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

[Roan]

Sort of off topic, I know that the standard answer to this is 4 sqft per bird but since the Australorp towers over even our RIR and BR and we're planning to start a pure breed Australorp flock, how many square feet per Australorp should I go with? They will have access to a run every day as well so I also need to know how many square feet per bird in the run.

These chicks we're hatching for the HAL are all Big Daddy Crow's children so hopefully they will inherit his mass so the sqft per bird will come in handy pretty soon. So it is sort of on topic for the HAL.

 

[Book]

With all this talk of candling I carefully took a sneak peek... my 7 shipped HAL eggs look great! Looks like 5 maybe 6 with embryos developing! Pretty amazing for shipped Serama eggs, I'm kind of shocked.
On the other hand, my 14 Silkie eggs are a couple days ahead and I couldn't see a single one developing. Hopefully I just can't see them yet, some of the eggs are pretty porous...

Now I can leave them alone for a while.

You know what I have noticed with shipping eggs at least for me? The small the eggs the better they seem to do in shipping!

 

[darkbluespace]

You know what I have noticed with shipping eggs at least for me? The small the eggs the better they seem to do in shipping!

I have generally heard the opposite but have only had Serama eggs shipped from in-state before. These were shipped air cell up in stiff tubes of bubble wrap... I hadn't seen anything like it and they were shipped all the way from Kentucky. The Silkie eggs are pretty small too and were well packet but the air cells were worse. I do hope I get a few!!

 

[draye]

Good Morning, HAL buddies.
Just getting things started this morning.

 

[JW12]

Good morning everyone! Sitting here drinking coffee and watching the eggs turner work. What a life lol

I better get moving and go to work.... Someone has to pay for my chicken habit!

 

[carcar80]

Good morning everyone! Sitting here drinking coffee and watching the eggs turner work. What a life lol

I better get moving and go to work.... Someone has to pay for my chicken habit!

Amen. I'm drinking coffee like there's no money to be made today! LOL

Guys I just can't get over my temps. I've never hatched in winter and don't know that I'll ever again wait for warm months. My temp is rock steady at 102.. I have placed thin towels over my LG windows as someone suggested and it's even better than before!! Can't wait til next weekend to do an official candle/count.

 

[carcar80]

Oh yeah- AND no worry of terrible storms/power outages like in spring/summer either!!

 

[chicken pickin]

Morning everyone! All this talk of coffee is making me jealous, I don't have a cup in my hand yet. I better get brewing. I just caught up on 70 posts, always a good read. Now off to make my coffee.

 

[chicken pickin]

Lucky me DH brewed a pot before he left for work so coffee now in hand

 

[Roan]

Good morning everyone!!!!

Okay, so here's how the temps are shaping up so far in the 'bator:

Time Temperature
Date/Day Turn 1 Turn 2 Turn 3 High Low Average Humidity %
12/11/14 102 100 101 -------------------
12/12/14 09:05 AM 05:05 PM 01:05 AM 101 97 99 -------------------
12/13/14 11:24 AM 07:24 PM 03:24 AM 102 97 99.5 -------------------
12/14/14 07:53 AM 03:53 PM 11:53 PM 102 97 99.5 -------------------
12/15/14 07:01 AM 03:01 PM 11:01 PM
12/16/14
12/17/14
12/18/14
12/19/14
12/20/14
12/21/14
12/22/14
12/23/14
12/24/14
12/25/14
12/26/14
12/27/14
12/28/14
12/29/14
12/30/14
12/31/14
101.8 97.8 99.8
High Low Average
Average Temperature

So the swings between 102 and 97 are actually working themselves out nicely. Since this is a LG still air, my temps are within safe range, right?