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

[Aphrael]

Hmmm. I gathered eggs this evening and I had an orpington egg that was perfectly normal (other than still seeming on the small side to me). @ronott1 you mentioned nutrition earlier. Do you think nutrition could be the sole cause for these abnormalities? Because I'm now wondering if they might not be getting bullied away from the feed pan in the big coop or something. I put them alone in a pen, just them and a roo, and after 2 weeks getting free access to feed I get a perfectly normal looking egg. I may need to consider using multiple feeding stations.

I did get some pics.
These are the two worst ones I've gotten - shown candled and regular. You can see the creases/wrinkles in them.









This is the one I gathered from them tonight. The shell is smooth, not porous or creased, and it seems a tad larger.



Here is one of the creased ones (right) and the nice one from today (middle) next to a SFH egg (left) from a hen 4-5 months younger than them, for size comparison. In the pic, the size difference doesn't seem drastic. But they definitely feel smaller and lighter in my hand.



I cracked open 3 that I had gathered while they were still in with the flock to show the oddness of the whites.

 

[Aphrael]

I tried using a 60 watt regular white light bulb, it was not got enough. So I tried a 100 watt red heat bulb. It brought the temp up 10 degrees or so, but not close enough to 99.5 to 102.5 range (which I've heard suggested for still air 'bators bc it does not have a fan to circulate air around the egg.) plus I used a hot glue gun to seal the hole the light socket was secured into and when the bulb heated up to the max, it melted the glue which ran onto the bulb. It was sort of a "hurry made" incubator& not much thought was put into it.

Hrrrm. Are you sure your thermometer is correct? If it got hot enough to melt the glue, then I'd think it should be getting more than warm enough inside the box, unless there is WAY too much airflow or way too big of a space to heat. What kind of a container did you use?

 

[Peep_Show]

For the "Guess how many eggs?" contest where do we go to post the number of eggs the participants actually set? Is there a chart somewhere that we log into on Thursday? The only place I see for logging eggs doesn't require it until Jan the 3rd (unless I misread....which is a distinct possibility), which makes announcing a winner by Friday a unique challenge. (Hennible, where's that time machine?)

Do we just PM Ron?

Guidance, s.v.p.

Thanks!

 

[Sueg4332]

I have no vehicle to go search the neighborhood & just moved here. Would be happy to swap with someone if they wanted to donate a few. I have homemade soaps & bathsalts...or eggs once my birds get back in gear (polish, silkie/sizzle, call ducks, ancona ducks, heritage turkeys & raindow layers.)

Post on craigslist WANTED FERTILE CHICKEN EGGS and state the type you want.

 

[Roan]

Anyone care set a few extra eggs for me?? Lol as it turns out, I probly won't be able to do a NYD HAL this year :'( I'm really bummed out about it. I had made a homemade incubator, but when I went to warm it up& test for a couple days, there was not enough heat put off in order to do a hatch. You know that one thing that you think is gonna work and that you really want to work, but it doesn't... that feeling... yeah, I'm feeling that right now. So if anyone would set a few eggs in my name, I'd greatly appreciate it. And try to keep me up to date on what happens when and what to do and NOT to do. Never hatched eggs out before and would greatly appreciate any info that I could use in the future when I am able to incubate some eggs. Also, anyone know/ have a good still air incubator design that I could use to build my own?? Thanks for everything in advance and I love BYC!!!

Hey!!! I'm in WV too. I am hopefully hatching 24 eggs. I'm trying to get the money to order some Australorps though so I can sell you all the chicks that I hatch from the HAL. I also have 4 chicks that hatched out just before Thanksgiving and 26 adults and 10 sub-adults if you're interested.

They're RIR, BPR, Ameraucana, RIR/Ameraucana and BPR/Ameraucana.

Oh!!!

My eyes skipped right past it!

I wanted to do a test on that very thing. So on my incubator test hatch that just finished right before Thanksgiving, I washed roughly half of the eggs I set. When it was all said and done, I lost a lot fewer of the washed ones than the unwashed ones, and only one of the washed ones was lost as an early death/bloodring (indicating possible bacterial invasion - the big fear about removing the bloom). I washed them in warm water (probably around 100ish degrees) and Dawn antibacterial dish soap. I figure they used Dawn to clean the oil from those poor wild ducks and it's supposed to be safe to use on pets, so it's probably safe to use on hatching eggs.

I think the oils are used on eating eggs only. I would think that oil would clog the pores and not allow air transfer to the embryo.

Okay, so I think I'll wash them with Dawn then. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Aphrael]

For the "Guess how many eggs?" contest where do we go to post the number of eggs the participants actually set? Is there a chart somewhere that we log into on Thursday? The only place I see for logging eggs doesn't require it until Jan the 3rd (unless I misread....which is a distinct possibility), which makes announcing a winner by Friday a unique challenge. (Hennible, where's that time machine?)

Do we just PM Ron?

Guidance, s.v.p.

Thanks!

The thread is here https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...atch-a-long-total-number-set-contest-number-4
I think you have to post your guess before official set day.

 

[Amberjem]

welp picked up a appliance bulb today and tried it out nope not gonna work the regular bulb I been using is set up perfect been running 99/100 last two days with about 30 humidity the smaller bulb just isnt as sensitive I dont have the thermostat placed right for the smaller bulb so will just use the larger bulb for this hatch along

 

[Peep_Show]

But the question is/was how does anybody know who set how many eggs? Where do we submit *that* information? Is that the stuff that's done via photograph? (which I thought was for a whole 'nother contest)

 

[Roan]

welp picked up a appliance bulb today and tried it out nope not gonna work the regular bulb I been using is set up perfect been running 99/100 last two days with about 30 humidity the smaller bulb just isnt as sensitive I dont have the thermostat placed right for the smaller bulb so will just use the larger bulb for this hatch along

Just out of curiosity, what happens if your bulb burns out? I'm guessing you've got a backup, right?

 

[Amberjem]

Just out of curiosity, what happens if your bulb burns out? I'm guessing you've got a backup, right?

yes have other bulbs if it burns out.. I had just wanted to try the smaller bulb will use two small bulbs in another bator I'll probly make later, I am just setting a small amount of eggs if I am lucky I mgiht have a dozen if not maybe 6