2021:1st Chicken Hatch

[Kholts]

Got a new Incubator. A little Giant with the egg turner: not my 1st choice but there is not a whole lot readily available in my area.

I decided to do a hatch test with chicken eggs before I start my duck eggs. I am currently still waiting for my ducks to start laying again & then I’ll have to wait until I know they are fertilized soooo I’m months out yet.

The eggs I got are full of colors.

The hens are crested cream legbar, ameraucana, sapphire and icbar. Roo is a laced Wyandotte. I am super interested to see what colors of chicks I get & how many lol.

My incubator has been running for a couple days with the turner. I also calibrated my thermometer & hygrometer that’s inside. I’ll be candeling to mark air cells & check for imperfections tonight & setting them.

Wish me luck!

I’ll update on day 7 with progress pictures!

 

[PioneerChicks]

Welcome to the world of hatching! I should warn you though, it is very addicting and once you start you can never stop. This is where chicken multiplication comes in

Anyways, good luck and have fun!

 

[Kholts]

Welcome to the world of hatching! I should warn you though, it is very addicting and once you start you can never stop. This is where chicken multiplication comes in

Anyways, good luck and have fun!

I hatched quail last year. It was a horrible hatch with a borrowed incubator. 3 hatched of 18

I’m more hopeful this time around haha

 

[Birdie mom]

I hatched quail last year. It was a horrible hatch with a borrowed incubator. 3 hatched of 18

I’m more hopeful this time around haha

Don't worry, I've hatched worse. 44 eggs- 4 chickens-3 died- and the one that lived was a really aggressive rooster

 

[Kholts]

Don't worry, I've hatched worse. 44 eggs- 4 chickens-3 died- and the one that lived was a really aggressive rooster

What a horrible & unfortunate situation. Comical though lol

 

[Kholts]

Things happen sometimes, especially when conditions are a little off. I had the first duckling from a batch of shipped eggs last year that internally pipped, externally pipped, and then killed itself by turning and blocking its pip instead of zipping.
As you said, this was your troubleshooting hatch so now you know the areas you need to stabilize. I’m glad you got one little peep out of it anyways. do you have any way to obtain a friend or 2 for it?

This is the live baby. I originally though Crested Creme legbar egg but now I’m thinking EE. I see cheeks I’m pretty sure.


I’m already on finding friends. The poor things chirping away. I’ve been cuddling it periodically but I don’t want a chicken that doesn’t know how to chicken if you know what I mean.

So far I have found week old Plymouth Barr’s but they are a drive away. Hoping to have someone answer my ad a little closer.

 

[ChloeSilkie08]

Following! I have a hatch-a-long going on right now as well! Almost on day 10!

 

[AusHen]

I find some of my blue eggs light up as easily as white/cream eggs and others are as hard to candle (if not harder) than my darkest browns. With the darker blues I can eventually can make out the air cell as it expands and try and use that as a guide but for the most part they are a wait and see.

Good luck with your hatch!

 

[NatJ]

ALOT of the eggs looked like this:

Are these early quitters?

I'm not that good at candling, but I found it helpful to candle some not-incubated eggs for comparison. If I just grab eggs from the fridge, I KNOW they have no chicks inside.

When I had some eggs I thought might not be fertile, I gave them a few extra days and candled again. Then I cracked one into a bowl and looked at it--with no shell, I could easily see that there was no development at all. I cracked each egg and looked inside before discarding them. If I had found a chick, it would have been too late for that chick, but I would have been able to put the other eggs back under the hen to continue incubating. In my case, all the eggs were infertile, but I did not have enough experience to trust what I thought I was seeing. (My eggs had been incubated for about 10 days by the time I cracked one, and it did NOT stink. I cooked the cracked eggs and fed them to the chickens, because they looked & smelled fine.)

So if no-one is able to tell from your photos, you could crack one of the probably-not-developing eggs and see what's really inside.

 

[Kholts]

Well only ended up with 1 chick. I opened the other egg this morning as I realized there actually was no pip. It didn’t even internally pip. Looks like it does before it even got into position.