babies!!!! Ya

[2hot2chicken]

Finally getting a good hatch from shipped eggs! I have 8 out and at leased 2 chirping out of 3 dozen shipped eggs. I set 1 dozen EE and 2 dozen silkie and most made it to LD. I didnt count them all but I candled before LD and almost all had veins and lots of movement! Tomorrow is day 21 so these are early but so far so good! The partridge silkie had tiny bit of yolk showing when it first hatched but within a couple hours when I looked in the bator I couldn't see it at all. I did take the chicks out because 2 of the EE hatched last night and they were fully fluffed and very large activly searching for stuff to peck at and rolling some of the silkie eggs in their carton. My DH lifted the lid and I grabbed all the chicks in 1 scoop so it was open for about half a second! and 1 chick had hatched since so I think its fine..... I have 1 silkie so far so crossing fingers for more of the same quality. The little partridge is super fluffy with vaulted skull and nice amount of feather on feet!

PULLET,PULLET,PULLET

Had to share pics cause everyone loves chick picks! LOL








I will get better pics later after they finish completely fluffing and have all hatched! Hopefully I will have a lot more to photograph : )

 

[wholewheatchicken]

Congragulations! So maybe it's not just me that can't get a shipped egg to hatch well????? I am thinking about giving it up!
Love your pics.

 

[2hot2chicken]

Don't give it up you will get it at some point. It depends on a lot of factors including where you get your eggs. I have gotten eggs from lots of different people and have had good luck before and bad luck to. I have had xrayed eggs and perfect eggs and broken eggs from the Post office. Gotten many eggs to LD and lost entire hatches for unknown reasons. I would get yourself some very cheap hatching eggs and run a couple test hatches and try different things to get a method that works well for you. Something that works well for others may not work well in your incubator and climate, etc..... I have had a string of bad hatches the last couple time for some reason. Part of it was due to my 5 yr old opening my bator when I wasn't looking but that doesn't explain all of it. I got 16 chicks out of 30 eggs this time so that is really pretty good for all shipped eggs, 8 of them were clear eggs the rest died sometime between day 7 and hatch. I am done using my LG though I am going with a cabinet bator from now on. My DH agreed to get me one for mothers day. I did find that adding weather stripping around the edge of the top and a fan to my LG really helped increase my hatch rate a lot for eggs from my hens. I wish you lots of luck.