Mahonri's 3rd Annual, BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[Mahonri]

I am amazed at how quickly I caught up on this thread.

Looks like we may need to start doing some PMing to folks who haven't reported how many they hatched.

So far (as I've counted) we have 7 who have entered the cutest chick pic contest.

Can't believe I made it through the night without the pesky MN calling! It's nice to sleep once in a while. I'm actually working every day plus Saturday this week. But that is a GOOD thing.

Checked the brooder this morning and it looks like one of the chicks I most wanted to make it won't.. .its a blue sumatra and it won't eat or drink and looks like it's gasping for air. sometimes I can't win for losing BUT, I'll be grateful and I can't wait to see what the sulmtalers look like.

Interesting of the 14 Icelandics that made it, 10 are dark colored and only 4 are whitish.... can't wait to see what they look like either.

I so wish I could keep roos.

... and I'm off to work.

 

[silkymom1986]

I had 15 of mine hatch, 7 Welsummer chicks and 8 RIR chicks, they all were hatched from my R-com, I am retiring the LG, none of my silkie eggs hatched that I had in there, my humidity got really high in the beginning of lockdown and I think that's why. Haven't got any pics yet, lots of stuff going on Easter weekend!

 

[coldupnorth]

I'm still hatching! They started Friday and I have another pip this morning. I did set on both Saturday night and Sunday afternoon....so I have some late ones. Pictures when I'm all done! Hopefully by tomorrow, because I have eggs coming in this week.

 

[mlm Mike]

Well I have 5 little ducklings, and have 5 or 6 more with pips.

 

[tbitt]

Mine were also set a bit later, so I am still playing the waiting game.... Wish me luck

 

[Farmerboy16]

I got 9 chicks and 10 more have pipped!! e

Sorry about your hatch Java girl 2. Like others said try, try, try again!!

 

[Sphinx]

I also set late, so mine aren't even due until tomorrow.

No pips when I checked yet this morning, which is good because I have to transport them back to school today. I'd hoped to meet up with the director and put them back at the school for lockdown, but instead, I'm having to transport them during lockdown.

I'd love to get your opinions on the best way to do this. Incubator is a Brinsea Mini Advance. No pips as of yet, and I'll leave within 1.5 hours. Drive to school is about 10-15 minutes.


Option 1- just bring them in the incubator. Wrap incubator in a blanket, and hope the eggs don't roll around in there too much.

Option 2- Put eggs in a carton, wrap carton in blanket, then drive to school. They won't get jostled as much, but they will be out of the incubator for 15-20 minutes.


What would you do?

 

[ChooksChick]

Quote:

Some may believe old eggs are okay to hatch, but I don't. As the experts say, in many old and new published articles, after 10 days it is a gamble. I don't generally even attempt to incubate eggs over a week old. The fresher the better, in my opinion.

You are exactly right, and to prove it, the majority of the eggs that hatched were yours! I got 7 out of your eggs, and 2 of them are very weak but trying...the low temps just kicked everyone's bum. I had no idea it was dropping so low at night. I'm very determined to get that fixed, pronto!

I have Wellies, Turkeys and Geese that won't all rit in the rcom, no matter how I stack, so LG it is for some of them...until I get this thing fixed.

NOTE TO SELF: Do not send all fresh eggs to others prior to Holiday Hatchalongs.

I have 3 incubators and 5 broody Chanteclers - I WANT EGGS!

Chanteclers are worse than Silkies, but you can fit 3 times as many eggs under them, too!!

Well I have 14 chicks out of 24 eggs set. I don't think that is all that bad for a first timer! We helped 3 out of the egg. ! of those probably did not need the help, the other 2 would have died without our help. They had pipped and zipped but could not kick out of the egg. Upon picking up the egg I found out they were stuck to the paper towel from the goo that had leaked out and dried. One of them had to be washed with warm water because it had the membrane stuck to it's entire back side. All chicks that hatched are doing great! I had 2 that pipped and my guess is they drown in their own fluids. I think what happened was they were set with the wrong end up. Those eggs were from my largest and oldest Americauna. Her eggs are extra large and oval shaped such that you can't tell which is the pointed end. The chicks in those eggs were fully developed and had pipped right in the very center of the egg. I am also disapointed that out of 8 BCMs only 2 hatched. Tonight will mark day 23 for me. I wonder if there is any hope for those eggs? I am planning on leaving them in the incubator until day 25. At that point I am shutting it down and doing an eggtopsy on them to see what happened. Now for the next set of problems......my wife wants to keep every one of theose chicks! I only have room to keep 5 more in my main coup. I have a secondary breeding/grow out coup, but it was never meant to keep chickens during the winter and would only hold 4 anyway. To compound that porblem even further I want to incubate at least one more batch. How do I curb my wifes yearning to keep every little fuzzy butt???

Good job! Build more coops.

Me, too.

This is the first time I've woken up to a chick dead in the brooder. I had a good cry about it, and now I need to figure out what to do with my very crippled little chick. I may have to lose them both.

Do you keep an incubation log? I find it helpful to write down the temperature and humidity a few times a day, when I added water, when I candled, etc. Then, when something goes wrong - or right - I can look back and theorize what caused it.

Have you had better luck in the past incubating with higher humidity?

Very glad to hear it. One more Euskal Oiloa in the world!

I am going to sit around for a bit and then go clean out my incubators. I'll get my eggs today if tracking info is right. I wish it was later in the week, but no way I am saying no to German New Hampshires!

Now that I may have the opportunity to have both Euskal Oiloak / Basque Hens and German New Hampshires,

I need to sell pretty much everybody else late this summer. Unfortunately, despite MONTHS of adjustments to try and quelch this, someone in my coop - or several someones - is feather-picking. They have a huge amount of space, free range 4+ hours a day, and eat a ton of high-protein and fiber stuff, but the habit remains. So, 4 girls are missing beards and my rooster is missing neck feathers. They look terrible and it is very embarrassing. I trimmed the very tip of one guilty hen's beak, tried separations, and so on. I don't want to use pinless peepers. Has anyone made a foul-tasting goo to smear on the picked parts? Any other ideas?

It's fairly common for these birds- it's different from feather-picking, and is some form of grooming ritual. I didn't get it fixed until I made 10" individual roosts all over my coop. They do it at bedtime. I didn't make those roost for that reason, but it was what clued me in. I ignore the de-bearding now.

 

[jbowyer01]

Uhg!! I had a horrible hatch!! I had set thirty nine eggs. I had five hatch out with no problem. Then it goes down hill. I had several pips but had to leave the house for an easter dinner and was gone for most of the day. Came back and my hygrometer was not reading correctly. I actually had very little humidity. Yep you guessed it, they were shrink wrapped. I was up all night trying to salvage some of my hatch. The total count at this moment is as follows.

1 Maran hatched on its own and is healthy
4 Sussex mix hatched on their own and are healthy
2 OEGB's that had pipped but shrink wrapped are now out and seem to be doing really well
1 OEGB that I am pretty sure will be a failure to thrive because of the shrink wrapping
1 Maran still in the bator out of the shell and trying to make it (assisted with breaking the membrane)
1 Sussex mix out of the egg with assistance and trying to make it
1 Sussex mix half out the egg and membrane still be kept moist (trying to let all the blood vessels dry up
1 EE mix half out the egg and membrane still be kept moist (trying to let all the blood vessels dry up
4 turkey eggs that I am slowly removing shell and membrane (membrane is removed from around their faces and every hour and half the membrane remoistened.

That is all that so far have survived. I usually dont assist with the hatch. I feel that they need to do it on their own but we we're at hatch date and I knew that the issues were from the humidity failure. The losses that I did have were from the shrink wrap issue.

I still have 15 eggs onder three broodies so hopefully moma can do a better job than I can. *sigh*

 

[debs_flock]

Round two has started.

Saturday I locked down 11 lakenvelder eggs that are due tomorrow. Last night I could hear a chick peeping in it's shell. This morning I got up to a wet, newly hatched chick and two more pips. Unfortunately this is my work week, so I will miss watching the cute new little fuzzies. I guess I'll have to content myself with the 32 that arrived this weekend.

Deb