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

[Jules929]

My duck eggs are

They're so cute I can't stand it! What do you still have hatching?

The Foxfire batch is finished with 15 hatched. I haven't posted a pic of the second Pavlovskaya. It didn't absorb all of the yolk and has a red tumor-looking thing on its head.
The Cream Legbars are on D21 and the first just pipped. 10 made it to lockdown.

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

My duck eggs are on day 24. Still no external pips but all are alive and moving. These little guys are taking their time. Just as I was warned about. Time to sit on those hands!

 

[FortCluck]

These are my new Deathlayers and will be my new breeding project. Sad this will be my last Squatch hatch, but I can't have my hens looking horrible due to aggressive breeding.

Has anyone started the May hatch a long... I'll be incubating eggs in about 3 weeks from these guys.

 

[FortCluck]

My duck eggs are on day 24. Still no external pips but all are alive and moving. These little guys are taking their time. Just as I was warned about. Time to sit on those hands!
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You still have a few days to go

 

[CluckNDoodle]

These are my new Deathlayers and will be my new breeding project. Sad this will be my last Squatch hatch, but I can't have my hens looking horrible due to aggressive breeding.

Has anyone started the May hatch a long... I'll be incubating eggs in about 3 weeks from these guys.

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Oh that's a good looking rooster!!

 

[FortCluck]

Oh that's a good looking rooster!!

It's two different ones we decided to get two of them because we have enough females in our flock for two.

They are brothers and we name them Ozzy and Dio (after the rockets)

I'll start the May hatch a long and put the link here for everyone

 

[CluckNDoodle]

It's two different ones we decided to get two of them because we have enough females in our flock for two.

They are brothers and we name them Ozzy and Dio (after the rockets)

I'll start the May hatch a long and put the link here for everyone

Thanks! I said I would stop hatching until the virus chilled out but I may end up with peafowl eggs...sooooo. LOL!

 

[FortCluck]

Here's the link

May 2020 Hatch-a-Long

And @CluckNDoodle you have to join so you can see what my new crosses look like

 

[gmjarvi]

I can't help you on when to do it. I tend to step in earlier than some because my ultimate goal is to assist when possible. I gauge my choice to step in by how the hatch is going. When I'm down to the last few stragglers if they don't seem to be actively hatching then I open the air cell to see what's going on. Sometimes this is an eggtopsy and sometimes it's an assist.

I always appreciate your honest feedback! I am still a newbie so it is hard for me to judge when to step in or not. One one hand, I feel like eggs incubated under the same conditions should all hatch out around the same time...on the other hand I've heard of this not always being the case, and duck eggs should take 28 days, so mine were a bit early! This is the second hatch in a row where I've had early hatchers so I'm wondering if I need a better thermometer set up...maybe my temp is too high and it's actually causing issues! I made a hole on the air cell side of the egg I had the least hope for; it was for sure dead. So, I opened it up a bit further and it looks like it died before it even absorbed its yolk. Otherwise it was perfectly formed, so I'm not sure what went wrong. No fluid build up either. I think I'm going to give the other two a day or two more before I do anything, even though my hope is low.

IMO there's nothing to be lost by waiting. The incubator is in use regardless and them being in there doesn't hurt anything. If there are signs of life you could give them a pinhole into the air sac. I don't do more than that. Others do and are sometimes successful. Usually if I think they're dead, they're dead. I give them an extra day then toss them. I do not like twisting little heads off because something turns out to be horribly gone-amiss. I would rather nature take her course. But mine are livestock--not pets, though I do enjoy them very much. Pets are a whole different thing and I completely understand why folks want to do all they can.

I usually ignore elevated humidity unless it lasts for hours. If it were at 80% though, I would open the incubator, take the lid completely off, and pull up the corner of the bottom layer (mine is plastic needlework canvas). I tilt the incubator toward me and sop up the excess water with a towel. I haven't ever had it that high, but I've done this on occasion for persistent 60%. A day-long spike isn't going to kill your babies, but it's less than optimal. Lots of people incubate dry for non-waterfowl--I don't, but our ambient humidity is usually pretty low, especially inside the house.

I am quickly learning how much of this process is fueled by gut instinct! Each time my gut has told me an egg has quit, it has. I have only been wrong once so far. This particular batch are pets, so it stings a little harder that only 3 have hatched. But I will try again.

I may see if I can control the humidity better next time around during the hatching. As I mentioned above, there were no signs of drowning (fluid build up) in the egg that I did eggtopsy, but I am still befuddled, and 80% all day is a lot for a long time.

 

[gmjarvi]

These are my new Deathlayers and will be my new breeding project. Sad this will be my last Squatch hatch, but I can't have my hens looking horrible due to aggressive breeding.

Has anyone started the May hatch a long... I'll be incubating eggs in about 3 weeks from these guys.

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They are so pretty!