Anyone else setting eggs today - 1/31?

[jenanneray]

How could you tell one was starting to rot?  Two of the leghorn eggs seem different then the ones I can tell are developing, but I'm not sure how to tell what's going on.  Any pointers?

The rotten one was very gray colored when I candled, when the others weren't so dark looking...developing, but not completely dark. And it STANK really bad. It wasnt oozing anything, but the smell was bad enough to toss it. It was very distinct smelling, the other eggs had no smell. You will know when theres a bad one, hopefully you dont have to experience that! Maybe if you could take a pic of the candled eggs in question and post it here, we could help you figure out what's happening in there.

How are you transporting your eggs to class with you and keeping them at temp? I bet the kids will be excited to see the chicks growing.

 

[just2rosey]

Eeww!! My biggest fear is of having a rotten egg blow up in my incubator! I candle early and often just to prevent that. I tossed one of mine, it was a day 3 quitter. So I am down to 23. The others all seem to be developing fine.

Simz, There is a great thread on candling eggs permantly stickied to the top of the hatching board. You might want to go through there and see if can find an answer to what you are seeing in the different eggs.

Good luck wit your traveling eggs! I am sure your students will love it. I am planning to teach embryology at 4H camp this summer. I am going to take in an incubator with eggs set for staggered hatch dates so the kids can see all the stages of development. I plan to have some eggs hatching that week for the campers to see. It should be fun!

I hope everyone's eggs are doing well. We are almost half way there, already!

 

[SIMZ]

Sounds gross! I got rid of two today that looked different than the others and didn't seem to have anything going on. One looked like it had started growing and the other just looked like an egg. The dark ones are so hard to tell, though.

I took 2 eggs in a thick styrofoam cooler with a heating pad and towel. The temperature stayed around 85-95 all day. I'm only taking 1 or 2 eggs each week because I'm not sure how they'll do after the trip. I sure hope they're ok!

The kids LOVED it! We could see the little guy moving around. I even showed the preschool class after reading Dora's Eggs (book about a chicken and her eggs). FUN!! They're as anxious as I am to see actual little chicks.

 

[dreamer5577]

How is everyone? Eggs looking good?

I candled mine today. And they're looking good! Out of the 5 I started with I am at 3 now. 2 white and 1 brown (the brown is the one with the candle wax). When comparing to some candling pictures others have taken...One white one and the brown one seem to be on track. The other white one seems to be about 4 or 5 days behind in development, which is weird because I put them all in at the same time. That little white one has been like that trough out this whole process though so I know it's not a goner.

I wonder.... will lockdown mess that little guy up? What should I do?

 

[Zootopia]

We candled the light eggs on the 7th and had 3 blood rings and 2 duds in light eggs, easy to see. Pulled and cracked them open to show DH (I sound so smart spouting what I read here). again on the 12th can see better in the dark and green eggs now 2 more blood rings and 2 duds. So far so good with everything else. Figured out the humidity in the house is ranging from a low of 22% on cold days when the heater is running more to about 37% on warm days even tho it snowed an inch Sunday (Id post a pic but like I said it snowed Sunday, was 52 on Mon and 76 today. It's a wonder we don't all have pnumonia.) I think I'll buy a humidifier on payday, it's to dry in here to be healthy for us too.
I only started this because I had lots of requests for fertile eggs a couple from guys with Big bators who know what they are doing and several from people who bought an LG or something and are just reading the directions. One of the guys came back saying he only had 2 hatch out of 12, I know it's out of my hands but this is not a big area and one unhappy customer can be bad for business. SOO I talked to my bigger customers and got good reports but wanted to be able to tell them "I" was hatching my own and having success. So here we are in our first test hatch

. I gave the guy another doz but printed out some info and told him about BYC, hope he's on here too.
When it is all said and done even if I never hatch again

, we always have plenty of eggs to sell and now we will be better informed as well. (OK, so chicken math takes on a whole new meaning when you can make your own, not to mention making it possibly affordable to do a "few" projects)
DH is looking over some of the info I've found and we are designing a home built bator

PS: What do you do with an emu after you hatch it?

 

[SIMZ]

Zootopia -- are you hatching an emu?!!

My lights eggs seem to doing really well! After getting rid of the two problem light eggs, the rest all have signs of life in them. I'm kind of scared to try messing with the darker eggs, but I'm thinking I will in before I lock down. My biggest concern is keeping the humidity up during lock down in my LG.

All of my chicks are spoken for and will be going away right after they hatch. I'm already thinking of keeping a few........just maybe 3 of the little leghorn babies that I've been watching so closely swim around in their eggs. I am hopeless in this chicken thing!! LOL My husband keeps reminding me that then I'm going to have chicks of different ages everywhere if I keep some of these. Actually, they won't be "everywhere", we all know they'll be in HIS garage!

When are you all planning on putting them on lock down?

 

[just2rosey]

Well, I am down to 21 eggs. All the ones I tossed were Ameraucana's. They are so much harder to see through, I don't know if they quit around day three or if I just imagined development the first time I candled.

All the cochin eggs are looking good though. I plan to stop turning Friday night I guess, and I will start upping the humidity Saturday morning when I will be able to monitor it.

Simz, how are the travel babies doing? Have you lost any? Do they seem to be keeping pace developmentally with the others?

Zootopia, are you hatching an emu egg? I would love to see one hatch, but I have no place to keep one, they get so big!

Good luck with your hatches everyone.

 

[SIMZ]

The travel babies seem to be doing good. They move around and seem to be right with the others. The temp in their cooler today was between 94-99 the whole time. Two of them were small leghorn eggs, so I wasn't sure how well they would do anyway. They're still hanging in there, though. I took two eggs today and the kids had a blast watching them in there. One preschooler asked, "When dem baby chicks gonna come outta dat egg?" CUTE!

I threw out three more eggs that weren't living tonight. There were some that I couldn't tell, but looked like something was going on, but most are obviously doing well. I just keep telling myself to not count my chicks before they hatch.............

 

[jenanneray]

I tend to get in trouble by counting chicks before they hatch...... :/ I started with 42, and I'm now down to 26. I think I need to fire my rooster (or just get an extra one....lol). I'm soo looking forward to hatch day! This 3-week period seems to be going by painfully slow. My husband its pretty much tired of hearing about eggs, chicks and chickens, and I'm already lining up purchasing more hatching eggs, incubation starting on the 28th. I may have a chicken math issue, here. Good thing most of these babies will be sold.

 

[SIMZ]

Jenanneray, your post completely cracked me up!

So far I still feel pretty good about these eggs since they're all going away. I can pretend that I don't have chicken math issues. Of course, that all changes the week of May 7th when I pick up two separate chicks orders AND have 3 midget white turkeys arriving. I also plan to incubate another batch to hatch during that week, too. (How sick of hearing about that do you think everyone's going to be in about another month?!

)

Aren't you grateful for tolerant husbands? Does your build coops and enclosures, too? LOL I think he keeps hoping he'll be done.........