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

[Pozees]

lost one eggs that pipped wrong end, other one seems alright just a lil weak.. and 1 that hatched normal. no more pips as of yet. hope every one is having superb hatches

Sorry Once they are in the wrong end, they have a pretty tough time.

 

[Pozees]

My hatcher is running and stabilizing and I am getting ready to leave for work. Moving eggs over to the hatcher tonight. The most I will move is 19, depends on how they candle tonight, 12 barnyard mixes and 7 Silkies. Hopefully the turner issues didn't halt development.

Best to all - probably won't be visiting a lot today, end of year inventory at one site and parts to pick up for both.

Every hatch is a learning experience for all of us, no matter how many eggs we've set. Ron is known to many of us as The Hatching God, and I'll wager he would agree he still learns from every hatch. Some eggs are going to hatch and some are not, and nothing you do will change that. We learn on each hatch, for the next hatch. Once you start, it's darned hard to stop (for some of us it's more like impossible). Learn, and share. Enjoy.

Have a terrific Monday, everyone!

 

[mstricer]

I haven't locked down yet, I have an egg that was 2 days behind all the rest so I thought I'd give it a day or so, plus I'm sick and haven't wanted to do anything but sleep. Lucky for me all kids are grown and not living here so I can sleep as much as necessary. but I'm going to lock down now and go back to bed as this is the only day off I have to get better, I have a sinking feeling that one of my 8 hour days over the holiday is going to turn into a 12 hour day due to the cry babies on second shift not wanting to work the holidays, oh well more money for me at double time plus holiday pay I can make over a weeks worth of money in two days, who passes up 38.00 an hour

 

[ChickenCanoe]

My hatcher is running and stabilizing and I am getting ready to leave for work. Moving eggs over to the hatcher tonight. The most I will move is 19, depends on how they candle tonight, 12 barnyard mixes and 7 Silkies. Hopefully the turner issues didn't halt development.

Best to all - probably won't be visiting a lot today, end of year inventory at one site and parts to pick up for both.

Every hatch is a learning experience for all of us, no matter how many eggs we've set. Ron is known to many of us as The Hatching God, and I'll wager he would agree he still learns from every hatch. Some eggs are going to hatch and some are not, and nothing you do will change that. We learn on each hatch, for the next hatch. Once you start, it's darned hard to stop (for some of us it's more like impossible). Learn, and share. Enjoy.

Have a terrific Monday, everyone!

Amen to that!

I'm moving the remainder of the 24 I set on the 11th in a few minutes. I just kicked the humidity up in there from 24 to 55%. I don't think I'll have trouble getting it higher. I may have another quitter from the eggs set the 12th.

Good luck to you. It's good you'll be busy today.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I haven't locked down yet, I have an egg that was 2 days behind all the rest so I thought I'd give it a day or so, plus I'm sick and haven't wanted to do anything but sleep. Lucky for me all kids are grown and not living here so I can sleep as much as necessary. but I'm going to lock down now and go back to bed as this is the only day off I have to get better, I have a sinking feeling that one of my 8 hour days over the holiday is going to turn into a 12 hour day due to the cry babies on second shift not wanting to work the holidays, oh well more money for me at double time plus holiday pay I can make over a weeks worth of money in two days, who passes up 38.00 an hour

It's hard to.
I worked a lot of holidays. My very first job when I started high school I had to work Christmas eve, Christmas, New Years eve and New Years, two years straight.
One Thanksgiving not long ago, my son went to Colorado to visit friends, my wife and daughter had Thanksgiving with the in-laws and I had to work so was unable to do any turkey day stuff. It was a 24 hour operation that had to be manned constantly. I told my 2 coworkers from the other shifts to take the day off and give me another day in return. I worked 32 hours straight. I couldn't do holiday stuff anyway so I thought they might as well have a good day.

 

[sandman221]

Sorry Once they are in the wrong end, they have a pretty tough time.

ya after I read the sticky that ronott1 suggested I I tried my hardest to not get my hopes up lol. atleast I got to go threw the motions on assisted hatching and will know what to do next time.

 

[chicken pickin]

Good Morning Everyone.

Im about to enjoy some hot coffee while I go tend to my birds.

Day 19 so excited. I don't have anything going on yet I keep starring at them willing them to move lol.

I hope everyones eggs are doing well, all these chicks are going to start popping like popcorn very soon.

 

[roostereggs]

19 chicks and counting. Haha!

Sorry no photos yet...been using my new tablet but not sure how to use it but too busy between chicks and unpacking the house. My usual dinosaur laptop overheats and shuts off randomly. I will get on it tonite to post my cute pics after work.

Well, we had 3 that died after pip. One had zipped all the way around and stopped. The second was the pip in the shell equator. We assisted 15-16 hours after pip and it lived for 15 minutes and died in my hands with us talking to it. I had just started to cry when I was interrupted by loud peeping from the incubator and a new one hatched! The third was pipped for 12ish hours with no further signs of life. I try to be hands off, but we realized we were waiting too long to assist. I think our humidity fluctuations are an issue... it will drop to 45% easily here in the desert... but when several are hatching at once will spike to the 90s with condensation... Then back down again. So for next time maybe a humidity pump?

We had two others that pipped and stopped, but we didn't wait so long and assisted them at 6 hours and they are vigorous in the brooder. Also, we didn't have this problem with chicks until we were down to 14 or so in the bator. ??? I think it was the humidity fluctuations... but we really try hard not to open it up much and wait to collect 3-5 chicks for the brooder.

So we candled the remaining 7 intact eggs last night and cleaned stinky debris out of the bator. One looks like a 17-18 day quitter. The rest look ok but no sounds or movement so we reset and will let nature take is course. But I am more than happy with 19 and grateful for the experience... made our Christmas so memorable!!!

 

[chicken pickin]

Congrats Roostereggs!!!! 19 chicks is great. I cant wait to see pics of the little fuzzy butts. What kind did you hatch again?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Ugghhh! My black copper roo is not breeding any hens in his pen. I have checked fertility several times. I even put some in incubator to check also. Nope no development! So I started watching and he chased occasionally a hen. Other than that .... zilch!

There are a few things to look at.
Photoperiod can be an issue this time of year.
Overweight and underweight roosters fertility is lower as well as the desire to mate. Nutrition and inbreeding can negatively affect fertility.
There is research that shows roosters fed layer feed have lower sperm counts as well as sperm motility.
Older roosters are much less virile than young ones. This could also be attributable to a high calcium diet.

6. Should I bump up humidity today? I know that it should be 65 tomorrow at lockdown, but since I've been incubating dry, should I boost it a bit now so it's doesn't go from 16% to 65% right away?

7. I know the average hatch for a chick is 21 days, but does that mean the chick is actually out of the shell? I'm guessing I should see a pip tomorrow after lockdown, or the day after that, since it takes time from pip to zip to hatch?

Ok that's all for now. SORRY!!!! Hope someone can answer, I'm so afraid I'm going to screw something up!

Raising humidity doesn't have to be gradual, they won't care.

Exactly 21 days is 504 hours. Commonly, even in the optimal incubation environment it can go from under 500 hours to well over 520.
If temps are high throughout, they can come at least a day early. If temps are low they can be a couple days late.
Long pre incubation storage adds time to the hatch. For each day of storage, you can estimate it will add an hour to the optimal incubation time.
Younger flocks will have shorter hatch times, older flocks eggs will take longer.
I imagine different breeds and lines will have an impact as well.

aaahhhhh!!!!!

I CANNOT WAIT ANYMORE! ONE DAY OF LOCKDOWN AND THIS IS WHAT I GET?!?!??! LOL

just a few funnies to end the night....

I sometimes use those two for our chicken meetup group photo