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

[sandman221]

started mine at midnight cuz Ill be at work at noon.

21- 3/4 ko shamo 1/4 shamo x ko shamo

1- ko shamo

just hatched 10 of the 3/4 ko shamo x ko shamo yesterday aswell. many chicks in my future lol.

what could I expect color wise from a black hen to a wheaton rooster. believe black hen comes from cuckoo colored shamos

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I also do a "dry hatch" but when you live in the south, there is no such thing as dry. Check out the humidities on this hourly forcast for tonight.

9 PM Tue Dec 10


34°F

Clear

FEELS LIKE: 34° HUMIDITY: 82% PRECIP: 0% WIND: NNE at 3 mph
Show 15 Minute Details

10 PM


35°

Clear

FEELS LIKE: 35° HUMIDITY: 76% PRECIP: 0% WIND: NNE at 3 mph
Show 15 Minute Details

11 PM


34°

Clear

FEELS LIKE: 34° HUMIDITY: 76% PRECIP: 0% WIND: NNE at 3 mph
Show 15 Minute Details

12 AM Wed Dec 11


33°

Clear

FEELS LIKE: 33° HUMIDITY: 79% PRECIP: 0% WIND: NNE at 3 mph
Show 15 Minute Details

1 AM


31°

Clear

FEELS LIKE: 31° HUMIDITY: 82% PRECIP: 0% WIND: NNE at 3 mph
Show 15 Minute Details



2 AM

30°

Clear

FEELS LIKE: 30° HUMIDITY: 82% PRECIP: 0% WIND: NNE at 3 mph

a couple mornings ago it was 9° and 92% humidity here

This coop was our first and DH insisted we buy plans for it and buy all new materials to build it. I like the coop but wasn't happy about the cost of money it took to build. All of the other coop were build either mostly or even completely out of recycled items (4chicken coops, 1small chick grow out house, 1 turkey coop, 1 turkey grow out pen, 1 duck house, 1 goat house and goat fence, and 3 chick brooders) Im to the point now where I can build a complete coop or animal house and sometimes the fence for zero cost.

The plans for the purple house I posted pics of are on the internet just google Daisy Coop.

If I can find a pic of my "chicken village" I will post it.

I have a chicken village too. The first two buildings were from new materials (when I had a good job). I've built 8 housing units in 5 building since then with recycled and discarded materials. I love having so many options to keep birds for breeding, quarantining, broody apartments, grow out, rooster finishing, etc..
Right now I have 7 different groups of birds. It's a bit of a hassle to make sure they're all locked up at night, next project is automatic doors. All the buildings have bulk feeders that last close to a week. Except for freezing weather, all the housing units have automatic water too. So now I'm back to putting out fresh water a couple times a day X7. Next winter the water will be heated and circulated. Worst case scenario, I can still get all the birds taken care of in well under an hour even with hauling water and putting out fermented feed and sprouted grains to each group.
I'm about halfway through running electric to all the buildings.
Basically the back half of the property is a patchwork of garden beds, fruit trees, berry patches and chicken yards.

Guess who is back in!!!! YUP THAT IS ME!!! I received word today that my grievance has been accepted and I am back in the nursing program!! Now to just wait and see if my eggs come in tomorrow.

Good things often happen when you stick up for yourself. Congrats.

I am going to be manually turning my eggs, but they will be in an egg flat with a wooden base for stability. What is the angle at which I need to tilt them. Going this route instead of an egg turner. I have wire line running through holes in the top of the Hovabator attach to the wooden base to raise and lower each side of the flat of eggs but I am not sure if I have enough room to tilt enough without it touching the (HUGE) PC fan I installed. (It was the only one I had spare.) Last time I manually turned each one opening it 3 times a day. I had humidity problems.





Now on other thoughts next hatch I am thinking of gutting the Hovabator 1602n and putting everything from it in a 40" x 17" x 20" cooler that we have here. I have a nice triple paned piece of glass 17" x 24" x 1.5" thick for a viewing window. Do you guys think that the heating element will keep that large of an area to an adequate temp? I would build two of the egg flat turners for it so that i wouldn't need to open it. With maybe a 3 gallon sealed bucket of water so it can keep a stable temp. It would be easy cleaning just take out the plug and wash.

Just tilt it as much as you have room for and you'll probably be ok. When I did that, every few days I would also shift each egg in its place so they all leaned more to one direction and a couple days later shifted leaned them the other direction in their slots. If that makes sense.

Do you know what the wattage of the heat element is?
When I built my cabinet I decided to utilize the heat element from a defunct LG for part of the heat in the hatcher compartment. They're only 40 watts. What a waste of time and energy. I had to add much more heat.
You could still utilize the element and parallel it with another like this one>
http://incubatorwarehouse.com/cartridge-heater-110v-125-watt.html
or perhaps flex watt heat tape.

 

[brahmabreeder]

Guess who is back in!!!! YUP THAT IS ME!!! I received word today that my grievance has been accepted and I am back in the nursing program!! Now to just wait and see if my eggs come in tomorrow.

That's excellent!

 

[brahmabreeder]

Just wanted to say good luck to every who is/has set their eggs for the hatch. I'm setting at least a dozen and maybe more if I get any more eggs today.

 

[draye]

Will be setting around 12 noon. 62 eggs total (all from my hens gathered (Nov. 29 thru Dec. 10th).
27 Naked Necks
27 Easter Eggers
4 Light Brahmas
4 Blue Copper Marans.

 

[mspj]

I would love to see pictures of the chicken village's some are talking about on this thread.

 

[chick rookie]

I would love to see pictures of the chicken village's some are talking about on this thread.

I would to

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I just read Brinsea incubation handbook.
Concerning turning of eggs, it explains how the embryo tends to float toward the top of the egg and if it stays there too long it will stick and die.
The following is a quote.
"As the egg is turned the embryo is swept into fresh nutrients, allowing the embryo to develop. This is critical for the first week when the embryo has no circulation system. After the first week, eggs still need to be turned but not as often. The turning regime is often different between species and altricial birds tend to need more frequent turning than precocial birds. Whereas fowl are turned through 80 degrees every hour or so, parrots are often turned through 180 degrees many times an hour in the early stage. "

http://www.brinsea.com/pdffiles/Brinsea_Handbook.pdf

This makes me think it may be better to hold off incubating shipped eggs rather than not turning the first few days of incubation.
It also makes me think that hand turning of eggs laying flat may be better than automatic turners.

 

[brahmabreeder]

Will be setting around 12 noon. 62 eggs total (all from my hens gathered (Nov. 29 thru Dec. 10th).
27 Naked Necks
27 Easter Eggers
4 Light Brahmas
4 Blue Copper Marans.

So few Brahmas

.

 

[mspj]

So few Brahmas

.

I will be setting 11 brahma eggs today.