March 2022 Hatch-A-Long

[LadiesAndJane]

If you guys have an incubator that offers a cooling period- do you all use that?

One of my incubators has that option, but I actually have never used it.

 

[LAYAM]

Maybe later this year, when I really don't need to, when I really really shouldn't ... cause the coop is almost filled to capacity ... I'll set a bunch of eggs and see if that cooling feature is all its made out to be, unless ... one y'all wants to throw a bunch of eggs under the bus and see what comes out on the other side!? ... There's always room for ooooone more Chicken

(Just told hubby that maybe we should set some eggs later on in the year to try out that cooling feature and his eyes got real big )

I guess Waterfowl is suppose to benefit from the feature but I seem to always have some chicken eggs in there, add to that the staggered hatch and ... nope, ain't never used that feature yet!

 

[kurby22]

Just candled my eggs!

Of the 8 Polish eggs, I see good promise in 7. Definitely one egg that quit. The other 14 that were shipped don’t look as promising. I definitely see development in 5 (4 d’Uccles and the Cochin) and iffy shadows in another 2. Several look like they either quit early (2 with obvious blood rings) or had detached air cells. It’s only day 8 for the 14 shipped eggs so I will candle again in a couple more days and get a for sure count of yays and nays…

I always get so nervous for this part! I’m trying to learn from previous errors and keeping the humidity between 30 and 40% as a max level. I believe some of my past quail hatching failures have been inabilities to draw down enough to have no excess moisture before lockdown. I was really hoping more d’Uccles would develop oh well!! More excuses to hatch more

 

[Fatimetta]

Just candled my eggs!

Of the 8 Polish eggs, I see good promise in 7. Definitely one egg that quit. The other 14 that were shipped don’t look as promising. I definitely see development in 5 (4 d’Uccles and the Cochin) and iffy shadows in another 2. Several look like they either quit early (2 with obvious blood rings) or had detached air cells. It’s only day 8 for the 14 shipped eggs so I will candle again in a couple more days and get a for sure count of yays and nays…

I always get so nervous for this part! I’m trying to learn from previous errors and keeping the humidity between 30 and 40% as a max level. I believe some of my past quail hatching failures have been inabilities to draw down enough to have no excess moisture before lockdown. I was really hoping more d’Uccles would develop oh well!! More excuses to hatch more

Same for me! I always worry my temps/humidity are off and overthink it. This time I'm just trying to let my incubator do it's thing and leave it alone other than adding water into the little pot it has lol. It's only my second hatch and the first didn't go great sooo

 

[Kholts]

Just candled my eggs!

Of the 8 Polish eggs, I see good promise in 7. Definitely one egg that quit. The other 14 that were shipped don’t look as promising. I definitely see development in 5 (4 d’Uccles and the Cochin) and iffy shadows in another 2. Several look like they either quit early (2 with obvious blood rings) or had detached air cells. It’s only day 8 for the 14 shipped eggs so I will candle again in a couple more days and get a for sure count of yays and nays…

I always get so nervous for this part! I’m trying to learn from previous errors and keeping the humidity between 30 and 40% as a max level. I believe some of my past quail hatching failures have been inabilities to draw down enough to have no excess moisture before lockdown. I was really hoping more d’Uccles would develop oh well!! More excuses to hatch more

I’m struggling this year with humidity levels in the incubator I always use.

The last 2 years I had no problems. I realized today that i am hatching in a different room & in the basement of my house (before i was hatching upstairs).
My basement is dryer & the temp fluctuates more. So just a thought is to try in a different room. You never know.

 

[3KillerBs]

My basement is dryer & the temp fluctuates more. So just a thought is to try in a different room. You never know.

Interesting point.

After realizing that I couldn't meet the conditions the manual and the books called for I ended up choosing the most environmentally-stable room in the house for my incubator.

 

[kurby22]

I’m struggling this year with humidity levels in the incubator I always use.

The last 2 years I had no problems. I realized today that i am hatching in a different room & in the basement of my house (before i was hatching upstairs).
My basement is dryer & the temp fluctuates more. So just a thought is to try in a different room. You never know.

That is a great suggestion! I actually wrapped the incubator with a towel and it has helped a lot. I don't have a lot of options for places to put it because of dogs, cats, and children who can't leave things alone So I tried to make the room work instead. It has helped keep the humidity more steady between 30 and 40 and the temps seem to be pretty stable.

 

[3KillerBs]

That is a great suggestion! I actually wrapped the incubator with a towel and it has helped a lot. I don't have a lot of options for places to put it because of dogs, cats, and children who can't leave things alone So I tried to make the room work instead. It has helped keep the humidity more steady between 30 and 40 and the temps seem to be pretty stable.

This is what I did to protect my incubator from cats and random drafts:

It has plenty of fresh air available, but is buffered against drafts when the doors in various rooms are opened.

 

[abpatchy]

I set 96 eggs from my 4 breeding groups. All wheaten Sulmtaler. Let's see how many will develope. My rooster from the blue group had to be exchanged as he had 0% fertility in my February hatch (which happens to be in about a week). So there might be a lot of non fertile eggs there.
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I forgot to give an update. I had set 96 eggs. My blue group rooster still did zero fertility. . I had exchanged him after the February hatch showed no fertile eggs by him. But I had already collected eggs. So I just set them thinking it might have been a little early in the year. So I had to take out quite an amount of eggs again. The new rooster did get some fertile eggs in there.
I ended up with 61 fertile eggs when I candled on Saturday. I will put them in lockdown in a week for March 7th/March 8th hatch.

 

[kurby22]

This is what I did to protect my incubator from cats and random drafts:

View attachment 3003592View attachment 3003593View attachment 3003594

It has plenty of fresh air available, but is buffered against drafts when the doors in various rooms are opened.

That is a beautiful fortress you have created! You clearly understand my issues with naughty housemates! That should work great!