4th Annual BYC NYD Hatch-a-long

[Hurley]

Well, our last egg died today. Not sure why, it was moving and kicking right before lockdown.

We are a very depressed house right now. This was our third dozen in three months, with zero success, we just dont have the heart to try again.

Glad to see all the other hatched chick pics. Thanks for all the help, advice, and support.

Were these shipped eggs, fresh eggs? Do you know they were fertile (other than this one)?
What kind of incubation setup do you have?

Sure hate to see you give up and sorry to hear about the rough hatches. My first few were dismal hatches as well. It's taken me some time to get a good system going, but I'm glad I kept trying.

If you are anywhere nearby, I'd be happy to give you more eggs to try that I know are fertile and have been hatching well.

 

[Hurley]

My next little set of eggs was put in on Dec. 15th. Was just filling the water reservoirs and checking things over before "lockdown" when I heard a little "Peep!" Looked again, there's a little pip. Misted down the incubator and locked'er down. More chicklets!

 

[chiqita]

So I went to dump the eggs from the bator...and found that I had 2 pips....and they've been cheeping! So maybe not out so much...

Yay! Late girls ftw.

I'm sorry. 

sad day I send you hugs.

So an update on my little chick that wasn't standing... It took like, five hours after it hatched, and I had been dipping her beak into brown sugar water to help her perk up.... she's up and walking around, and then laying down and sleeping... not strong enough to be in the brooder yet, but I'm crossing my fingers for the little girl  

Fingers and toes crossed. Hatching is a tough business. Sometimes yo need a few days off afterwards.

 

[Hurley]

http://www.poultryscience.org/ps/paperpdfs/01/ps01219.pdf Thought I would share, just read an interesting article discussing factors affecting success of hatching Muscovy eggs. Good discussion on egg metabolism variances during incubation.

 

[ronott1]

OK here is my Modern Chicks pix (....chicks on an Eames chair....)

and I have one more that just pipped!

That is a great picture!

Come up with a caption and save it for next year calendar contest!

 

[gabrielle1976]

I need all you top rate hatchers to help me out here I have set shipped eggs befor and had not so great luck with them but then again I was useing LG bators so Now that I have my brinsea and it seems to be working well my last hatch was
1/2 cot
9/9 button
5/8 serama but these were all my own eggs.
I am getting some orp eggs should be here in the mail tammrow and Im gonna set them Saterday morning I think to give them time to settle . anyone have any other pointers ?
Does shipping change the humidity requirements of eggs?

 

[TMNfarm]

I had to move my Weeble back into the bator... Her brooder-mates have no respect for her disablilty. They were climbing all over her, and she seemed tired and weaker. Hoefully, she'll be ok in the bator in her littel box all by herself. Maybe in a day or two, she'll be strong enough to go back in with the others.

 

[hapjr]

My big one hatched about a half an hr. ago.  It's black, with white on it's head, and white on each side of it's behind..I think..will see better when dried.  I know for sure that white on the head is there..now to stay?  I'm trying to remember if he has a barred rock hen!   The friend I got the eggs from that is.

well with mine the roosters are a dominker and golden buff orpington. The hens are as follows:
Barred rock
Golden buffs
Buff orpinton
rir
Silver laced wyndottes.
Columbian wyandotte.
And i think its called a hamburg

 

[ronott1]

I need all you top rate hatchers to help me out here I have set shipped eggs befor and had not so great luck with them but then again I was useing LG bators so Now that I have my brinsea and it seems to be working well my last hatch was
1/2 cot
9/9 button
5/8 serama but these were all my own eggs.
I am getting some orp eggs should be here in the mail tammrow and Im gonna set them Saterday morning I think to give them time to settle . anyone have any other pointers ?
Does shipping change the humidity requirements of eggs?

This is in my hatching tips now:

Pre-warming hatching eggs does not need to be fast at all. As a matter of fact, the main reason you would pre-warm eggs is if they are going into an incubator that already contains other eggs. Again, you are just trying to prevent the OTHER eggs from damage or stress due to the possible cooling of the incubator when the new eggs that are cool are added. So, there really is not a benefit to the eggs being pre-warmed themselves. Think of the actual embryo, all it knows is that it's temperature is gradually increasing which increases cellular growth and development. There is an incubation time period of 21 days or 504 hours (this can vary several hours for different breeds or strains) so pre-warming counts as development. If some eggs pre-warm longer than others they may hatch at slightly different times. So, How pre-warming happens is not important as long as the pre-warming occurs for all eggs to be set uniformly...

Shipped eggs are already old, so you need to put them into the incubator as soon as they reach room temp.

I candle them to see how bad the air cell is. Depending on the damage, they will sit big end straight up in the incubator for up to 5 days before I turn on the egg turner. This lets the embryo to re integrate itself form all the shaking and pressure changes in shipping.

Check my signature line for a lot of tips and hours of reading. The pre-warming stuff is new to me.

 

[hapjr]

My chicks are still wet some more dry than others. But they hardly open their eyes at all is this normal?