6th Annual BYC New Year's Day 2015 Hatch-A-Long

[misfitmorgan]

What incubator do you have?

My guess is that the temp drops at night and the incubator cannot keep up.

It is one of the higher quality Janoel8-48's(not the knockoff). But i figured out the problem...somewhere early on i somehow set the temp to 36.5c which i just realized yesterday is only 97.7f....it was suppose to be 37.5c

So i am sure incubating at around 2-3f below proper temp would explain my slow to hatch chicks and alot of other problems. The incubator also sits in front of a window, that i covered with cardboard. i have checked all the corners, and all over inside it with a thermometer to see what the variance was and there was none at egg level that i could find it always read 99.5f but haha now that i think about it i dont know if that was when i had it set properly in the beginning or if the calibrated therometer is that far off, and of course i didnt check last night. i will have to look tonight. The house does get colder at night, by a varying amount. We have had a hard time heating the place with this recent cold snap, rather making it stay warm even with the furnace turned up and a propane heater on back-up.

@misfitmorgan I hope you figure it out quickly so that your the current batch ends up ok!!

Thank you, the current batch is staggered so i dont think i will lose them all the khaki campbell eggs are only on day 7 today third set of frizzles/frazzle are on day 8. Probly lose my muscovy and another frizzle/frazzle. Muscovy were doing great but when i candled them Monday night the eggs didnt look right ot me anymore, so i dont know if i had alot of late stage deads or what. The eggs dont smell, yet.

 

[ronott1]

It is one of the higher quality Janoel8-48's(not the knockoff). But i figured out the problem...somewhere early on i somehow set the temp to 36.5c which i just realized yesterday is only 97.7f....it was suppose to be 37.5c

So i am sure incubating at around 2-3f below proper temp would explain my slow to hatch chicks and alot of other problems. The incubator also sits in front of a window, that i covered with cardboard. i have checked all the corners, and all over inside it with a thermometer to see what the variance was and there was none at egg level that i could find it always read 99.5f but haha now that i think about it i dont know if that was when i had it set properly in the beginning or if the calibrated therometer is that far off, and of course i didnt check last night. i will have to look tonight. The house does get colder at night, by a varying amount. We have had a hard time heating the place with this recent cold snap, rather making it stay warm even with the furnace turned up and a propane heater on back-up.

Thank you, the current batch is staggered so i dont think i will lose them all the khaki campbell eggs are only on day 7 today third set of frizzles/frazzle are on day 8. Probly lose my muscovy and another frizzle/frazzle. Muscovy were doing great but when i candled them Monday night the eggs didnt look right ot me anymore, so i dont know if i had alot of late stage deads or what. The eggs dont smell, yet.

Good catch on the temps. It should be soon enough for this hatch to go well.

 

[1zooman12]

1zooman12 -
At the very bottom of each poster's invidual posting box is a string of boxes consisting of a symbol for thumbs up, and then Multi, Quote and Reply. If you click on the thumbs-up symbol you give an ovation and a pop-up screen will appear if you want to leave a few words.

Wonderful story about your obviously VERY content hen! So sorry to hear about your Delaware hen, but accidents do happen. And when you know better, you do better.

Dexter cattle are fabulous. Have you seen the calves? About the size of a large cocker spaniel. My cousin-in-law's family raises them.

Welcome to the thread!

Hello Peep Show and Alicia, et al,
Peep, Thanks muchly for the route to creating an ovation. Next order of business, can any of you fellow chicken nuts tell me who created the idea of the CCPU? And Lady Hess, yes, that is a great transspecific act showing trust between two species. Many a science fiction tale has been written using that concept but I don't recall any that I read which said that an egg laying alien, or whatever, had ever plopped an egg into another's species' lap. You don't suppose that my sweet little hen, gifter of an egg, has done any extracurricular reading, do you? And the unaware sadly have no appreciation for how we chicken nuts relate to our birds. As for the Dexter cattle breed, I had heard about them in animal science courses but until Kim's introducing me to them, I had never actually seen the little creatures before. They are an attractive sort. I'm going to look into their origin on the Internet. And most certainly, I welcome positive and interesting comments from any and all of you. Thanks for the great camaraderie folks!
Neal, the Zooman

 

[Peep_Show]

And who doesn't like a cute chick pic?


Here's Oops today, hatched 1/3/15...


Light Brahma x BLRW

 

[FuzzyHens]

And who doesn't like a cute chick pic?


Here's Oops today, hatched 1/3/15...


Light Brahma x BLRW

what a cutie!!

 

[NotAFarm]

Quote: Did some one use it before Kaylish?

 

[FuzzyHens]

Thought I would post photos of the little chick...if he is a rooster his name is Copernicus. Not sure what we will call him if he is a hen.



He is a bit of a slob with his food, but it is cute watching him scratch and send it flying.

 

[Cynthia12]

And who doesn't like a cute chick pic?


Here's Oops today, hatched 1/3/15...


Light Brahma x BLRW

Aww, there's Oops. Guess what? I have one that looks almost identical! No feathered feet though.

 

[misfitmorgan]

The only chick to survive out of the 4 frizzle/frazzle eggs i had in the bater is all yellow with feather feet....should be a cochin frizzle/frazzle. Not clue until he/she grows some feathers. There are straight and frizzle feathered roosters in the pen and all frizzle hens except one. my luck i got an egg from both straight feather parents, they are split to frizzle though.

 

[Amberjem]

My guess is that the room with the incubator does not stay at a steady temperature during the day. The room needs to be about 70 or so 24\7. If not, most incubators will not keep up with temperatures.

What you are describing is most often caused by too low average temperatures during incubation. Humidity does not need to be controled as tightly as humidity. Temperatures need to be a degree above 99.5 and a degree below. Humidity can be off by 20%, which is huge in comparison.

The things to work on are:

Flock health
Temperature
Turning
Humidity
ventilation.

If the eggs are not from your flock you cannot control flock health. The other things need to be addressed in order of importance.

what kind of things does flock health affect in hatching eggs?