ohhhhh how exciting!!! good luck!!!I have 1 pekin duck egg on lockdown dye to hatch tomorrow im a nervous wrecklol
My comment is that broodies are so much easier than incubators! My broody hatched 4/5 eggs last Monday... My only guess as to why the 5th egg didn't hatch was because I kept messing with them! Lol All 4 of her chicks are doing great... Here they are looking for worms yesterday...
Quote:cONGRATS!!
Awesome!!! good luck with them!!! ten hens!!
Quote: CHECK THIS OUT!!
MARKING AIR CELLS DAY 18
Candle day 18 is to determine growth, weigh, pencil mark air cell size and dispose bad eggs. It will look pretty dark and FULL in there! You may or may not see movement on this candle. Its ok if not, don’t panic! The chick may easily be resting! The embryo now occupies most of space within the egg, but NOT the air cell, the beak is against the inner shell membrane and ready to pierce it.
See how that air cell is beginning to dip more to one side and if you lay the egg down it will roll into the hatching position. I set my eggs with lowest dip in the aircell up. This position for hatching is good so the chick is able to turn into position and I can easily see my pips too! Setting eggs horizontal in the hatcher actually can aid a chick to hatch 1-2 hours earlier. (HOWEVER, shipped eggs that have had loose air cells or saddle air cells, should be hatched upright but tilted just enough so that the lowest dip is somewhat upright, so if they have fluid in the air cell it may prevent drowning).
AGAIN, I lay my eggs down LOWEST DIP of the AIR CELL UP! see below images, this is the normal and most likely hatching position and the chick will break through or Internally pip and externally pip in that probable area. See the image below with the x, x being lowest dip in air cell and probably pip area/s.
Chick normal hatching position, Where to place your X, Example of chick position/beak in shell
before internal pip drawing below: image below:
drawing below:
GOOD LOOKING MARKED AIR CELLS and SIZE: images below
WHY LAY HATCHING EGGS HORIZONTAL TOUCHING:
It is now known that the different embryos communicate with each other by a series of clicking sounds, the rate of clicking being the important feature. Ensuring the eggs on the hatching eggs are in contact with each other facilitates the synchronization of hatching where the eggs are incubated in a modern machine. This assists in reducing the time between when the first and last chicks hatch.
DRAW DOWN
BELOW IMAGES & DRAWINGS: Although air cells begin to take this dip/shift appearance slowly throughout the incubation due to weight loss, there is still a big DRAW DOWN just before internal pipping (IP) and you may or may not see this at day 18 candle! DRAW DOWN is when the embryo tucks and pip into the air cell, sometimes during you can see in the high part inside the back they pop up inside as well! good sign!!!
Video of candle below will show DRAW DOWN AND INTERNAL PIP!
THE INTERNAL PIP
Toward the end of standard chicken egg incubation, at approximately day 19, the embryo pierces the air sac membrane with its beak, this is called INTERNAL PIP/PIPPING or (IP) and then has a rest period which could be up to an 24 hour gap before EXTERNAL PIPPING (EP) where the chick pips a crack/rupture in the OUTER SHELL. (Dawes, 1981; Burton and Tullett, 1985),
THE EXTERNAL PIP
The external pip or crack will appear on the 20th Day on the outer shell. AFTER the embryo internally pipped the air sac and became a chick and breathed in air by piercing the air cell, it will rest again which could be up to an 24 hour gap before the final less that hour ZIP/ZIPPING to hatch out of the shell.
EXTERNAL PIP IMAGES will SLOWLY get larger during the rest stage!
Chart estimate times from pip to chickI took this piece off and she pushed right out
"THE OTHER ONE too, with the arrow below, if its chirping like mad you may have to check it out. it looks funny for just a pip!"
Its out! the second one without my help thank tha lord!
SOMETIMES these chicks will need extra extra care,
and may have LEG FEET ISSUES!
ORTHOPEDIC links:
Poultry Podiatry Treatments for Leg Problems in Chickens & other Poultry
https://sites.google.com/a/poultrypedia.com/poultrypedia/poultry-podiatry
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/879233/slipped-tendon-in-chick-anyone-ever-try-to-fix-this-experiences
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/978353/rooster-chick-with-weird-leg
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1790586/
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/1051/leg-health-in-large-broilers/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/941270/slipped-tendon-that-turned-to-twisted-tibia-my-treatment
Chick has deformed foot and straight leg post #27696
DUCKS can have Spraddle leg too! post #15184 post #15355
CURLY TOES post #4642 post #4646 post #4690
helpful NOTES, LINKS &
Informational Post Links from this entire thread
for EVERYONE'S convenience and will continue to put them HERE:
Sadly enough it dropped below zero last night and my hen abandoned the nest. Anyone able to point me in the direction of a good incubator.... these eggs are done for.... but I hope the next batch make it
This is a good incubator. I use it as a hatcher now but it was my main incubator before I got my cabinet. It's not overly expensive, holds plenty of eggs and is very stable. 
