27th or 28th May hatch, looking for buddies

[Lightfoote]

I really do not like "losing" an egg, but the reality is that this egg was probably never fertile, and thus never viable. It began to sour inside, and outwardly evince the scent of bacterial degradation because of the prolonged exposure to low/medium heat.

In a strange way this is encouraging to me, because it is the only egg of 15 to manifest such an odor after 15 to 16 days being set. This does not uniformly guarantee that all 14 other eggs will make it successfully to the point of hatching healthy chicks, each and every one, but it seems to suggest (pragmatically speaking) that, on balance, they have a somewhat better opportunity with each of the next 4 passing days.

I still do not expect that the healthy hatch rate of those remaining (14) will be 100%, that might be a fool's hope at worst and unreasonable at best, but I am wanting at least 50%, and thinking I can get it...

Time will tell - speaking of which, it is time to turn my Ameraucanas.

Lightfoote

"Thy word, O Lord, is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

 

[kraftyladies]

My eggs went on lock down this morning. Count down has begun! I am so excited.....an very nervous being this is my first hatch.

Wishing everyone much success and cant wait to see all the pics of the new fuzzy butts!

 

[MSH]

I have an egg chirping !!!! I'm eggstactic lol hope everyone else is doing great ! I can't sit still lol I keep looking in waiting to see something

 

[fobpatdgurl18]

I'm suppose to lockdown tonight. Today is day 18 for me! Woohoo! But a few hours ago our power went out! Temp went down to 88 and my boyfriend took his battery (yellowtop altima) out of his Jeep and used a power inverter with jumper cables to power everything to plug my incubator into. Worked pretty good got the temp up to 95-96 degrees. Which I figured wasn't optimal but better chances than it being at 88 and dropping. I am still planning on locking down tonight. I sure hope this little mishap doesn't affect my eggs. The power was only off for maybe 2 hours! I don't think it can hurt them that bad but this is my first attempt at hatching eggs ever. I can't wait!

 

[Lightfoote]

Since we're all headed for "lockdown" in the next 24 to 48 hours, I thought I would present some of the most recent pics of my "mega-bator"...

I've used satin nickel finish window sash type latches (they match the finish on my overlay hinges, and custom cut-to-fit mounting blocks to set them at just the right height off of the cabinet face to help them compress firmly into the weatherstripping, creating a tight seal all the way around the cabinet doors, and I utilized some of my leftover reflectix material, cut to size to lay over the viewing windows in the top to further mitigate/eliminate heat loss.

Inside the chamber on the left side floor, is a small pyrex-type casserole dish to hold water for humidity. To create the humidity more readily, I have placed the casserole dish atop the heating pad, and when I refill it, I add water that is in-between warm and hot.

For monitoring the temperature, I am using a long stem composting thermometer (though the thermostat control on the waterbed heating pad has a maximum setting of 100 degrees F. - how swell is that?!)

Lightfoote

 

[Lightfoote]

Thermo, "humidifier", and my second clutch of eggs - a mix of Australorps, Delawares, and French BCMs just set last Saturday afternoon, with a target hatch date of June 11th or 12th...

Lightfoote

 

[Tala]

Quote:
Okay - I have to ask (newbie question) - what is an "R-COM"? I presume by context that it is an incubator, but I am not familiar with the make...

I'd never heard of it until I won one on here, but I'm pretty incubator-experience limited I suppose you could say. It's a brand name is all it is. I have the mini-3 one http://www.rcomincubators.com/shop-online

ETA: Pic from my first hatch in it (100% all 3 hatched beautifully!) second hatch 2/3 hatched and both are cockerels -dangit!, this will be my third hatch in it

 

[Mrs.brown]

Congrats all of you! My eggs got toasted! the temppreture went up to 117!

 

[youngjedi32002]

Mrs.brown :

Congrats all of you! My eggs got toasted! the temppreture went up to 117!

Aw, geez, I am sorry about that! My eggs almost got toasted but I think we caught it in time! My husband looked over at the incubator about an hour after I had checked it and said, "Is it supposed to be 104?" I ran over and opened it up, aired it out and uncovered some airholes that I had made for just this purpose! I think we got it in time. It has been on the high end since then but I think I didn't take the warmth of the growing eggs into account! Now, I just check it more often and I have found that putting a pencil in the cover to prop it just slightly works perfectly and keeps the temp at 100. I think today, I am going to go in and uncover some of the lower holes and perhaps put a piece of foil over the bulb to deflect heat downward. The eggs are up above. When lockdown comes, I don't want to be worried about spiking temps!!!​

 

[giggleboxfarm]

Man, I've got chickens on the brain. My 20+ are due tomorrow and last night I dreamt I was doing an eggtopsy. They were hard-boiled like. I overcooked them all. So now I'm feeling especially paranoid. These are my first with an incubator.