Bantam Assortment from TurtleFeathers-SAD NEWS

[GotChicken?]

On 2/26 (2/27 first official day) I set out 15 hatching eggs that I received from TurtleFeathers. They were shipped from Maryland to Michigan. None of the eggs arrived damaged or cracked. I let them set at room temp for 24 hours before they were put in the 'bator.

I got 1 Serama egg

6 eggs (4 pinkish-beige; 2 larger chalky white) from her Silkie/Cochin/Sizzle/Frizzle/D'Uccle pen.

5 eggs (mint, sage w/ red spots, peach, peach w/ white spots, & olive) from her bantam EE/ large fowl pullet (w/ a BLRW cockerel) pen.

Kathy also sent me 3 bonus mystery eggs, laid by her Maran pullet, which may have either an bantam EE or a BLRW cockerel for a daddy.

I also threw in my Cuckoo bantam Polish's wind egg (bottom right), which not only had been the coop anywhere from a few hours to two days (I had brought her home a few days before; didn't expect her to lay due to stress from the move!), but also I had it in the 'fridge for over a week. But I figured what the hay!





Guess which egg is doing best?

My camera isn't designed for shooting in pitch black, so the image isn't great. However, you can descern veining and the embryo mass in the center - if you squint.

Today I had to throw out one of the chalky white Silkie/Cochin eggs away due to seepage. I also candled all of the light eggs (the green and brown can wait; I know they're a bear to candle

). All of the Silkie/Cochin eggs (with the exception of the one just mentioned) are developing, one of the EE's is a maybe, and the other EE candled and the Serama were quitters (scrambled by the PO).

So far 7 are developing. I will post what happens with the candling of the dark eggs (day 10).

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

Congrats! GOod luck to you!

I hope mine do as well tonight when I candle

 

[GotChicken?]

Had a big scare yesterday. My humidity was at 40%, but the day before, it got down to about 33%. Didn't worry much about it, because I read on posts here about people utilizing dry hatches at 35%. Boy was I wrong.

Candled one of the lighter shelled eggs, and the air cell took up half the egg! Went into emergency mode, and added extra sponges and water to the incubator. I also spritzed the eggs several times with water, paying special attention to the ones with thinner shells. Managed to get the humidity up to 60% for the overnight.

The incubator was at 50% this morning. I candled a couple of eggs, and apparently my efforts paid off. The air cells were back to the size they should be. I plan to diligently keep the humidity at 45% for the rest of the incubation.

Valuable lesson: you can listen to the advice other people give about where they keep their humidity, but the size of the air cell is the real determining factor of what your individual humidity should be. I had success at 44%; I should have stuck with it. As it is, I think I lost one egg (will determine tomorrow if I saw a vein or a blood ring). The other eggs I checked seemed to be returing to normal with their vein branching, but if I didn't kill them I know their hatching will be delayed by at least a day.

Boy, was I stupid. I just hope I caught the problem in time.

 

[jimma207]

same here. I was at about 40% humidity and my air cells were to large, had to go up to 55% before I liked the way it looked. I wonder if it might have to do with the fact I heat my home with wood. My house stays no higher than 20% on avg.

 

[GotChicken?]

Lost another 3 eggs. All had blood rings, no doubt to the humidity problem. The rest seem to be okay; 3 of the embryos were practically doing a dance number while I candled them!

I'm still having problems with the large chalky white egg. It's rough texture seems to make it more prone to moisture loss than the other eggs, so I plan to spritz it with water at least once a day to keep the air cell at a reasonable size.

Ten days down, at least ten more to go.

 

[GotChicken?]

I had a lot of problems with humidity with this hatch. It seemed every time I added water, my temps would drop and the humidity would skyrocket. Then I found out what the problem was. The egg carton I was setting the eggs in was pressed cardboard, and every time I filled the right water well, it absorbed the water! Got rid of that, and ended up on the 18th day ( Tuesday ) with 8 eggs.

Then I did a really bone-headed thing. I candled all the eggs before putting them in the hatcher. I didn't want them in the LG because the last two I hatched kept climbing on the sponges and hitting their heads on the heating elements. Two of the eggs had huge air cells (1/3of the egg), and I could swear I saw a bloodring in one. So I didn't put those eggs in the hatcher. I took them outside an hour later to get rid of them, but I always open them up (unless they're stinkin'!) to see what happened. What happened is that I'm a moron, and I killed two live chicks; one of them was still wriggling. I felt like the lowest grade of scum on the planet. Still do.

So I ended up with six eggs going into lockdown.

I converted a 10 gallon aquarium into a hatcher. I have two trays with water and filters, one large bowl with water and rocks for temp stability, a 60 W lightbulb in a dimmer socket, and a battery operated fan converted to USB power. Temp stays around 99 F, and humidity is around 65%.

Today I got my first pip:

It still hasn't started zipping yet, but I can see the tip of the beak moving, and the membrane is translucent, so my humidity is apparently good.

New fuzzybutts!

Guess I can't kill off all of them...

 

[Settler'sDreamFarm]

How exciting, good luck! Add pictures when they hatch.

What breeds are the last six eggs from?

 

[GotChicken?]

2 are olive EE eggs, one is a Maran x, one is either a Silkie or Cochin, one is from my Polish, and the other is ???? (I'll figure it out after it hatches- if it hatches... pessimist.)

 

[GotChicken?]

I went into lockdown Tueday night, everything was going well, a chick had pipped, happy days for all. I woke up Friday morning to a dead fan, humidity that had dropped 30%, and temperatures that were all over the place in the hatcher, depending on where and what height you took the temps from. The chick that was in mid-hatch was stuck tight; I even thought it was dead 'til I saw its beak move. So I commited the Cardinal Sin of Hatching- I helped the chick out of the egg. I knew it would die if I didn't, and that it might die irregardless. But this wasn't impatience, this was an emergency.

I removed all the shell except the section the umbilical was still attached to. The yolk was absorbed, and there was no blood except where a piece of membrane had stuck to its head; I carefully removed that, and put it back into the warmest part of the hatcher, and, unfortunately, went to work, expecting to come home to a dead chick. However, it wasn't dead when I arrived. It was very weak, unable to lift its head or open its eyes, but it was alive.

So I took another chance. I removed it from the hatcher, cleaned it off, used a hair dryer to dry it, and placed it a basket (separated by a partition) into the Silkie brooder. Except the three times I woke it up so it could drink some water, it slept the rest of yesterday through to this morning.

I came home from work today to this:

Apparently s/he likes his/her "stuffed animals"! And the Silkies have been very good to their noisy little playmate. Anyone who has hatched eggs should have a pretty good idea of how I feel right now. Thank goodness.

More good news. Because the hatcher was essentially fragged (no fan I had, nor the ones I bought, were able to bring the hatcher back to working order), I cleaned up the Little Giant and put the eggs back in, expecting nothing. I came home to a pip and a peeping chick in one of the olive eggs. So maybe the Hatcher from Hell will claim less victims than I could hope for. We shall see.

 

[IggiMom]

Well, that was all very interesting.

What kind of incubator do you have?

Catherine