A Bielefelder Thread !

[texasmomma]

Do Bielefelders have a low hatch rate? I purchase 8 eggs, only 2 hatched - 1 roo and 1 hen. I am happy to at least get those 2. Hopefully when the roo matures, I will be able to separate the Bieles from the rest of the flock - lol, the only roo I will have is the Biel, I guess I don't need to worry!

My bielefelder eggs that have NOT been through the mail do much better than any other eggs I have had. I gave up on eggs through the mail.

Some of my bieles have needed extra time to hatch.

 

[bluejean55girl]

okay, it was my first successful try at hatching eggs. I have a cheapo yellow made in china incubator off of ebay. (48 egg size) already had to replace the electric cord which is why I lost the 1st and 2nd attempts.

this time I had started with 18 biel eggs. post office broke one, so 17 went in.

alarm for humidity was preset at 44%. so was trying to keep it from 45-55% most of the time. (I had wide swings on humidity.. I had it set up in my bedroom so I could hear it at night, but wouldn't always get it checked on time in the day which is why it sometimes would get down to the 30's before I would catch it..

did not have wide temp swings, seemed to be very steady with temps at least.

candled at day 7, and 7 looked to be clears. did have several loose air cells)

candled at day 14, 10 still developing.. marked wrong end of shell for air.. oops

lockdown at day 18, again marked wrong end of shell for air, was worried I had too much moisture swings to the high.. did finally bump humidity up to 65% area for lockdown time.

9 pipped and hatched on their own. (this is where I finally figured out I had marked wrong end) lol

1 pipped, and I helped this one out of the shell. good thing too, it was my 4th and last female.

1 never pipped, finally did an eggtopsy.. fully formed, egg sack not absorbed, head tucked but to the center of the egg. i did the float test before I had given up on this one.

so have 10 live 9 day old biels out of the 17 eggs put in the incubator. 6 males and 4 females.

at 7 days post hatch, went back and weighed 6 clears, which ranged from 1.75 to 2.0 ounces via old postal spring scale. unpipped egg weighed 2.0 ounces.

then I weighed chicks on same day (7 days old)

the six males = 2.5, 1.5, 2.75, 2.8, 2.0 & 2.75 ounces

the four females = 1.5, 2.5, 2.5 and the one I helped was 2.5 ounces (surprised me)

using the blooie heating pad method, they started feathering in 4 days, inside a clear plastic open tote, inside a wire dog crate, inside a 72 degree house. all are active, on dumor chick starter (doesn't say medicated). and plain well water.

edited to add:

I live in a dry brittle environment area. the outside daytime humidity is about 18% most days, inside the house is roughly 30%. and this is spring before the high temps hit. if it's only 18% now with high and critical fire dangers, without rains, it will drop even more.. I have seen it go so low in outside humidity that it didn't even register on my weather thingie.. sighs

 

[texasmomma]

okay, it was my first successful try at hatching eggs. I have a cheapo yellow made in china incubator off of ebay. (48 egg size) already had to replace the electric cord which is why I lost the 1st and 2nd attempts.

this time I had started with 18 biel eggs. post office broke one, so 17 went in.

alarm for humidity was preset at 44%. so was trying to keep it from 45-55% most of the time. (I had wide swings on humidity.. I had it set up in my bedroom so I could hear it at night, but wouldn't always get it checked on time in the day which is why it sometimes would get down to the 30's before I would catch it..

did not have wide temp swings, seemed to be very steady with temps at least.

Did you use the temp and humidity gauges from the incubator? I have found them to be incredibly inaccurate with this particular incubator. The temp was a lot lower and had huge variability. Humidity was slightly better, but not a lot. I don't mind a dry incubation, though. We did not have much success with this incubator.

So glad for the ones you did have hatch, though!

 

[bluejean55girl]

Did you use the temp and humidity gauges from the incubator? I have found them to be incredibly inaccurate with this particular incubator. The temp was a lot lower and had huge variability. Humidity was slightly better, but not a lot. I don't mind a dry incubation, though. We did not have much success with this incubator.

So glad for the ones you did have hatch, though!

yes, I did use the factory settings on the incubator, also used a infrared thermometer (shining red dot on eggs themselves) to check egg temps. the eggs seemed to be holding steady, so didn't worry about temps. the wide swings in humidity were my own lack of prompt attention.

 

[texasmomma]

yes,

 

[DesertChic]

On my last hatch I had 10 very nice Bielefelder eggs in with some Bielefelders /sex link mix eggs. All of my Bielefelders /sex link eggs hatched only 4 of my pure Bielefelder eggs hatched out of the 10. All of them were fully developed the 6 that did not hatch did not pip. I did candle the eggs at day 18 and was concerned about the air sack being small. When I realized the eggs were not going to hatch at day 23. I cracked them open and the chicks were fully developed and slightly larger than the ones that did hatch. I have a friend close by that had trouble hatching his Bielefelder eggs. He said he could hatch Rhode Island Reds without fail but his Bielefelders would fully develope and then not pip. I wonder if there are settings on humidity and temp that are more conducive to hatching Bielefelders?? Does anyone have any input? What set up and settings is everyone using? What results is everyone having with their Bielefelder eggs? What is successful for you?

Do Bielefelders have a low hatch rate? I purchase 8 eggs, only 2 hatched - 1 roo and 1 hen. I am happy to at least get those 2. Hopefully when the roo matures, I will be able to separate the Bieles from the rest of the flock - lol, the only roo I will have is the Biel, I guess I don't need to worry!

I'm beginning to suspect that there are definitely hatchability issues with this breed. I put 6 fertile Biel eggs in the incubator for this last hatch. Of those, only 2 made it to lockdown, and only one actually hatched...a hybrid NN/Bielefelder that I am completely in love with. (Photos coming soon.)

I've been told before that I have to change humidity and temperature settings for Biels, but I've also been given conflicting advice from multiple sources. One person said I should keep the temp closer to 100.5 until lockdown and keep the humidity at 40% or lower, while the other said to stay at 99.5 and keep the humidity higher. Given that we all live in different climates I suspect there is not one perfect set of instructions and we may have to figure it out for ourselves.

Right now I have one persistently broody White Rock hen that I think I'm going to give Biel eggs to. If she manages to hatch them successfully, I may only hatch Biels via broody hens from this point on.

 

[Faraday40]

Do you candle your eggs throughout incubation? If so do your air sacs look about right at lockdown?

I candle on days 7, 14, & 18. (If an egg is ? on day 7, I redo just that egg on day 10 before tossing.) Usually if an egg is developing on day 7 it hatches......unless shipped eggs of course. Those get rolling air cells & can have fully formed chicks that never hatch.

Last batch the air cells looked perfect on day 18. This time, 2 were slightly larger - maybe up to about 1/3 instead of 1/4. It's day 22 & no pips. Since none have pipped, they could all just be late. I keeping tapping & talking to the incubator then listening for peepong. Nothing! It's when most hatch on day 20-21, that I would open incubator on day 23. Not much to do but sit on my hands.

 

[Saris]

Do Bielefelders have a low hatch rate? I purchase 8 eggs, only 2 hatched - 1 roo and 1 hen. I am happy to at least get those 2. Hopefully when the roo matures, I will be able to separate the Bieles from the rest of the flock - lol, the only roo I will have is the Biel, I guess I don't need to worry!

I had 33 shipped eggs and had 25 make it to lock down and had 18 hatch, I would've had 19 but one suffocated during the zipping stage while I was helping a chick that hatched with some yolk out. I found that following my normal routine led to the chicks being a bit too big to hatch on their own I had to help a few out that ended up zipping around more than once. I will use slightly lower humidity on days 1-18 now.

 

[jbkirk]

I'm beginning to suspect that there are definitely hatchability issues with this breed. I put 6 fertile Biel eggs in the incubator for this last hatch. Of those, only 2 made it to lockdown, and only one actually hatched...a hybrid NN/Bielefelder that I am completely in love with. (Photos coming soon.)

I've been told before that I have to change humidity and temperature settings for Biels, but I've also been given conflicting advice from multiple sources. One person said I should keep the temp closer to 100.5 until lockdown and keep the humidity at 40% or lower, while the other said to stay at 99.5 and keep the humidity higher. Given that we all live in different climates I suspect there is not one perfect set of instructions and we may have to figure it out for ourselves.

Right now I have one persistently broody White Rock hen that I think I'm going to give Biel eggs to. If she manages to hatch them successfully, I may only hatch Biels via broody hens from this point on.

Well the best way to find out is to experiment!!!!

 

[DesertChic]

As promised, here's the photo of my NN over Bielefelder chick, quite possibly the cutest chick to come out of this hatch.