April Hatch Along

[Calichicken2015]

Yay!!!

My 4/6 hatch gave me 2 silver and 2 black Americaunas and the chicks I hatched for Gotro17 went over to her house this weekend. My Easter HAL is still hatching. Last night I pulled 10 dry babies, and this morning there are 5 more. The rest are showing no signs of life.

I went a little nuts on the Auction and BIN pages on BYC and one more Ebay BIN. I received the Serama and Golden Sebright eggs, and I have the Biefelders from Gotro17 that I will set today. The Birchen eggs will ship Monday or Tues. The Lav Orps shipped yesterday, as did the Tolbunt Polish. Gotro17 is also having me hatch some Maran eggs - those shipped yesterday as well.

I will set these as staggered hatchig. The Seramas need higher humidity, then the Marans, then the rest. So, I think 2 incubators will be running...maybe 3....

Congrats on the new babies!!!! WOW..you are gonna be busy with all those new eggs starting

and...we have 2 new CL babies and they are both...drumroll please... PULLETS!!!!!!

I can't keep my face out of that window when they start hatching..LOL!!!

Hi everyone, on day 19 here, stuck working a weekend and going a little crazy not know if humidity is still holding steady, and everything else that could go wrong!

Loving all the picture of the new babies, makes me want mine to hurry up and come out already!

Good luck with your hatch! Not too much longer!

 

[WVduckchick]

Well that is very true. For one set of eggs to be pretty much a success and the other set a total failure...yeah, I think I can quit beating myself up that I did something wrong. These Bantams aren't just cute...they are STINKING cute. LOL

The 2 splash hens are beautiful! Funny thing....those 2 mixed chicks I kept from my first hatch are colored so much like them. They are the BR over an ISA Brown mix. What I read said they would be white with black splotches....they look gray with black spots. Interesting...right?

Glad you like the chicks! They are precious. What did you end up with? 8?

And I'll add another funny to the splashes. I hatched some about a month ago, got 2 splashes that also look identical to those too! Except they turned out to be male. That's one of the reasons she gave me the two hens! Lol

And... Buffy the broody is still sitting tight! We moved her night before last and all day yesterday she was committed!! Good girl!

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I've got 2 more new broodies. An OEGB and a Serama. Just so happen to be what I had in the Bator so I gave both of them some already going. Hope it works! Lol

Yay!!!

My 4/6 hatch gave me 2 silver and 2 black Americaunas and the chicks I hatched for Gotro17 went over to her house this weekend.  My Easter HAL is still hatching.  Last night I pulled 10 dry babies, and this morning there are 5 more.  The rest are showing no signs of life.

I went a little nuts on the Auction and BIN pages on BYC and one more Ebay BIN.  I received the Serama and Golden Sebright eggs, and I have the Biefelders from Gotro17 that I will set today.  The Birchen eggs will ship Monday or Tues.  The Lav Orps shipped yesterday, as did the Tolbunt Polish.  Gotro17 is also having me hatch some Maran eggs - those shipped yesterday as well.  

I will set these as staggered hatchig.  The Seramas need higher humidity, then the Marans, then the rest.  So, I think 2 incubators will be running...maybe 3....

Dang woman, I'd say you have your hands full!

and...we have 2 new CL babies and they are both...drumroll please... PULLETS!!!!!!

GIRLS!!!

I'm so excited! I had to open the bator up today to add my calibrated hygrometer, so I took the opportunity to candle a few of the BBS Ameraucanas. It is day 4 and I already could see that the 7 I candles are fertile and growing well!!
I tried to take some pictures, but they came out hard to see.

I even candles one of my bulgy eggs and that one showed development as well!
As for my BBS English Orps, I had to toss three eggs on day 2 because they were weepy. I cracked them open and the one I didn't break the yolk on (I'm really not good at opening eggs in bags...) was fertile so that's a good start. As they all had detached air cells (except one) they are currently residing in an egg carton. I have a rack turner that doesn't go passed 45 degrees so I think after day four for them I will put them in that.
The seller is being exceptional and still will replace the whole lot depending on development.

Awesome! Sorry about the weepers.

 

[orrpeople]

Pretty sure my broody Buffy has not been off her nest in two days (zero poop evidence, but I haven't been stalking her either). I'm a little worried about her. I tried to give her some water (even did the new chick dunk the beak trick) and she just growled at me and refused. Seems like she's sleeping a lot, kind of a hibernation? I need some broody advice. Normal? Not normal? Should we call it quits? Keep going?

 

[henaynei]

All our Auburn Java eggs arrived wonderfully intact They were each wrapped in tissue, placed in cardboard 18 count egg cartons and all wrapped and covered in raw wool. Not a single crack.

We rested them for 18+ hours and set in the incubator about midnight on the morning of 4/6, set at 99.5F and about 35-40% humidity. The incubator is at a friend's home as I am absent from home for long periods due to work and have no room closed to my cats. My friend feels the humidity should be and has kept it at least 40%. She feels it should be even maybe 50% for incubation. I'm not sure we are losing moisture at an appropriate rate. We live at about 3,000ft elevation in the North Carolina mountains.

We candled for the first time yesterday. Only 2 clears and 3 with blood ring! About another 5 are rather iffy to our untrained eyes (think we saw veining and dark areas for the embryo, but not sure) and 4 have rather large oddly shaped air cells compared to the rest but still have visible veining and embryos. Have kept all but the 2 clears and 3 with blood rings and continue to incubate.

Several of the ones we kept have what we think may be rather small air cells for this late but seemed to have good veining and activity of the embryo. But what do we know - it is our first ever hatch!!!

We did not (should have and will next time) weight them before setting to gauge appropriate moisture loss.


Happy and delighted with the high % of potential live embryos at this point - 87%! More than I expected for shipped eggs. But the proof is in the hatching....

 

[Madonna m]

Final count 16 out of 24set.

now I can clean out the incubator and set 15 more eggs that my grand son got for me from a friend of his. That will get a new bloodline going in the coup.

sounds like a good reason for more to me. Happy Easter to all.

 

[orrpeople]

Happy and delighted with the high % of potential live embryos at this point - 87%! More than I expected for shipped eggs. But the proof is in the hatching....[/COLOR]

I have never weighed my eggs, but I find a truer test of humidity lies in using more than one gauge. It seems that most incubator humidity readings are not very accurate. Throw an extra one in and see if they agree. If not, there is a good hygrometer calibration test that is simple (I don't have it on hand at the moment, but it just involves salt and water and you can look it up.)
That said, opinions about what level to do the first 17 days ranges widely, with the last 4 days being crucial (I have found) 65% - 75%. Once chicks begin hatching, they will send the humidity upwards of that, but that's normal and it goes back down pretty quickly. Low humidity during that time has caused me some serious grief that I never care to repeat.

 

[orrpeople]

Final count 16 out of 24set.

now I can clean out the incubator and set 15 more eggs that my grand son got for me from a friend of his. That will get a new bloodline going in the coup.

sounds like a good reason for more to me. Happy Easter to all.

Congratulations!! . I love a good cleaned out incubator after all the smelly stuff is all disinfected!!
Happy Easter to you too!!

 

[hensareus]

Did my last candle on my 2 remaining duck eggs yesterday. I could see down/feathers! So cool! And the air cell looked. So...next sunday I should have ducklings. Think happy thoughts for them and me ( I'm a nervous wreck). Congratulations! to all that have completed a good hatch and HAPPY EASTER TO ALL!

 

[cybercat]

Happy Easter all.

Hope everyone has a great day.

 

[henaynei]

I have never weighed my eggs, but I find a truer test of humidity lies in using more than one gauge. It seems that most incubator humidity readings are not very accurate. Throw an extra one in and see if they agree. If not, there is a good hygrometer calibration test that is simple (I don't have it on hand at the moment, but it just involves salt and water and you can look it up.)
That said, opinions about what level to do the first 17 days range widely, with the last 4 days being crucial (I have found) 65% - 75%. Once chicks begin hatching, they will send the humidity upwards of that, but that's normal and it goes back down pretty quickly. Low humidity during that time has caused me some serious grief that I never care to repeat.

this is some links to YouTubes on how to calibrate both digital and analog hygrometers - it is from a cigar humidor site, but I doubt that matters