4th Annual BYC NYD Hatch-a-long

It looks like I have some catching up to do. The boss was in so I couldn't follow along.

I had a duh moment 3 weeks ago. I was sick of looking at my almost empty incubator so I set 150 eggs, many of which were over 2 weeks old. Well, I put 107 in the hatching trays last night. Even if half of them hatch, what will I do with all those chicks? Nobody buys chicks here in the winter.
 
Mahonri,
Thanks for posting the pics. :)
I'm on a waiting list for some Icelandic chicks May 2013 & I'm really excited about it already.
FeyRaine
 
It looks like I have some catching up to do. The boss was in so I couldn't follow along.
I had a duh moment 3 weeks ago. I was sick of looking at my almost empty incubator so I set 150 eggs, many of which were over 2 weeks old. Well, I put 107 in the hatching trays last night. Even if half of them hatch, what will I do with all those chicks? Nobody buys chicks here in the winter.
What breeds?
 
Quote: Yeah, What breeds?
caf.gif
 
Don't hate me, but I'm going to post in this thread even though my eggs should be hatching tomorrow, not Jan 1. I just see a lot of activity here and I need some advice pronto. Not trying to spam, I just wanna save these babies.

I had 3 fully formed silkies die in shell this morning. (one pipped 3 days late and unzipped halfway then died, the other 2 didn't even pip internally, but they did absorb their yolk sacs). I've been reading reading reading. I'm pretty sure my temperature is OK. I've now learned that my eggs' air cells look way too small, so my humidity must have been too high this whole time! I've had it at 60%ish all through incubation. The air cells look like they should at day 7, whoa! There are fully formed embryos wiggling around in there.

So..... what can I do? Are they doomed? I removed the water. Now the humidity is at around 30%. Should I decrease humidity gradually, or all at once? Will a sudden drop in humidity hurt them? How can I assist them with moisture loss without hurting them?

Is the danger of "shrink-wrapping" the babies only after they've pipped?

I have a little computer fan in there, should I turn it off? Or maybe keep it on but turn it off during pipping?

I'm going crazy over here, somebody please tell me what to do, or tell me who I can ask or what I can read. These aren't particularly valuable chicks, I just hate for them to develop fully and just die when they're so close to making it. Poor little guys.

I'm sorry I hijacked the hatch-a-long thread...
 
What do the veins look like? Are they still at the point that they haven't internally pipped? I'm an interfering brat, so typically, if someone's having issues, the veins are absorbed, and they're internally pipped and late hatching, I'll start the pipping for them. I've had great success with this and have only lost a few this way (maybe five total in all of the years of hatching and at least 100 that I've helped. Sometimes, if they're very late, they'll have curly toes and might not be able to get back on their feet because they started to develop while crunched up in the egg. :/


On another note, who knows about Easter? We celebrate it with a family feast, but I'm not particularly religious, and always thought that it was a specific Sunday in April (like the second or third or something), but looked it up and apparently it's March 31st this year? Can someone enlighten me to the "rules" of when Easter comes?
 

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