haha. 
Ok here are some new pics of our new silkies and their new coop...
that's right before i moved them to the new coop...midnight and hershey. i love my new silkies!!
blue splash polish
crele polish
i hope to be getting some splash silkie babies by weeks end...what a busting by the seams chicken palace!!! don't loose faith and patience-the whole experience is a learning one, every time you have chicks or hatch you will learn something new! just keep plugging away and in the end it will work out for the best...just try to love and learn from everything you do!
As you've probably already realized by now, everyone has their own methods for hatching. I've been hatching for years and I'll tell you what methods I use but ultimately you should go with your gut on what you think is best in your situation.
1) Most people will tell you to stop turning on day 18 but I have found that stopping a little sooner helps to prevent backward or upside-down chicks so I stop turning on day 16. The extra two days gives the chick a little more time to get into the correct position for hatching.
2) I move my chicks (all species) to the hatcher after external pipping has occured. I run a dry incubator throughout the entire incubation period until I see the external pip. I then move the eggs to the hatcher and get the humidity up to around 70%. This is how I've always hatched chicks and it works great for me but like I said, everyone's different.
3) I personally wouldn't keep them in with the goose eggs as the higher humidity could be too much for them. Goose eggs need to lose quite a bit of weight before hatching so I'd be careful with that. If your goose eggs look like they're losing sufficient moisture already, than a couple days with higher humidity may not hurt them. My geese are very valuable and extremely difficult to hatch so I wouldn't risk it myself. As for keeping goose eggs at higher humidity levels than chickens, I don't. Like I said, I run a dry incubator throughout the entire incubation until external pipping with all species. The only time I would advise against doing this is if your humidity is extremely low (under 25%). Mine stays around 26% - 28%.
4) This one is difficult to answer. I leave temps around 99-100 for hatching. If your still air varies that much...7 degrees up or down....I don't know if I'd risk it. If the eggs are just as valuable to you as your geese than I might suggest leaving them to hatch in the same incubator as the goose eggs, however, if your goose eggs are most important to you, I might go ahead and move them to the still air and try REALLY hard to keep the temp stable. That one is going to have to be your call.
Don't get nervous. I'm sure it'll all work out okay. If not, you're not alone. We all have had unsuccessful hatches and know how it feels. We're with you!
Thank you!!!! for me the chicken eggs are more valuable, as the goose eggs got sent to me by mistake... they are painted geese and I would love to have a few, but I did not order or even expect them haha .... They are also not due to hatch for 2 more weeks.... and 4 have been kept at same humidity as the chicken eggs....38-48% with 45% being where I try to keep them... the other 3 (of which only one looks good are still in my still air as I had only room for 4 of the goose eggs in my brinsea) plan was to move all still air eggs to brinsea and brinsea eggs to still air for hatch.... but am now reconsidering....
I am having a problem getting the humidity above 52% without the temp getting over 100-101 in the still air... close the vents for more humidity and up goes the tempso I added a bowle of hot water with a sponge and we will see..... I am not moveing the eggs until I can get it stable so they may just have to hatch in the brinsea
As for the eggs in the still air (3 goose and some random fresh eggs as a experament).... I had 2 sussex hens go broody and am thinking of giving them these eggs .... they are devoloping but have had crazy temp swings and I am done with the still air... I want to pull my hair out with it!!!!
