April Hatch Thread--Come Join Us!

[BroosterSpringsteen]

SO... I have always wanted to ask...
How do you know there has been an "Internal pip"?
I always have to wait for external since I have no idea how to tell??

Peeping or rocking eggs means you have an internal pip. Sometimes you can see the chick moving inside the air cell when you candle at lockdown if the chicks get an early start.

 

[BroosterSpringsteen]

I just put my eggs into lockdown. After finding lots of clear eggs after I candled on day 7, the remaining eggs have come along fine. I only had to pull one egg today with a blood ring, and it was my last Light Sussex egg

But other than that, I'm excited to see what hatches! I never get my hopes up too high on shipped eggs.

 

[18Peeps]

I'd love to join this thread for April hatches. I set 7 shipped eggs in the incubator Friday afternoon, April 5. 1 Barnevelder and 6 Marans. This is only my 2nd hatch in our homemade styrafoam incubator and I'm trying to keep the humidity lower this time so that the thick shelled Marans lose enough weight to properly turn on day 14.

Two of the eggs were cracked in the box during shipping, so hopefully the rest were not scrambled as well. It would seem the post office likes to play roughly with the boxes. The eggs were padded VERY well, but two were still cracked. Before setting the uncracked eggs, they sat at room temperature for about 7 hours and then were put into the incubator. They were not turned for 48 hours so that their air cells would reattach after shipping. After reading the last few posts, maybe they should have been turned after 24 hours?! Hopefully they are still okay in there! I'm dying to candle and check, but am trying to be patient to wait for day 5 or 7.

Wishing everyone a great April hatch!

 

[chickydee64]

Annabelle254..
Hi, My input is just from my experience.
My Marans were always the last to hatch.......sometimes up to day 25..............
Don't lose hope and try to stay busy.
My house gets really clean during hatch time.........

.It's how I cope with stress...

 

[chickydee64]

Now for my frustration.grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Can't keep my darned humidity up.

It is cold in the house....( didn't order more oil)
and wondering if this is having an adverse effect.
Humidity dropped to 45......second day lock down............
Have so much water in there .....2 sponges,paper towels, soaked, in the trays..
a wash cloth.and a paper towel on top of the metal scree. All wet.wet wet.........
Cannot get it above 47.............

Temp 100.......calibrated hygrometer prior to lock down.grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Good grief.........why isn't my broody, broody..............................
And when she is..she hides from me making me worry Mr. coyote got her.................
Thanks for listening....

 

[MadamContrary]

Still no more pips   a few more hours from now will begin day 23..... got antsy and picked two eggs to open and followed the directions very carefully.... one had a preexisting crack that I tried to fix .... it was bad... all liquid inside... dont know how I missed that at candling... must not be very good at it.... the other has a live chick moving under the membrane, and I could hear it peeping once I got some shell off but there are still blood vessels so I left all membranes intact and covered with a moist paper towel... still have 12 eggs with nothing going on and there are 4 from my own flock!!! how can I get more shipped eggs to hatch than fresh eggs???? Why would they be taking so long to hatch my bator is a brinsea advanced and temp is always stable at 99.5-99.6.. not touching it again today.... still have a silkie chick in there to help motivate the others... I wish there was a way to tell if I still had live chicks OTHER than removing shell

So far here is what I set and what has hatched: 7 chicks out of 26 eggs... 6 alive with help and one dead without help


So it seems ALL of my developing chicks 'so far' have been TOO LARGE to zip!!!!! does this mean my humidity was to high or to low during incubation????
AND WHY are they taking so LONG!  I though with correct temps they should hatch at 21 days?!?

Too high, the air cell is the exit door essentially. High humidity does not allow for enough evaporation so the air cell stays small and the chick grows too large. Opposite is true as well, if the humidity is too low then the air cell will be too big and the chick will be small and weaker. An egg needs to loose approximately 12% of fresh laid weight for it to have the best chance at being a healthy size and to be able to get out of the egg. A second issue with high humidity is that the air cell can hold water, if a chick pips through the air cell and encounters water it will drown. Sorry to hear about all the troubles you have had.

 

[annabell254]

Tell me about it!!!!!

this is ... of course my 1st hatch and my 1st shipped eggs so I was not expecting alot.... but I did expect my eggs to hatch!!! the one I opened is either from a reg egg layer I got at tractor supply or a Maren... both lay these huge eggs and are about the same color... but the rest of the eggs are silkies, orpingtons, wyndottes, one hamburg and one EE....
can I do the water test without harming a live chick???
just candled a silkie egg and it is all black... so chick... I will just die if they are all fully formed and cannot pip.... as once they pip I know I CAN save them if necessary!

 

[oesdog]

Annabelle254..
Hi, My input is just from my experience.
My Marans were always the last to hatch.......sometimes up to day 25..............
Don't lose hope and try to stay busy.
My house gets really clean during hatch time.........

.It's how I cope with stress...

That "fits" with my Maran too as my little Maran roo boy was hatched on Day 28!!!! Was on the way to the bin when I noticed a pip would you believe it and he was still alive! a full week late!!!!! THese are my day 27 and day 28 hatches they both survived and grew to be lovely roosters. Cream crested legbar and Marans. So DON:T Give up!!!!! Now I wait until day 30 before I rush to dump! Unless they smell of course exploding gone off goo is not nice to clean out from an incubator! lol! But the thought of nearly lossing these two by tossing live chicks in the bin - well I was lucky we noticed life. Though I am not sure what went wrong for such a late hatch it was my first attempt?


Oes

 

[jammyjammy2112]

i have eggs in the incubator and the temp is at 37.1 its a brinsea mini eco glow incubatorit hasnt rose it was usually at 37.5 or 6 like normal is this normal orr

 

[jammyjammy2112]

sorry for double post its day 14 and only 7 more days to go