American serama thread!

[CraigT]

you nailed it .. the part out of line was done first. How do you determine clockwise from counter on an egg .. is it like looking down the barrel small end towards you?

 

[WVduckchick]

you nailed it .. the part out of line was done first. How do you determine clockwise from counter on an egg .. is it like looking down the barrel small end towards you?

Other end, counterclockwise looking at the air cell end. Clockwise looking at the small end. I bet when it was zipping, it zipped the side opposite the slope of the air cell, and when it got around to the air cell edge, it got cramped and couldn't finish. Interesting!

What's the big brown egg beside it??

 

[CraigT]

Well 4 hatched and 4 doing well.. I have one pipped and another soon to follow .. keeping fingers crossed.. first time doing this .. some mistakes made but so far so good.. Here's the crew.. all are Halloween babies except for the black one.. that one hatched this morning.

 

[WVduckchick]

Awww congrats!

 

[CraigT]

Oh and by the way the Brown Egg is a mix .. Daddy is a huge Barred Rock and Mom is a Rhode Island Red. Picked up from my work because I was interested to see how they would turn out.

 

[ShowTimeSilkies]

What are everyone's hatching methods? Specifically, what percentage of humidity does everyone use? I'm bidding on some eggs from some beautiful Seramas to bring new blood into my line but I've never incubated Serama eggs. I've only incubated eggs once before but that was a horrible experience as the breeder sent old eggs, some of which were broken on arrival and refused to provide a refund. I just want to have the best hatch rate I possibly can

 

[WVduckchick]

What are everyone's hatching methods? Specifically, what percentage of humidity does everyone use? I'm bidding on some eggs from some beautiful Seramas to bring new blood into my line but I've never incubated Serama eggs. I've only incubated eggs once before but that was a horrible experience as the breeder sent old eggs, some of which were broken on arrival and refused to provide a refund. I just want to have the best hatch rate I possibly can

You location will dictate the best humidity level for you to run, but generally 30-35% works best for me. I live in a very humid area, so with no water at all, I can maintain 30ish. I incubate several breeds, including large fowl and ducks too, and rarely put in any water until the final 3 days. Seramas, I will add a bit of water around day 14 if air cells look large.
I suggest starting with very low humidity, and watching air cells. They are your best guide. It's easier to adjust and add water later to slow down the air cell growth than to do the opposite.

Best of luck!

 

[ShowTimeSilkies]

You location will dictate the best humidity level for you to run, but generally 30-35% works best for me. I live in a very humid area, so with no water at all, I can maintain 30ish. I incubate several breeds, including large fowl and ducks too, and rarely put in any water until the final 3 days. Seramas, I will add a bit of water around day 14 if air cells look large.
I suggest starting with very low humidity, and watching air cells. They are your best guide. It's easier to adjust and add water later to slow down the air cell growth than to do the opposite.

Best of luck!

Thank you! I’m in Arizona so it’s very dry. When the incubators running and I haven’t added water it stays at 16%. I’ll watch the aircells and gauge how much water to add based on that. I’m so eggcited for these eggs, they’re from Austin Hart and the parent stock is beautiful! Fingers crossed everything goes as smoothly as possible! lol

 

[abraga]

What are everyone's hatching methods? Specifically, what percentage of humidity does everyone use? I'm bidding on some eggs from some beautiful Seramas to bring new blood into my line but I've never incubated Serama eggs. I've only incubated eggs once before but that was a horrible experience as the breeder sent old eggs, some of which were broken on arrival and refused to provide a refund. I just want to have the best hatch rate I possibly can

Shipped Serama eggs are harder to hatch. I hatched a lot of them last year and this is what worked best for me. I rest them small end down for 24hrs. After 24 hrs. I put them in the incubator " up", small end down and do not turn for the 1st two days. I found that handturning worked best for me. Humidity at 40% with Temp @99.7. Now that it is cold and I am using heat..i would raise my humidity to 45%. I check fertility at week After a week..then track air cells. Most of my eggs hatch on day 18..so..i put them in lockdown on day 16 and raise humidity to 60/70%. Seramas have a fatal gene. Its not unusual for them to make it to lockdown and not pip/hatch.

 

[CraigT]

I just hatched 7 out of 7 on Halloween, live in South Texas and kept them at 45% + or = 3% until lockdown then kept them at about 65% + or = 5 %. First time incubating so maybe I got lucky lol.
Auto turned, only had to assist one guy who zipped the wrong way.