August Hatch-A-Long

[CluckNDoodle]

My August hatch

11 Light Sussex eggs in my HELO 'BM-12' (its a German made incubator) due to hatch on the 23 of August, fingers crossed.
and 3 Light Sussex eggs in my broken HDD 12 as an after thought, after I made a bottom for it out of Styrofoam and sat it in a wooden box. They are due on the 25th and 26th because I just went crazy adding eggs.

That sounds like a very reasonable number of eggs to set to me! Then again, I'm the one that now owns 5 incubators because of "going crazy with adding eggs."
Good luck on your hatch!

 

[Erba]

That sounds like a very reasonable number of eggs to set to me! "

Lol, but you haven't seen my coop!!! Ok, my chicken math is 50/50 pullet/cockerels so I'll try to pawn some of them off on a friend of mine, he won't believe his luck....or not :-( failing that my freezer also has capacity. And with my previous track record, not all are going to hatch. I am seriously just trying to convince myself, that there is no such thing as too many chickens...and I really need more of them!!

 

[jolenesdad]

Its funny you mentioned that, im setting up my killing cone this weekend in the shed, ive finally navigated the moral dilemma in my head regarding maintaining and culling my flock, it seems a bit hypocritical to buy a dressed bird from the supermarket but not take advantage of the excess roos i have which are essentially free meals.......
On that note ive just ordered some black jersey giant eggs which im going to cross with my brahmas. I havent even told the wife yet.............

I felt like I had navigated it pretty well, but I use a processor for my big batches of meat birds, I raised 65 at once this time. (Long story, but I SPOILED all of my meat from my first batch of meat birds leaving the freezer open. ) anyway, I have decided that the chickens honestly do not care about the transport or arriving st the processor, but I still need to process at home so I know I can do it and if I need to do it earlier or later than the processor for any birds. Well, I MISSED a Cornish loading then all up, so I have a ticking time bomb in my chicken yard, and will be needing to process it in the next week or two.

I love BYC though. One of the BYCers on my meat thread has offered to help me. But this may be earlier than we can get together, so I may be “phoning a friend” for help/support.

I just need a tough friend that can process them for me because I'm the girl that cries when she kills snakes.

Everyone’s journey is everyone’s journey. I felt like, personally for me, if I didn’t follow this meat bird path, I certainly better be a vegetarian, because the middle ground and disconnect I feel with my food is a poor place to be. My laying hens opened the FLOODGATES in my city-boy mind. I’m pretty sure my own meat is going to be all I eat in the future.

Well, I’m the tree hugger vegetarian who doesn’t kill snakes or anything else, and I’m trying to get set up to butcher these five, 3 mo old cockerels that we bred. It’s something that DD and I have talked a lot about. While I don’t eat meat, my family does, and I’ve reached a similar decsision as dougieee, in thinking that these cockerels have had a much better life than most grocery store broilers but should be used for some purpose...

I have so much admiration for you and DDs relationship. Good luck!!

I'm officially having a hissy fit. My eggs don't appear to be arriving today either! Yep, I should have sucked it up and just driven. This is what I get for trying to save time.

View attachment 1872590

Did they not show up yesterday or today?!?! Argh!!!!

Its still between 95 and 100 so I am not sweating it too hard.
(Edit: technically I am sweating it very hard, for some reason I am not handling the heat today as I did earlier in summer... )

Lolllllllllllll. That’s because it’s currently MISERABLE. Grrrrr.


@Rockporters this is first time in this bator, but not first shipped egg hatch? First summer shipped egg hatch? Just wondering variables.

I also ran “dry” with sticky chick AND shrink wrapped babies. Both of my summer hatches. My first hatch This year with shipped eggs I didn’t know what to even be looking for.

Was it @dougieee that mentioned not dry for shipped? That’s my current hypothesis too that @CluckNDoodle helped me see. I think the sticky chicks are shipping, and the shrink wrapped is too low humidity.

I think I’m not catching the too low humidity because of the sticky chicks that I assumed meant too high humidity.

In my duck egg hatch I was able to mostly identify the sticky chicks halfway through hatch which is what makes me think shipping causes it. They developed with an entire area at the bottom of the shell clear. Veins would either be very late getting to that part of the egg or in some he bottom 1/4 of the egg remained totally clear. I watched a chick start zipping to an explosion of fluid this last time. (Explosion is a bit of a Saturday morning exaggeration, but the point remains...)

I’m sorry you had a frustrating hatch! For Serama!!!

 

[aliciaplus3]

Ok let's start with my excitment

ok the pic is bad but I have 6 babies Running around in an extera incubator.... simply because my heat lamp broke but my Hatcher is Stuffed with eggs so to make room I moved the already hatched ones to another incubator.
Now on the shrink wrap and sticky chick thought.... I have experienced this, I believe mine had to do with different egg shells and some being more porous than others. So Very Dark shells need to be incubated at a lower humidity to allow them to loose enough moisture and light shells, or ones that look spotty when candled need higher humidity to not lose too much moisture and dry out.... I dont always explain myself well.... it could also have to do with egg ages and how big the air cell was at beginning of incubation. As the eggs sit waiting to go in they lose moisture but fresh eggs would still have a smaller air cell, so eggs with similar shells would arrive at the end of incubation with different amounts of moisture, meaning the older eggs could get dried out while the fresh ones might result in sticky chicks..... just my musings no science to back me.
I usually like to trust air cells over hydrometer readings and what is "supposed " to work humidity wise.... every different type of egg and different season can change your results

note.. I borrowed this image off of google I do not take credit for it but I like the way it illustrates how the air cell should change over the incubation period.
This last hatch has been hit and miss for me checking my incubator so it has run a little drier than I intended sometimes and a little higher than I thought other times....the average humidity is more important than the exact reading at any one time

 

[Rockporters]

@jolenesdad The firsts are incubator, garage, and summer shipped eggs.

I was incubating in my guest bathroom, constant temps. Also, in that house I was only 11 feet above sea level, fwiw. Here, The garage isn’t at a consistent temp, and I fear that even though the machines don’t display the variations, that it is still
a factor. We are also at a slightly higher elevation here, 1600’ maybe? It’s very cool up here. It might hit 80’s for a couple of hours, but it is also 55-68 at night.

The new incubator seems to stay around 50% humidity, which I figured caused the sticky rare Chicks. However, the Silkies incubated in the Brinsea, which stayed around 25-30%.

I’m kinda thinking that the sticky chicks might just be a side effect of summer shipping. But who knows?!

The batch of rare that hatched earlier this week ran a 57% hatch avg with the fertile, 41% overall.

This batch of Silkies 55.6% of those in lockdown, 5 out of 9, but the one line buff might not make it. The avg overall was 27.8%.

I’ve pretty much written off the Seramas because I had to open the ‘bator for the Silkies. I did quickly move the Seramas back to the Brinsea, but I don’t have high hopes.

 

[Mixed flock enthusiast]

Good morning! 3 blue Silkies hatched last night. Intervened with 2 Blue and 1 Buff, of which 1 blue and the buff are still mostly in shell waiting to be helped out. I intervened because the blue had zipped but stopped trying. Turns out the membrane across its back and wings had dried. It was also very sticky. DIS are a b/s (it was a splash ) and 3 buff.

So.. my question is this.. I didn’t open the incubator but the one time. Humidity and temp have shown consistent in all thermometers and hygrometers. Humidity is at 65%. I dry incubate. WTH is causing the mixture of sticky chicks and shrink wrapped chicks? I’ve never had so many deaths after lockdown!! Is it the shipped eggs? New incubator? New location of incubators? (Garage, never goes above 78-80, but does go into the 60’s at night) I have never had this many issues until starting with this new setup.

I don’t have high hopes for the poor Seramas.

Congratulations on the successful hatches! I’m sorry about the ones that didn’t make it - so frustrating!!!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Ok let's start with my excitment View attachment 1873849 ok the pic is bad but I have 6 babies Running around in an extera incubator.... simply because my heat lamp broke but my Hatcher is Stuffed with eggs so to make room I moved the already hatched ones to another incubator.
Now on the shrink wrap and sticky chick thought.... I have experienced this, I believe mine had to do with different egg shells and some being more porous than others. So Very Dark shells need to be incubated at a lower humidity to allow them to loose enough moisture and light shells, or ones that look spotty when candled need higher humidity to not lose too much moisture and dry out.... I dont always explain myself well.... it could also have to do with egg ages and how big the air cell was at beginning of incubation. As the eggs sit waiting to go in they lose moisture but fresh eggs would still have a smaller air cell, so eggs with similar shells would arrive at the end of incubation with different amounts of moisture, meaning the older eggs could get dried out while the fresh ones might result in sticky chicks..... just my musings no science to back me.
I usually like to trust air cells over hydrometer readings and what is "supposed " to work humidity wise.... every different type of egg and different season can change your resultsView attachment 1873884 note.. I borrowed this image off of google I do not take credit for it but I like the way it illustrates how the air cell should change over the incubation period.
This last hatch has been hit and miss for me checking my incubator so it has run a little drier than I intended sometimes and a little higher than I thought other times....the average humidity is more important than the exact reading at any one time

Well congrats on the chicks that have hatched so far! I'm hopeful for your little Seramas as well!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

They arrived!!! The Buff Laced Polish eggs made it! She sent me 3 extra eggs and not a single one was broken or cracked! Unfortunately, 12 out of 15 of the eggs have detached air cells of varying severity and some are also saddled so I'm going to leave them upright in the egg carton overnight before putting them in the incubator and hope for the best! I've decided that regardless of what the air cells look like I think I'm going to take my chances with the horizontal turner because I prefer the incubator. Fingers crossed!

 

[igorsMistress]

They arrived!!! The Buff Laced Polish eggs made it! She sent me 3 extra eggs and not a single one was broken or cracked! Unfortunately, 12 out of 15 of the eggs have detached air cells of varying severity and some are also saddled so I'm going to leave them upright in the egg carton overnight before putting them in the incubator and hope for the best! I've decided that regardless of what the air cells look like I think I'm going to take my chances with the horizontal turner because I prefer the incubator. Fingers crossed!
View attachment 1873963 View attachment 1873964

good luck!

 

[Rockporters]

Thanks for the helpful suggestions everyone! Very much appreciated. I think it’s probably a combination of everything. I have maybe one more batch of torturous eggs and then I’m done incubating until early spring. We’ve decided it will be too difficult to keep the chicks in the garage during the winter, and I’ve been barred from having chicks inside anymore LOL. Some people just aren’t any fun.


I will let you know how the Seramas do. Today is day 19 for them. I doubt I’ll see anything, if I’m going to, until tomorrow at the earliest.

Happy to see others are having success!