpington
4/4 silver duckwing OEGB
8/9 golden sebright

That's great. Congrats!
I say the same thing when I start an assist at 24 hours. I can't say that every one I started needed it, most finish up on their own, but they come out safely and healthy so I will continue to use that as my guidline. But I can say that I have had a couple that there is no doubt would have died without assisting and are now awesome healthy layers.