April 2020 Hatch-A-Long! All are welcome!

[Jeanna Marie]

I am currently on day 8 with my first NR360.
I purchased 12 Silver Laced Orpington hatching eggs. The seller also included 4 Gold Laced Orpington eggs, a pleasant surprise!
I candled on day 5 and only had 2 non starters, both Silver Laced. I cracked them and they weren't fertile to begin with.
My first attempt at hatching shipped eggs is going very well so far.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I am currently on day 8 with my first NR360.
I purchased 12 Silver Laced Orpington hatching eggs. The seller also included 4 Gold Laced Orpington eggs, a pleasant surprise!
I candled on day 5 and only had 2 non starters, both Silver Laced. I cracked them and they weren't fertile to begin with.
My first attempt at hatching shipped eggs is going very well so far.

I can't wait to see your peeps! I LOVE Orpingtons and I LOVE laced pluamge.

 

[jolenesdad]

I got a broody! Naturally, I gave her a few eggs. ;-) Hatch day will be April 27, so I just barely made this hatch-a-long!

She is a smaller-ish sized Marans, and I got 12 eggs from a friend. I felt like her limit to really keep all the eggs under her is about 10 at max for sure, so I gave her 6 and fired up the incubator with the other 6.

We have a few days of chill next week and I didn't want eggs hanging too long on the sides. I figure we may lose some along the way, so my current plan is to give her all the incubator eggs at lockdown. Is there any reason not to do this? I'd rather her hatch them all since she will be hatching some, and I don't have to deal at all.

I think even as a first timer, she will be fine with all 12 as chicks if they all made it. The adults in my flock are really docile to newcomers, Ill just have to watch the ones that will be 12 and 8 weeks old then.

She is a first time broody, but really chill about it. I didn't collect eggs this week on a day we lost one of our dogs , which I think set her off to be broody as she was sitting on those 15 eggs or so in a box the next evening. She got off when I collected and wasn't clucking and went back to the flock but the next day was sitting again. Since then, I've moved eggs around, given her extra and taken away, and she doesn't care. Hurriedly going to try and integrate all the grow outs I currently have over the next coupe of weeks so that I can get her a space to hatch.

Eggs are 4 Whiting True Blue, 4 Olive Egger, and 4 Birchen Marans.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I got a broody! Naturally, I gave her a few eggs. ;-) Hatch day will be April 27, so I just barely made this hatch-a-long!

She is a smaller-ish sized Marans, and I got 12 eggs from a friend. I felt like her limit to really keep all the eggs under her is about 10 at max for sure, so I gave her 6 and fired up the incubator with the other 6.

We have a few days of chill next week and I didn't want eggs hanging too long on the sides. I figure we may lose some along the way, so my current plan is to give her all the incubator eggs at lockdown. Is there any reason not to do this? I'd rather her hatch them all since she will be hatching some, and I don't have to deal at all.

I think even as a first timer, she will be fine with all 12 as chicks if they all made it. The adults in my flock are really docile to newcomers, Ill just have to watch the ones that will be 12 and 8 weeks old then.

She is a first time broody, but really chill about it. I didn't collect eggs this week on a day we lost one of our dogs , which I think set her off to be broody as she was sitting on those 15 eggs or so in a box the next evening. She got off when I collected and wasn't clucking and went back to the flock but the next day was sitting again. Since then, I've moved eggs around, given her extra and taken away, and she doesn't care. Hurriedly going to try and integrate all the grow outs I currently have over the next coupe of weeks so that I can get her a space to hatch.

Eggs are 4 Whiting True Blue, 4 Olive Egger, and 4 Birchen Marans.

I'm sorry you lost your dog.

No reason not to do this that I'm aware of! I'm a candling fiend, as you know, so I enjoy incubating my eggs and giving them to broody hens at the last moment, lol. Usually for lockdown. This also reduces the chances of me ending up with a hen that accidentally goes to the wrong box with viable eggs in another box, etc.

I've actually gotten into the habit of hatching all of my chicks and putting just the ones I want to keep under the broody after hatch. That way they raise and integrate the chicks for me but I still get to incubate and hatch the chicks while they're sitting on fake eggs.

 

[2102Simm]

So sorry to hear that! What incubator are you using and I can't remember if you said before, are you using a secondary calibrated thermometer? I would be wondering if something is up with your flock as well. A couple situations you experienced in this hatch can be due to high temps, a couple could be due to vitamin deficiency in the breeding flock. Vitamin deficiency or illness in breeding flocks can cause all sorts of issues in a hatch. Did you happen to have a lot of early quitters as well?
Sorry for all of the questions, I'm SURE we can get to the bottom of what's going on with your hatches though.

Thank you for the support. I have a little giant still air incubator with the egg turner. It's old (15yrs+). I have a calibrated thermometer with humidity reader. But will be buying another after all of this.
I'm of the opion at this point that there's an issue within the flock vitamin wise so I'll have to figure out how to address that. There were a lot of quitters. I just did 5 eggtopsies all had development and were most likely alive and developing within the last 7 days. Putting it simply there were multiple stages of quitters.
So with all the issues of the incubator coupled with whatever is going on in my flock = quitters, deformities and death of the eggs.

I'll be putting the chick with wry neck down shortly as it seems to have other deformities in one of its legs. My bright note is Dos and our unnamed SLW cross. Both seem to be happy and active.

 

[BluebirdHomestead]

Thank you for the support. I have a little giant still air incubator with the egg turner. It's old (15yrs+). I have a calibrated thermometer with humidity reader. But will be buying another after all of this.
I'm of the opion at this point that there's an issue within the flock vitamin wise so I'll have to figure out how to address that. There were a lot of quitters. I just did 5 eggtopsies all had development and were most likely alive and developing within the last 7 days. Putting it simply there were multiple stages of quitters.
So with all the issues of the incubator coupled with whatever is going on in my flock = quitters, deformities and death of the eggs.

I'll be putting the chick with wry neck down shortly as it seems to have other deformities in one of its legs. My bright note is Dos and our unnamed SLW cross. Both seem to be happy and active.

Awe I’m sorry to hear about the chick you need to put down. It sucks. I had to put down the 2 with messed up navels. One last night and one this morning. Sigh.

On another note, I set 26 of my own eggs - BBS Ameraucanas and Olive Eggers. My very first time setting my own eggs. Yay!

And I traded 3 Marans cockerels for 18 hatching eggs - BBS Ameraucanas, 1 Lav Ameraucana, Cream Legbars, “Ice Cream Bars” (Isbar x CLB), and Olive Eggers (Marans x CLB). I’m not sure what’s better than trading cockerels for more eggs.

Oh, AND my Sky Girl eggs are hatching. 3 Black Ameraucanas, and an Olive Egger. 1 Marans egg that I was 100% sure was dead just pipped.

 

[Phillyndilly]

Day 15 I weighed half and they have a pretty consistent loss which is about 2-3 grams each from say 7. They look pretty close to the numbers @CluckNDoodle showed me.
Here are my air cells I think they look pretty good.
Here’s some pictures from my March babies outside session today they stayed out long we had nice weather.

 

[clinfitt]

So far I have 10 hatched. I’m excited because my cc legbar egg hatched a girl! They are back yard mixes with the exception of her, but we shall see how it all goes! View attachment 2078244
View attachment 2078256

Is there dinosaurs in with your chicks LOL?!

 

[2102Simm]

Here are my happies from this hatch. Kept it simple with the names Dos and Tres. Dos is a Buff Orpington x Barred Holland. Tres is a SLW x Barred Holland. Im surprised with how much gold color Dos has .

 

[BluebirdHomestead]

Ok I need opinions. What would you do - 5/6 eggs that entered lockdown have hatched. I was 99.9% sure the egg that hasn’t hatched was dead at lockdown, but last night it was wiggling all over the place! I tried Candling but it’s a very dark Marans egg with a horrible air cell that goes down the sides of the egg and is so wonky that I can’t even tell if there is an internal pip or movement. No more wiggling.
If it’s DIS I’d love to clean my incubator and set eggs that I have waiting but I don’t want to be too hasty. I’m hesistant to assist after having to cull 2 assisted chicks in the last 24 hours but I am dying to know what’s going on in that egg. Should I make a safety hole and wait until morning? Should I do nothing and leave it overnight? Should I make a viewing hole and do another potential assist? It’s day 21 so still early yet all the others are out. I’m learning I’m really bad at sitting on my hands. I know only I can make this decision but I’d love to hear what you would do.