xXxSharonxXx
Hatching
- May 26, 2020
- 3
- 6
- 8
I did a dry hatch and I am so excited to share that our home made incubator had a 100% hatch rate! 5/5 hatched healthy and strong. Just wanted to share some encouragement that would have helped me when I hit some road bumps (I hit a LOT lol).
1. I candled every day until day 15-16 when I found out that you shouldn’t. It is risky, but if you just found out, they may still be perfectly fine!! Through this excessive candling, I learned that they start moving as soon as day 7-8 doing little half circle movements.
2. All my eggs reached 104F or were cold to the touch at some point for several hours (I work 8-5) and I thought I had lost them all. They all survived!
3. I did not see development until day 3 for my 3 newer eggs, yet they still hatched exactly 21 days from the day they entered the incubator (regardless of some of them unfortunately staying cold for a whole day). So stick to the calendar!
4. After they pip, they take a LONGGGG nap. I mean sometimes a 24 hour nap. Sometimes longer. There might not be movement that you can see the entire time! I seriously thought two of them were dead at some point. But once they wake up, boy do they wake up and get out of that egg quick. All of them within 30-40 mins of waking up.
5. My humidity started at 30% on day 18 before I learned that it needs to be at least 60-65% during lock down. Then, it wouldn’t go past 55% until day 20.5 lol. I also learned that you’re not supposed to touch or move eggs during lockdown. I broke all these rules but eventually followed them when I realized what I did wrong. All the eggs still hatched perfectly fine regardless of my mistakes. No one got stuck. No one struggled. Don’t lose hope!
6. 2 chicks were 2 days old when I put 2 other newly hatched chicks with them. They were fine, and did not hurt each other, BUT always keep an eye on them if you’re going to put them together that soon. One newly hatched chick flipped on its back from imbalance and the other two saw the red belly and tried to peck. I was there and flipped her back over and they were all fine. I stayed there until they gained their balance to a reasonable degree.
The only issue I had was that the last egg, which took the longest between pip to hatch, had a little blood pooled at the bottom of the egg. She may have hatched too quickly, when I thought it was too long. She had some yolk stuck to where she should have closed up. I kept her separate for several hours till she closed up and was dry. She did well with the other older chicks. They are stronger than you think!
1. I candled every day until day 15-16 when I found out that you shouldn’t. It is risky, but if you just found out, they may still be perfectly fine!! Through this excessive candling, I learned that they start moving as soon as day 7-8 doing little half circle movements.
2. All my eggs reached 104F or were cold to the touch at some point for several hours (I work 8-5) and I thought I had lost them all. They all survived!
3. I did not see development until day 3 for my 3 newer eggs, yet they still hatched exactly 21 days from the day they entered the incubator (regardless of some of them unfortunately staying cold for a whole day). So stick to the calendar!
4. After they pip, they take a LONGGGG nap. I mean sometimes a 24 hour nap. Sometimes longer. There might not be movement that you can see the entire time! I seriously thought two of them were dead at some point. But once they wake up, boy do they wake up and get out of that egg quick. All of them within 30-40 mins of waking up.
5. My humidity started at 30% on day 18 before I learned that it needs to be at least 60-65% during lock down. Then, it wouldn’t go past 55% until day 20.5 lol. I also learned that you’re not supposed to touch or move eggs during lockdown. I broke all these rules but eventually followed them when I realized what I did wrong. All the eggs still hatched perfectly fine regardless of my mistakes. No one got stuck. No one struggled. Don’t lose hope!
6. 2 chicks were 2 days old when I put 2 other newly hatched chicks with them. They were fine, and did not hurt each other, BUT always keep an eye on them if you’re going to put them together that soon. One newly hatched chick flipped on its back from imbalance and the other two saw the red belly and tried to peck. I was there and flipped her back over and they were all fine. I stayed there until they gained their balance to a reasonable degree.
The only issue I had was that the last egg, which took the longest between pip to hatch, had a little blood pooled at the bottom of the egg. She may have hatched too quickly, when I thought it was too long. She had some yolk stuck to where she should have closed up. I kept her separate for several hours till she closed up and was dry. She did well with the other older chicks. They are stronger than you think!
