April Hatch Along

[henaynei]

Good morning! My 22 April hatchers are doing well. I've set 76 eggs and will set 24 more tonight. (Oops- I bought too many.) Before I set them I'll go through my eggs to weed out the infertile ones. This is my first staggered hatch. I'll set up three different hatchers in mid May. Eep.

Good luck!!!! wow - 100 eggs - must have a huge brooder~~~ LOL

 

[squidvicious]

**Bator. I think this site just doesn't like me, lol.

It's the little giant incubator.

 

[slantrhymes]

I woke up this morning to four little babies! The fifth has a nice big pip, but no unzipping yet. Pictures soon!

 

[MillersFarm]

Hi! So im hatching chicks and ducks everywhere its making me dizzy! I had two hens go broody a polish and a Jersey Giant, unfortunately
the polish stopped brooding her eggs just before they were about to hatch and i managed to save only two out of her nine eggs. And so now my Jersey hen took in those eggs and they'll hopefully hatch by Monday. Shes already setting on 15 eggs and today will be day 12 for her. And I also had 16 duck eggs in our incubator but four turned out to be unfertilized and four more had died earlier. But besides that if everything goes well we'll have 8 ducklings by this Thursday. We were also thinking about hatching some Turkey eggs but for now we'll just stick with the ducks and chicken eggs

 

[spruce creek]

Five out of 13 eggs have been rocking(that I have seen) so far!

We're on day 19 now. So when I went to candle them yesterday the headlamp I had improvised into a candler, after my candler quite on me last week started to lose battery power and I could only see into the egg enough to see the air sacs. So frustrating. So I quickly candled and marked air cels, put them back into the incubator without turner and they kept wanting to roll!? I must have put the metal cover in upside down, I didn't realize it had a slight curve to it, just enough to make the eggs want to roll. So I quickly flipped it over and they seemed to be laying good. I managed to round up enough batteries to get the headlamp back on full power and candled the eggs I had ? marked, all 5 were early quitters I had wanted to make sure were quitters so I got rid of them. Then we candled the eggs quickly to check the chicks movement, I don't think we got all of them candled but all the ones we did looked good! One has a very small air sac though?! I didn't want to have the incubator open any longer. The temp. naturally dropped because of the opening(the humidity sky rocketed though as soon as I adde water) but since then my incubators temp. reading hasn't gone up past 95 and the two inside thermometers don't match, one says 100, the other 98. It takes a while for the little giant temp. to read right so I didn't adjust it for a few hours, then only by a hair. Hoping between the three it is close to the right temp?!

Oh and the big chickens!!!!! They got into my garden and dug up every single one of my newly sprouted lettuces, kale and mescluns!!!!

Then today they found a way into my other garden and were happily digging through my strawberries when I got up. At least the strawberries are resilient! I want to order a couple of good thermometers for my next hatch. Anyone have a good reliable favourite? I am wondering if the humidity is accurate on the incubator as well, it spiked to 90 briefly yesterday but had no condensation at all although that could just be because of the fan? I have it at staying at 70 now. (I had to soak up some water with paper towel through the wire mesh to get it down) Next time I will add water only to the 2 small channels(less surface area) Oh boy, long morning rambling, sorry I got chickens on my brain!

 

[spruce creek]

That's so exciting!! Lockdown is tomorrow for us, and I just got so excited! My first hatch is almost underway!!
This is my utter inexperience talking, but I didn't know they start rocking so early! You'll have to update!!

I think they are just getting into position. No pips or chirps yet! If these hatch it will be our first successful hatch!! Good luck with your hatch!!

 

[bostonsharbor]

Eggs went in 7 days ago. I'm excited to candle them tomorrow. Reading this tread is great. Reading the stories and seeing the chicks makes me hope for a successful hatch

Whoops I think I posted this in the wrong forum. Seem like I am 14 days to early for this one.

So today is the first time I have candled eggs. I think I have it down, but we will find out. I am incubating 2 breeds- Ayam Cemami and Lavedar Orpington. The Ayam's went in and are at day 9. I saw movement of the embryos and currently 11 out of 12 appear viable. The Orpingtons didn't fair as well. Currently it is day 8 and 10 out of 16 seemed viable. There were potentially 2 that I counted as not viable, but couldn't tell for sure.

So here is my question: how common is it to lose the viability of embryos going forward. If I leave everything the same in the Ovation, can I estimate a hatch rate. This is my first time, I appreciate any feedback.

 

[feedman77]

Part of my last large egg hatching batch for the season. Excluding quail later.

Set this bator plus a brinsea 20 stacked tight and left overs in a reptipro. A little over 220 eggs.

I lost 40 in the postage mishap. The seller shipped me 60. The 100 I ordered sent 120. So I had more then planned.

Now if they hatch.

My cabinet is still full of turkey eggs.

 

[BlueShadow]

Part of my last large egg hatching batch for the season. Excluding quail later.

Set this bator plus a brinsea 20 stacked tight and left overs in a reptipro. A little over 220 eggs.

I lost 40 in the postage mishap. The seller shipped me 60. The 100 I ordered sent 120. So I had more then planned.

Now if they hatch.

My cabinet is still full of turkey eggs.

Doesn't it take a long time to turn all those eggs?

 

[Calichicken2015]

So cute! I have 3 marans eggs on day 14 looking great! (along with a few others...)


Welcome! And good luck! I hope you will update on your hatch. I'd love to know how you like the new Ovation incubator and how well it works!!


I'd love to have some Brahma bantams!!


My OEGB had a quitter and one pipped, but dead under her this morning, plus 2 live chicks, so I swapped out the 2 dead ones with 2 live ones from my incubator hatch!

And my Serama broody.... oh, she's one of those pecker broodies, so I haven't messed much with her. The other hatches on time with hers had since finished, so I risked my hand to check for quitters under her. Found 2 eggs, but one was not one that I had given to her. I gave her eggs that had been incubated for 10 days when she went broody, and they were marked! Apparently she laid this one that day. And it was still alive!! Luckily, I have eggs in the bator on the same timeline, so I popped it in with those. It was a teeny tiny egg too.

I think she has either 4 or 5 chicks. Hard to believe she's so mean, huh. lol

Broody mommas

ADORABLE!!!