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

[MontanaDolphin]

Ok, a little off topic (but not really)...

I posted before about my excitement regarding my next incubation after this one...with either my mom's new EE cockerel, or my Chocolate Orpington bantam cockerel, being the daddy. (BR and CB pullets).

Looks like the EE will be the daddy of those. He has completely taken over the girls. My poor bantam, named Pip (short for Pipsqueak, because of his crow...it sounds like a man yelling after being kneed between the legs

), was being assaulted relentlessly by the girls. So I removed him from the flock, and got him his own girl...a Choc. Orp. bantam pullet that is one week younger than him.

He is one happy boy, lemme tell you! And she sticks to him like glue!! So, it looks like my next hatch will be EE over BR or CB, and then, once the CO pullet starts laying, it'll be pure Choc. Orp. bantams!!

Here she is:




Here she is with Pip:

 

[chicken pickin]

So mid morning today, our first two CCLs hatched! They didn't have much room because they were from the 5 smaller eggs that were tetris stacked on top, and because of the maxi pad. Luckily they kept falling asleep and stayed relatively calm until there were 3 hatched. It took a few hours. Dh and I and our 2 dd's worked well together getting them out without affecting the others pipped. My 13yo was in charge of the lid, dd20 pulled the chicks out, I pulled out shell debris, and dh misted them with warm water. We also have the humidifier on next to the air hole just in case (we live in the desert).


We went to Cracker Barrel for our Christmas Dinner, and by the time we got home, our three pipped CCLs were out and crawling around. We used the same method to get them out and into the brooder. Now if any hatch tonite, there is nothing sitting on top of them (maybe I will sleep better and no pregnancy-chick-dreams?).

I took the pad out...it was quite dry. We found that using a syringe and squirting warm water into the air hole is working better and we can see all the eggs better.

Now the important question...CCLs are autosexing right?...but why are some yellow and some brown? The darker brown was the first to hatch, and he is showing the others how to drink water and eat!!!

So we have a darker brown one with a yellow undercarriage and spot on his head, a lighter brown, and 4 yellows. Some of the yellows have tiny black spots on their backs so we can tell them apart nicely! Next post will hopefully have the video...

Im sure some one has gotten to this but I haven't jumped ahead yet. Are all 5 chicks CLs? If so the 4 whites would be called white sports if you can get pics of them when they are fluffed up and in natural light they are still auto sexable females having the defined V on their head and males having the lighter head spot. Also You would need to do the same for the brown one after it fluffs up take a pic in natural light a male will have a large blotchy white head and possible chipmunk pattern but it will be smudged. Females will have the very defined chipmunk pattern and either no head spot or a very tiny head spot.

Congrats on the hatch I cant wait to see more pics, I love CLs

 

[JLaw]

Congrats. I talked my local feed store and unfortunately they only want females, and I don't know how I could sex them.

They are all females just about 50% are gender confused is all.

 

[chicken pickin]

chicken pickin and gardening mama,

do these air cells look pretty good for me? lockdown is TOMORROW!!! AAAHHHHHH!!!!

I think your air cells look great!

Lockdown here we come.

 

[roostereggs]

[COLOR=4B0082]Still didn't get an answer. I made a video of one of my egg candles. I am hoping someone can tell me if the development was way to slow and if all my chicks will die. [/COLOR]     [COLOR=4B0082]Or if they are fine and not mess with the temp. My thermometers are cheap one's and as I have found out are probably not accurate. I have now noted that I need to go 4 degrees higher next time. They have been incubating at this temp from the start. I will put the link for the video here and on another post as soon as it is done uploading. Our internet provider has a very slow upload speed and it will be another hour before it is complete on youtube.[/COLOR]    

Not sure if you have had a response because I am way behind in reading, but your egg looks good. Mine were a little bigger on day 17, but keep it going! It looks like there is veining and a good air cell. Hopefully you will get responses from more experienced hatchers, but mine looked like that and are hatching

 

[Myfourladies]

I only have one egg that made it to day 14 candle, today will be day 18 candle and I am praying to see good signs. I am making myself wait till atleast noon to candle, then I will lockdown. Everyones pictures of chicks are making me feel optimistic again!

 

[chickengirl1193]

what happenes if the internal pip is outside the air cell? do they keep pipping till they find the air cell or do they drown and you can't do anything.

 

[Wisher1000]

There's usually nothing you can do. They break veins and then into the air cell and it fills with blood. It's really hard to time it just right to be able to intervene. Luckily, it doesn't happen much and the more you hatch, the easier it gets to accept that some don't make it, because they weren't supposed to. If they were meant to survive, they would.

 

[Cynthia12]

Congrats! How can you tell there's an internal pip? Can you see sumthin?? How bout with dark eggs??

You can see a pointy dark shadow dipped into the air sac. There were two like that, but, they could just be leaning hard against the air sac..which is good too. Dark eggs..ha, I have one left..and there is no seeing anything but the nice clear air sac, so I let it sit crossing my fingers. Pretty full/black in there though, and that's good. So I'm hoping.

 

[Pozees]

OK, here's the latest report. I just weighed eggs and candled at the same time.
Weight:
Today's goal was 2605 grams for all 47 eggs. They weighed 2586 grams. That is off by 0.7%. Not bad for not paying attention.
I weighed a couple with huge air cells. One had lost 12.3% and another had lost 16.1%. They should have lost 11%.
The one that lost 12.3 had been washed and was 6 days old when set. There is no explanation why the other lost so much. It was a freshly laid egg the day it was set.

Clears:
Out of 47 eggs, 7 failed. 5 had no development, 1 had a blood ring and 1 had something dark floating inside.
Of the 7 pulled, two were 10 days old when set, one was 9, one was 7, one was 6, one was 3 and one was set the day laid.
Of the remaining eggs still growing, five were 10 days old when set, three were 9, nine were 8 days old.
7 of the eggs set were washed and only one of them has failed.

I washed them with a solution of 2 1/2 cups water, 1/2 cup organic ACV and 2 Tbsp of Fruit Fresh.
Fruit Fresh is an ascorbic acid product that keeps fruit from turning brown. The downside is that it has other ingredients I don't like.
I found pure ascorbic acid powder that I'll use in the future. http://www.myspicesage.com/ascorbic...|34312308482&gclid=CJbT48mY07sCFa9aMgodDgYAxg

I've purchased whole dry milk powder from them that I use for finishing roosters before butcher.


That leaves 40 eggs cooking.
I'm hoping most hatch. I want to divide them into 3 groups to test fermented feed and probiotics with dry feed and a control group.

ETA
Another good thing about the fertility is that they are from 2 different flocks and 2 untested roosters along with the time of year and a little frostbite, I'm relatively pleased.

I would say those are really great results, can't wait to see the chicks! I am particularly amazed at the number of eggs older than 7 days that are doing well, that's great news!