April 2023 Hatch-A-Long

[lilwanderer]

I've decided to set eggs in hopefully a better incubator, it costed a bit and i heard those do, do better but we'll see. I've held back on it after buying a cheap incubator that only hatched 1 chick the 4 times ive used it and that chick couldn't hatch on its own. (It held 6 eggs, automatically turned.)
-
Anyways, this incubator holds 41, but I'll only be setting 12 tomorrow, may add more this weekend (And I'll manually turn them the days that the others are in lockdown.)
The eggs will be orpingtons, specifically 6 chocolate, 3 blue, and 3 lavender. I'm supposed to pick them up from a private seller tomorrow as I mentioned above.
-
I dont yet have my own hygrometers/thermometer but I'll try and find one. Any store y'all know of that has one, tractor supply maybe?
If i don't, anything else i could try to have better accuracy?
(If not I'll be monitoring the eggs myself quite often to see if everythings okay. )

 

[Josip]

I have 40 eggs in incubator that will hatch in 48 hours, i set 40 all made it to the lockdown

 

[Kikilu]

Day 5 on my shipped eggs and I can only see development in 3 ugh. 3 are marans, 2 welsummer and rest are Ameraucana and orpingtons. Hoping for some indication on other eggs in the next couple days.
It’s been a busy weekend working on my coop and it’s almost done! Need to finish this week because it’s going to be great weather for my older ones to be outside finally!

 

[Nomadicus]

In 48 hours my 82 eggs will go into lock down. I'll transfer the eggs into a second set of 41 egg incubators used as hatchers. Then I can set 82 more on Saturday evening and keep the 21 day hatching cycle going.

 

[Honora]

I had a chance to candle all the incubator eggs last night. Out of 24 I had 6 clears and 18 were developing. Seems like a lot of clears for having 2 roosters, but my boss rooster is 3 now so maybe his fertility is decreasing? I have also heard that fertility increases during the summer, and I plan on hatching again this year so we will see how it goes next time.

I was happy to see so many developing, cause I have always had quitters with all my previous hatches. However, the air cells seem small, so I am hoping the humidity is not too high. I have been keeping a tea towel over the incubator to stop the low room temperature alarm from going off, and hope it hasn’t been affecting the humidity. I am trying to just partially cover it now. (The humidity is very high where I live so I don’t add water to the incubator at all).

 

[Waterfaery]

I had a chance to candle all the incubator eggs last night. Out of 24 I had 6 clears and 18 were developing. Seems like a lot of clears for having 2 roosters, but my boss rooster is 3 now so maybe his fertility is decreasing? I have also heard that fertility increases during the summer, and I plan on hatching again this year so we will see how it goes next time.

I was happy to see so many developing, cause I have always had quitters with all my previous hatches. However, the air cells seem small, so I am hoping the humidity is not too high. I have been keeping a tea towel over the incubator to stop the low room temperature alarm from going off, and hope it hasn’t been affecting the humidity. I am trying to just partially cover it now. (The humidity is very high where I live so I don’t add water to the incubator at all).

Maybe the fertility is still just ramping up? I'm not sure since this is my first year incubating from my own flock. I wonder if different breeds might have higher fertility earlier or later in the season? My Bresse have been 100% from as early as February/March but Light Sussex a lot less. I would say the awful weather we've had so far this year might have an effect as well.

I don't think a tea towel would cause the humidity to stay too high. Do you have the vent open on the incubator? In my very limited experience, dry hatching seems to give the ideal humidity in this climate so I'm sure it will be fine.

It looks like warmer weather might be on the way next week, if you can believe that!

 

[lilwanderer]

Bad news, I candled 4 of the turkey eggs this morning after i woke up to the hen laying in another box, last night when i locked the pens up she was on her eggs so im unsure of when she moved. But the eggs were ice cold, so i candled 4 of them out of 8, no movement. 2 days ago i did their day 14 candling, all 8 were alive, so i dont think its just that they died a while ago.. Hoping they'll start floating around again once they warm up. The 4 I candled I placed in the incubator.

 

[Iluveggers]

However, the air cells seem small, so I am hoping the humidity is not too high.

Did you happen to take weights before setting?

 

[lilwanderer]

Bad news, I candled 4 of the turkey eggs this morning after i woke up to the hen laying in another box, last night when i locked the pens up she was on her eggs so im unsure of when she moved. But the eggs were ice cold, so i candled 4 of them out of 8, no movement. 2 days ago i did their day 14 candling, all 8 were alive, so i dont think its just that they died a while ago.. Hoping they'll start floating around again once they warm up. The 4 I candled I placed in the incubator.

All is not lost! I candled the eggs again once they warmed up and there is movement!

 

[Waterfaery]

All is not lost! I candled the eggs again once they warmed up and there is movement!

That's great news! I hope they go well for you now.