5th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2014 Hatch-A-Long

[Whoops]

Wow, this thread is hard to keep up with!

So sorry about the rooster and the dropped eggs. At least they were fertile. Congratulations on the new 'bator!

I just received notice that my eggs I ordered were shipped out today! Hope they arrive in good order and make me some cute little blue marans

 

[bantambury]

Yayyy!!! Fresh egg!!! Just checked!!! So now we have that egg and two others from the fridge laid on the 3rd and 4th....now todays!!! We may try 7 eggs, getting some from my breeder...2 americunas and 1 tophat!!!

We are going to look over the contest rules once more tonight to verify with each other before joining!!!

 

[ronott1]

Just received my tracking num for my eggs YAY! They got shipped out today I should receive them on the 7th.

I hope the make it ok too!

Wow, this thread is hard to keep up with!

So sorry about the rooster and the dropped eggs. At least they were fertile. Congratulations on the new 'bator!

I just received notice that my eggs I ordered were shipped out today! Hope they arrive in good order and make me some cute little blue marans

wait until next wee; then you will see busy....

 

[fosterson]

Grr. Today is NOT my day.


Got a new thermometer - LG is running at 110! YIKES!

Went to check on the water for the chooks and my roo's comb has frostbite! UGH. Poor guy. I'm guessing the wind did the deed. :/

And I dropped some of the eggs I wanted to hatch. At least they were fertile?

 

[faerieannette]

How to you guys recommend cleaning and sanitizing incubators? My incubator is homemade out of Styrofoam cooler light bulb and fan. I put bricks in it and packed it in with new sand from home depot. over top of the bricks and sand i placed a piece of slate then covered it with hardware cloth. The bricks and sand work very well to keep the temperature in the incubator stable but i wonder how to clean everything? i suppose i could bleach the bricks and slate and toss the sand. Nothing appears dirty its just that with that humid environment I worry. Any advice?

 

[ronott1]

How to you guys recommend cleaning and sanitizing incubators? My incubator is homemade out of Styrofoam cooler light bulb and fan. I put bricks in it and packed it in with new sand from home depot. over top of the bricks and sand i placed a piece of slate then covered it with hardware cloth. The bricks and sand work very well to keep the temperature in the incubator stable but i wonder how to clean everything? i suppose i could bleach the bricks and slate and toss the sand. Nothing appears dirty its just that with that humid environment I worry. Any advice?

Diluted Bleach (10%), oxine, Lysol all work.

I would soak the bricks. Most bacteria is short lived out of moisture too.

 

[fosterson]

The sand you could put on cookie sheets and bake at 500 degrees for a couple of hours, stirring frequently. That'll kill off just about anything.

The bricks you should probably just replace - not really safe to heat them really high -- they could crack and they're porous.

The Styrofoam too, is really porous and might be an issue - you could fumigate it (there are directions floating around BYC on how to do it) or bleach it really well then leave it in the sun for a couple of days to help 'zap' bacteria.

 

[bantambury]

Bleach, oxine, Lysol all work.

I would soak the bricks. Most bacteria is short lived out of moisture too.

10% bleach right? So you dont melt the styrafoam??? My new bator is styrafoam too so i would think 10% would be safe to not ruin the bator...

 

[ronott1]

10% bleach right? So you dont melt the styrafoam??? My new bator is styrafoam too so i would think 10% would be safe to not ruin the bator...

Yes!

Do not melt your Incubator!

 

[BoereMeisie]

I'm wondering; Are Orpingtons more difficult to breed than say, Rhode Island Reds? I got a trio of "Blue-tiful" Orpingtons last week. The two hens have been laying and the rooster has been trying to do his thing, but the hens won't let him? He's had one successful mount that I've seen, but the eggs I've checked do not have bulls eyes on them yet, and I don't want to crack open any more of their eggs before the hatch-along. The trio also comes out of an environment where there were one rooster for every two hens, so I don't think the hens just don't like their rooster, it looks more like they just don't like "the deed"