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

[ChickenCanoe]

Eat the raccoon yourself!!! THAT would be payback!! (They are actually quite good! LOL!!!

If I were in the wilderness, I'd eat it myself. In the burbs, I don't know what gas station dumpster they've been eating out of.
I know - so why feed it to the chickens? They need the animal protein, bad stuff is somewhat diluted and PAYBAAACK.

I was just looking over page 1 and did I really miss the guess how many eggs will be set contest?? That really stinks!! I wanted a shot at those Pendescas!

I know, it is a tongue twister. Penedesenca. It is in the language of Catalan - remotely related to Spanish but not very similar.
Catalonia is an autonomous region of Spain with its own language. One of the provinces is Penedes. Landrace chickens from there are Penedesencas.
Another province of Catalonia is Emporda. Landrace chickens from Emporda are Empordanesas. They are closely related.
Confused yet?
I speak Spanish and didn't know why I couldn't understand people in Catalonia when I was in Spain until I learned about Penedesencas.

I grew up very poor in rural Texas, and sometimes we DID eat raccoon. Not high on my 'recommended eats' list.

The chickens, though, can have it!

It's all in the processing and cooking methods
Skunk, Iguana or cat anyone?

They do that! It is hard to tell a silkie pile to keep warm from a silkie pile to keep an egg warm.

OMG that was a lot of posts. I missed many because the site took me to the end when my phone went offline.

I'm excited the hatch has started!

I too have an infrared temp gage (right now it is mostly being used as a lazer pointer to show off foster kittens) I was wondering about using on eggs.

What temperature are they supposed to be?

Most infrared guns have a +_- accuracy of 4 degrees.

I'm not sure if the SLW/EE eggs are fertile... what do you think? Sorry for the poor pictures.

That's fertile.

I'm hatching bob white quail! You should try to hatch some!!! You can get some good eggs at GQF.com 8 bobwhite eggs for 12.00 free ship! Hope it helps! Good luck!
Happy hatching

I so want to hatch bobwhite.
I'm poor though so if I do, I'll buy from some of the quail farms that sell volumes much cheaper per egg.

 

[CackleJoy]

Hooray, we have eggs that are set! I ALMOST got them set the 11th. Ran the incubator a few hours empty to see how it did. Looked fine (admittedly ignorant over here).
Finally got the baby settled down at 11:30 p.m.

Decided to go ahead and put the eggs in. So at 12:01 a.m. 12/12, the eggs were officially set and incubator lid closed.

Definitely not a NYD hatch but we have our VERY FIRST eggs setting anyway

I missed getting most of the special eggs. That was disappointing. I'm happy with what we have though -

11 CLB (a local man kindly sold me some - most of them are gigantic blue eggs, I am SOOOO excited!)
14 MF Leghorns (our own, some are about 10 days old - too old?)
6 Mutts (gathered yesterday, my biggest eggs from random girls) Mutt possibles are from EE's, BO's, and BR's with a possible roo of Dark Brahma, BR, GLW, or WA. So they really will be a surprise!

At 9:25 a.m. we are holding steady at 47% humidity and havn't stabilized heat yet. It's vacillated between 99.7 and 100.3 in the last hour. I hope that heat issue calms down! I have 3 other thermometers and 1 hygrometer besides the digital one on the HB 1588. The extra digital thermometer shows a steadier heat (right @ 100) but the receptor is at the bottom so it might be more consistent down there.

 

[CackleJoy]

Hooray, we have eggs that are set! I ALMOST got them set the 11th. Ran the incubator a few hours empty to see how it did. Looked fine (admittedly ignorant over here).
Finally got the baby settled down at 11:30 p.m.

Decided to go ahead and put the eggs in. So at 12:01 a.m. 12/12, the eggs were officially set and incubator lid closed.

Definitely not a NYD hatch but we have our VERY FIRST eggs setting anyway

I missed getting most of the special eggs. That was disappointing. I'm happy with what we have though -

11 CLB (a local man kindly sold me some - most of them are gigantic blue eggs, I am SOOOO excited!)
14 MF Leghorns (our own, some are about 10 days old - too old?)
6 Mutts (gathered yesterday, my biggest eggs from random girls) Mutt possibles are from EE's, BO's, and BR's with a possible roo of Dark Brahma, BR, GLW, or WA. So they really will be a surprise!

At 9:25 a.m. we are holding steady at 47% humidity and havn't stabilized heat yet. It's vacillated between 99.7 and 100.3 in the last hour. I hope that heat issue calms down! I have 3 other thermometers and 1 hygrometer besides the digital one on the HB 1588. The extra digital thermometer shows a steadier heat (right @ 100) but the receptor is at the bottom so it might be more consistent down there.

Forgot pictures! Yes, we are excited, hope I don't mess it up



31 eggs Top to bottom, CLB, MFL, Mutt (marked M)

 

[carriebain]

Ok, I just got a update on my lost marans eggs! They have been lost for 8 days, been all over the United States. I haven't received them yet and don't know what shape they are in. I know the hatch rate goes down considerably with each passing day. How long should I let them rest before putting them in the incubator? I will post pictures when they arrive

 

[Aphrael]

So happy for you! I would not want to be without heat! Can you imagine that family that was lost in the mountains in Nevada? They were so smart to use heated rocks to stay warm. Kept a fire gong in a tire. Wow.
Going to keep trying to ... catch up now! Maybe you will have your photo of your eggs by the time I get through all of this!

i live 3hrs from where family got lost it has been -20 or more

Ugh.

No I cannot even imagine that. I hate cold.

Oh, it turns out my Silkie, Blossom wasn't broody after all... She was just sleeping on the nest Boooo

Awww. That's too bad.

​

Good morning! I really love this one, so pretty.



Quote:

That's devastating. I did the same thing during the summer. Lost my best Penedesenca rooster, a White Minorca hen, an Ancona hen, a Penedesenca hen and a Jaerhon hen and 2 hens chewed up but survived. A family of raccoons culprits. I still had 6 birds survive. It was a full moon so they probably could see well enough to escape.

And the city had the nerve to ask why I needed so many roosters.

I've been returning the favor though. Now when I catch a raccoon, I grill it up and feed it to the chickens. Payback.


It could have frozen in transit but I hope not as it could affect the others.
Optimistically it could just as easily have had an imperceptible hairline crack initially. I've had a few of those with my own eggs.

I don't think it matters if the hole is up or down as long as they can breathe through it. They are going to zip all the way around anyway.

I'll try to upload pics of my cabinet. It's a behemoth (probably too big) , but I wanted the option of hatching all types of eggs. It is a prototype anyway.
It is a combination incubator/hatcher. The incubator is pretty straight forward with 3 shelves but it slides into a larger cabinet that surrounds the incubator on top, bottom, left and right. The hatching compartment is in the bottom of the larger cabinet. A bank of fans on the left side pulls air across the eggs in the hatcher and up across the primary heat element and then across the water pan above the incubator to pick up humidity, then down the right side past the secondary heat element and back across the eggs.
2 different thermostats run the 2 heat elements for safety. The larger heat element is set at about 98. The smaller element takes it the rest of the way. The two heat elements are overkill but it can come up to temp and stabilize in less than 10 minutes. The floor of both units are thick 18" ceramic tiles. The theory is that as they heat they'll stabilize temps and serve as a heat sink in case of a short power outage. I was going to tile the whole inside until I realized how much weight they added.
The incubator door has 2 tall, narrow, double pane windows so I can check on them. The whole hatcher door is a window. I have a basket that acts as a drawer I can slide into the hatcher.
The incubator currently only has one thermostat and one heat element built into the fan but after this hatch, I'm going to make a redundant one.


On a serious note, it may not be a good idea to try and incubate it. I've only heard of one that had both hatch. Sometimes one will, but most often neither. Supposedly there isn't enough nutrition for two embryos.

That's not necessarily terrible this early in the hatch.
The following link should set your mind at ease and give advice if it happens again.
http://www.brinsea.com/customerservice/poweroff.html



Friday night into Saturday we're getting freezing rain, sleet turning to snow, possibly significant. Another ice/snow event next Friday too. It is 6 degrees F here now.
I'm getting my generator worked on today. I think it needs a new carburetor.

What other power do you have? If you have a gas or wood stove, maybe you can boil water put in a big pan and put the eggs in a smaller container set in the water.
Just a thought.
Before electric they used a candle to heat a compartment above it.

I would really love to see pics of it too! The idea of using the ceramic tiles is awesome!

 

[chiqita]

Ok, I just got a update on my lost marans eggs! They have been lost for 8 days, been all over the United States. I haven't received them yet and don't know what shape they are in. I know the hatch rate goes down considerably with each passing day. How long should I let them rest before putting them in the incubator? I will post pictures when they arrive

At this point I would say they are unhatchable and get your money back from the Po insurance. Get more eggs. No reason to beat yourself up over not hatching unwatchable eggs when you can get more. The membranes will be streached so far even if chicks developed they will not hatch.

Thank you all on the infrared gun info. I'll check how close it is supposed to be and test it on boiling water.

 

[JLaw]

Carriebain i thought i read somewhere that mail will now insure upto $50.00 on hatching eggs. If that is true you may want to put a claim in. Maybe someone with more experiance mailing could give ya a for sure answer on that. Being lost this long who knows the shape they are in. I hope the best but i would plan for worst thata just me though.

 

[JLaw]

Cacklejoy is that leaves in your bator on right side? On phone so hard to tell.

 

[mstricer]

I just caught up. Will try to get my picture posted, for real tonight, got home late last night. You guys are going crazy posting.

 

[carriebain]

Carriebain i thought i read somewhere that mail will now insure upto $50.00 on hatching eggs. If that is true you may want to put a claim in. Maybe someone with more experiance mailing could give ya a for sure answer on that. Being lost this long who knows the shape they are in. I hope the best but i would plan for worst thata just me though.

We already filed a claim and will have more eggs shipped this week or early next week. It takes 30 days to process a claim. Dmrippy has been wonderful to work with. I will be doing business with her again!