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

[gmjarvi]

50 + something hatches later with numerous species, I still learn something new in almost every hatch!

That does sound like a malposition from your description.

Shipped ALWAYS contributes to difficulty in hatches. In hatch-a-longs last year I watched shipped eggs in the same incubators show signs of sticky chicks, shrink wrapping, and malpositions all in the same hatches and it just got worse with the heat of the summer. I avoid shipping eggs when I can but when there aren't alternative options I would say at the very least you can't count your hatch rate against you or your incubator because there's just no way to know what they went through during shipping. Jostling, altitude changes, x-rays, etc.

There's not a lot of variety around me unfortunately, so shipped eggs or babies are sometimes the only way I can get certain breeds. I am happy with the 3 cayugas that did hatch, but bummed I didnt get all 6. I have to admit it's kind of a relief that it probably was something beyond my control as far as malpositioning goes. I know there's a risk associated with shipping eggs, but that's a risk I'm going to have to take now and again! Thanks to you and everyone else here for sharing your wealth of knowledge!

 

[gmjarvi]

Hello! This is my first year with chickens and I have TWO broody hens (out of 8). My splash ameraucana (Veronica) is due on the 14th and my copper maran hen (Maya) is due on the 28th! I'm very excited! I'm not sure exactly what the chicks will look like because they will likely all be crosses. My two roosters are a copper maran and a white leghorn. Does anyone have experience with crosses? Is it just luck of the draw what they will look like?

I have been hatching barnyard mixes from my flock and it has been so fun! I have a silver laced wyandotte rooster and a frizzle rooster. Some of the babies have come out looking like obvious wyandotte crosses and some have come out with frizzled feathers, but some are nearly impossible to tell! I have one chick that looks like a frizzled leg horn but it came out of a brown egg!

It's fun to guess the parents, and you can narrow it down by using what you know about your flock...who laid the egg, what roosters you have, what your chickens may have looked like as chicks, leg color, comb type, etc.

 

[gmjarvi]

Ok quadruple post, sorry lol. Has anybody else been having issues uploading pictures using a mobile phone?

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Ok quadruple post, sorry lol. Has anybody else been having issues uploading pictures using a mobile phone?

I haven't tried today but I don't normally have any issues uploading pictures with my phone or the computer.

 

[gmjarvi]

I haven't tried today but I don't normally have any issues uploading pictures with my phone or the computer.

Hmm, maybe it's on my end, then! The last 24 hours or so whenever I try to upload a picture it totally freezes up my phone and I have to close my browser completely.

 

[christine9]

Hey, all. I need advice. I have a broody who’s been sitting on 4 eggs for 6 days. Everything was going smoothly until another in my flock decided to brood with her earlier today. Now there’s one egg missing and I think they both may have given up.
of course my incubator is ready, but how much time would you give a broody to get back on? AND do I trust them if they are possibly breaking/eating eggs?

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Hey, all. I need advice. I have a broody who’s been sitting on 4 eggs for 6 days. Everything was going smoothly until another in my flock decided to brood with her earlier today. Now there’s one egg missing and I think they both may have given up.
of course my incubator is ready, but how much time would you give a broody to get back on? AND do I trust them if they are possibly breaking/eating eggs?

If you have an incubator I would probably put them in the incubator. If they haven't gone back to brooding in about an hour then it's less likely that they will. If something spooked them it's not to say they can't be off the nest longer and the eggs still survive but if you have fake eggs, you could always put those in the box instead and if they start brooding again you could put the viable eggs back under them if you feel like they're committed.

 

[Pyxis]

Well, I didnt see anymore movement in the remaining cayuga eggs so I checked them again this morning and they are in the exact same spot/position as when I candled last night. So I think they are DIS?

This is happening to me a lot - everyone makes it until the first handful hatches, and then the rest die. In the Janoel I don't think it's humidity related as it is super hard to keep humidity high in that thing and it rarely goes above 70% even after someone has just hatched. In the Brinsea, the humidity spikes to 99%+ (99% is the max on my hygrometer) after someone hatches and can stay that way for a long time if I dont open it (and I try not to because there's usually someone pipped!) Could this be drowning chicks/ducklings that haven't pipped? All three ducklings that had external pips hatched successfully, the other three I am pretty sure are dead, but they were alive and well just 48 hours ago. It is D26. What gives? Any ideas? Should I poke a hole in the remaining eggs to see what's going on? (I know I just told someone to sit on their hands; it is so hard to do that when the eggs are right in front of you lol). This is super frustrating.

Not sure if this has been answered since I was tagged, but it does sound humidity related. Humidity is the first thing I think of when I hear about late death in incubation. Not humidity during lockdown, but humidity during the first part of incubation. It could be either too high or too low. Have you done an eggtopsy on these eggs? If so, did you find there was liquid inside, or did the membrane look very tight and pulled down? Both of those would indicate a humidity issue.

I would wait until after day 28 to do an eggtopsy if you're not 100% sure they have died, just in case.

 

[gmjarvi]

Not sure if this has been answered since I was tagged, but it does sound humidity related. Humidity is the first thing I think of when I hear about late death in incubation. Not humidity during lockdown, but humidity during the first part of incubation. It could be either too high or too low. Have you done an eggtopsy on these eggs? If so, did you find there was liquid inside, or did the membrane look very tight and pulled down? Both of those would indicate a humidity issue.

I would wait until after day 28 to do an eggtopsy if you're not 100% sure they have died, just in case.

I candled again this evening and they were in the exact same position they had been in for over 24 hours with no movement, not even a tiny wiggle. So I made a safety hole and those turned into eggtopsies. The babies were definitely dead before I intervened. All three had not absorbed the yolk whatsoever, and I didn't notice any obvious deformities. One was definitely malpositioned but I think the other two looked okay. The first one I eggtopsied (malpo, no pictures because I didn't think to take any) didn't have any obvious moisture build up, but the membrane was a little tight - it may be worth noting that this egg had a severely saddled air cell. The membranes on the other two seemed fine, and there was liquid inside the egg behind the membrane, but I think this was the albumen?

My humidity stayed relatively stable throughout this process, around 50%, and I increased it to 60% for lockdown. I misted/cooled the eggs once a day starting at D8. Instead of misting AFTER (this is what I had I read to do) the cooling period (I did 10 min) I misted BEFORE the cooling period, as when I missed after cooling the humidity spiked to 99%+ (which I rectified as best I could immediately).

I will try to post pics of the eggtopsies beneath a spoiler in a separate post if I can get it to cooperate...I have been having bad luck uploading pics lately.

 

[gmjarvi]

Btw, added 3 more eggs to the NR360 today so it's now at max capacity since two slots are holding thermometer/hygrometers.