April Hatch Along

[SunHwaKwon]

I did my candling. All 7 Flower Hen eggs look good. I see veins. Some are more obvious than others. One Cream Legbar egg had the red ring of death, so it was cracked and shown to my daughter and put in a bowl so that hubby can see it in the morning. Yeah, the family is curious! But those Black Copper Marans...   I CAN NOT see into them. I don't know what I'm going to do. I tried my egg candler and two different flash lights. I'm going to have to fashion something. Any tips?

I use an 800 lumen flashlight and even then i have to wait until about day 10 before I can distinguish veins and embryo with certainty. The brightest light possible certainly helps when it comes to Marans eggs.

 

[WVduckchick]

Does any one use the brinsea mini eco, or any brinsea products. I got my first brinsea mini eco incubator, all I can say is it's absolutely awesome little incubator for the price.

I have 2 Octagon 20s, one is an Eco, one is Advance EX with the pump. Turners with both. I love them! Steady as a rock temps and humidity. But since I usually have several sets going, I hatch in an FI still air styro.

I have heard that Brinsea doesn't have the best customer service, sometimes they are slow to respond, etc. But other than turner arms breaking easily, I haven't heard much bad about the bators themselves.

Enjoy!

I use an 800 lumen flashlight and even then i have to wait until about day 10 before I can distinguish veins and embryo with certainty. The brightest light possible certainly helps when it comes to Marans eggs.

Most new flashlights show the lumens number. 250-300+ is a must! The higher the better.

Surprisingly, my lav orp eggs are my hardest to see in. Light-mid pinkish color, but man they are dense. I rarely see veins, but growth is evident within a few days, I can usually tell by internal color.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

Surprisingly, my lav orp eggs are my hardest to see in. Light-mid pinkish color, but man they are dense. I rarely see veins, but growth is evident within a few days, I can usually tell by internal color.

That sounds similar to my guinea eggs. They are not all that dark, just very thick shelled so harder to see into. They were my original motivation for using the high powered flashlight (well, headlamp actually) that I use now for everything. I can see into the guinea eggs much sooner than the Marans eggs though only because the patterning of the brown coating on the Marans eggs makes you second guess whether you see veins or not.

These days I'm much more relaxed with incubating, though. With my last hatch I put the eggs in, didn't mess with them again until day 18 when I upped humidity, and I got a 100% hatch. My farm innovators has proven to be a "set it and forget it" incubator.

 

[orrpeople]

2 pips on those Biele eggs I thought might be a total loss... still not expecting anything because of how terrible they looked at candling time (and one looks like it pipped, then closed up shop!?) But, anything's possible, right?

 

[Birdydeb]

I have a Farm Innovators and ....now....LOL....Two Hovabator Genesis. The Hovabator is "set and forget" and I love it. If I open for candling it readjusts quickly. I find that with my Farm Innovators that (1) it is difficult to get the humidity up at the beginning and then must be watched fairly closely and (2) it does not adjust back quickly at all if opened. Best to get the FI to temp and humidity and leave it alone. so...I prefer the Genesis.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

I have a Farm Innovators and ....now....LOL....Two Hovabator Genesis. The Hovabator is "set and forget" and I love it. If I open for candling it readjusts quickly. I find that with my Farm Innovators that (1) it is difficult to get the humidity up at the beginning and then must be watched fairly closely and (2) it does not adjust back quickly at all if opened. Best to get the FI to temp and humidity and leave it alone. so...I prefer the Genesis.

Maybe it helps that I dry incubate so I don't mess with humidity at all until day 18. It holds temp very steady and since I'm not opening it to hand turn or anything there are never any adjustments to make. I should also specify that my FI is the 4250 forced air with auto turner. I had tried a LG still air for a hatcher and could not get humidity up or temp to hold, and that is when I decided to take a chance on the Chinese. Now I anticipate it will become a lot harder to sell chicks and guineas here in MD though so I am thinking I won't even need the second incubator anymore once this current batch is done.

 

[WVduckchick]

That sounds similar to my guinea eggs. They are not all that dark, just very thick shelled so harder to see into. They were my original motivation for using the high powered flashlight (well, headlamp actually) that I use now for everything. I can see into the guinea eggs much sooner than the Marans eggs though only because the patterning of the brown coating on the Marans eggs makes you second guess whether you see veins or not.

These days I'm much more relaxed with incubating, though. With my last hatch I put the eggs in, didn't mess with them again until day 18 when I upped humidity, and I got a 100% hatch. My farm innovators has proven to be a "set it and forget it" incubator.

I absolutely love candling! But I have found myself like you, and rarely candling any more. I incubate with them upright, so I'll stick the flashlight on top of them quickly, every now and then, but rarely pick one up to totally check it.

Realized with the lavs that are locked down now, I never traced air cells on these, which I used to do at least once.

2 pips on those Biele eggs I thought might be a total loss... still not expecting anything because of how terrible they looked at candling time (and one looks like it pipped, then closed up shop!?) But, anything's possible, right?

Sometimes its easiest to keep our hopes low and then be pleasantly surprised.

Hope those bieles hatch for you!

I have a Farm Innovators and ....now....LOL....Two Hovabator Genesis. The Hovabator is "set and forget" and I love it. If I open for candling it readjusts quickly. I find that with my Farm Innovators that (1) it is difficult to get the humidity up at the beginning and then must be watched fairly closely and (2) it does not adjust back quickly at all if opened. Best to get the FI to temp and humidity and leave it alone. so...I prefer the Genesis.

My FI seems to adjust fairly quickly. I have found that when I first set it up, my sponges dry out once, then I soak them again, and they are good for the duration. Always heard good things about the Genesis tho.

 

[orrpeople]

I have a Farm Innovators and ....now....LOL....Two Hovabator Genesis. The Hovabator is "set and forget" and I love it. If I open for candling it readjusts quickly. I find that with my Farm Innovators that (1) it is difficult to get the humidity up at the beginning and then must be watched fairly closely and (2) it does not adjust back quickly at all if opened. Best to get the FI to temp and humidity and leave it alone. so...I prefer the Genesis.

I really like my two Genesis... but discovered one doesn't keep accurate humidity readings any more. So, I use my second hygrometer and then I don't hatch in it. (One of the lessons learned from March was to constantly be checking these gauges, because even if they're spot on at the beginning of a hatch, they might not be later on.) That said, I think I have run those little bators non stop for 6 months (with good sanitizing in between, so not totally non stop - but pretty close to it) and they just keep on keeping on.

Byw, the biele that closed up shop is slowly opening for business again. Still trying not to get hopes up.... do not get hopes up, do not get.... aw heck, who am I kidding. I really hope these two kiddos hatch!!

 

[BirdsNRabbits]

I'm going to sub here... even if my next hatch is a little after April... probably first week of May if I can get my eggs here and set in time. I do have a question though? What would make a chick completely develop and then die right at the last moment, without even pipping?

 

[mich9510]

Joining the April hatch-a-long. 53 eggs. 24 araucana 28 ayam cemani. One jersey giant/ayam cemani mix (just want to see how it looks, planning on eating it eventually).
My last hatch was terrible. Only about 33%. I do believe that humidity was a problem with the dry winter air. My incubator just are through water like crazy. And we have radiator heat.
This was evident to me when two of my eggtopsies showed completely shrink wrapped chicks. Fully developed.
Now that it's warmer and the furnace isn't on so much I should be a little better.