Bargain's BCM eggs- Hatching today 10/16!

[6littlechickies]

I purchased a dozen BCM eggs from bargain here on BYC. they arrived the morning of 9/25, I set them in the bator before bed. All eggs arrived safely and very well packaged. I was pleased with the egg color too.

Today (10/13) marks day 18 and lockdown has begun! I cleaned out the hatcher from the duck hatch last weekend.

I put them in this morning and am now just waiting on the peeps, pips and zips!

Of the 12 eggs I started with 6 have made it to lockdown. I had 2 with detached air cells, 2 with blood rings and 2 more that looked like early quitters. The six that did make it are egg #'s 2,3,4,8,9 and 10. The eggs are really washed out in this picture so you can't see but I have the numbers written on the top of each egg so I can easily see during the hatch.

I'll update as things progress. I'm anxious to see how this turns out, first complete hatch with a turner! In the past I've turned by hand.

A few hatches ago I tried using an egg carton to hatch them in and I found I quite preferred this method so I'm using it again this time. I also took a que from iamcuriositycat and drew a pencil line around the air cell to help predict where they might pip--that's also been helpful the last few hatches.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Good luck!!!!

 

[Namble]

Awesome! I hope you have a good hatch!

 

[bargain]

Come on out little babies...My how time flies! I cannot believe it's been 18 days!!!!

Go babies go!
.....

How's the humidity holding?

It's so humid here, I believe if I washed my hair and let it air dry, it would be wet 24 hours later.

Keep us posted!

 

[MAllen]

Best of luck!! We'll be waiting for pics!!

 

[6littlechickies]

How's the humidity holding?

It's so humid here, I believe if I washed my hair and let it air dry, it would be wet 24 hours later.

really humid here right now too. I've been stressing about it all day. I have both vent holes open. I put just a tiny bit of water in this morning and when I checked a couple hours later it was 75%!

So i carefully took ALL the water out and gave it a few more hours, STILL in the 70's!

I figured I'll just use the little fan I bought a couple weeks ago for just this purpose, I go to grab it from under my incubator table and....it's not there!

I just know one of my little ones grabbed it! After all, it's shiny fluorescent green and just looks like fun! so I go searching around the house for it, finally find it (in one of their bedrooms). I hadn't yet put batteries in (why the heck would the kids even want it?!) so I go to my handy dandy box-o-batteries and

NO size D batteries! OK, so this is just NOT my morning! I went out at lunch to get batteries. I come home and as I'm pulling in my driveway I realize... I have a dehumidifier in the basement I could bring up!

Well, after all the drama with the fan I'm determined to use it at this point so I put the batteries in, go over to the bator and the humidity is 80% (No pips)

I opened the top to let some dissipate and now it's back down to 60%. I am keeping an eye on it and will probably end up bringing up that dehumidifier up.

Crazy thing is, i have three other bator's in there that I'm struggling to keep the humidity UP in!

oh and that fan, it was broke!

i had to tape it together.​

 

[shelleyd2008]

I just hatched a marans and a welsummer from bargain (temps in bator were off

) and the humidity was at about 60%-65%. The marans baby hatched all sticky, but the welsummer was fine. I would have left the humidity (in your bator) at the 70-75% mark

 

[6littlechickies]

Quote:
ya think? If I started that high wouldn't it go way up once they start pipping? trying to understand, when you said the marans chick was sticky, wouldn't that indicate too high himidity?

I have no clue...humidity is my nemesis. I alternate between worrying I'm drowning them with too high humidity and cementing them inside with too low humidity.

It's been hanging in the 60-65% range this evening, I think I'm just going to go with it for now. I'm keeping an eye on it.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
ya think? If I started that high wouldn't it go way up once they start pipping? trying to understand, when you said the marans chick was sticky, wouldn't that indicate too high himidity?

I have no clue...humidity is my nemesis. I alternate between worrying I'm drowning them with too high humidity and cementing them inside with too low humidity.

It's been hanging in the 60-65% range this evening, I think I'm just going to go with it for now. I'm keeping an eye on it.

Stickiness can be from too high or too low humidity, it's kind of hit and miss. I'm so used to hatching quail, that I keep my incubator at 45% or more, and my hatcher at 70% or more, and don't usually have any trouble. The humidity would go up a bit once they start hatching, but in my experience it doesn't go up all that high for small hatches. Now the one time that I had about 60 quail chicks all hatch at the same time, the humidity was about 99%, and all the babies (even those that had been dried) were wet, I had to take them out of the bator so they could dry off

I've always heard that marans need higher humidity, so I would have left it. But 60%-65% should be okay

Don't fret

ETA: The reason why my humidity was so low (compared to how it normally is) is because I had just had some eggs hatch when I realized the marans and wellies were due. I forgot to rewet my sponges before setting the eggs in the hatcher, and was afraid to open it to do so

 

[kathyinmo]

Oh, I hope your hatch goes well !

Ya know, until a couple days ago, I had never heard of that ... about marans needing a little higher humidity. Does that include the Cuckoo Marans, as well? I hatched my Cuckoo Marans at 65%, but now I have in black copper marans, and the shells are much darker. Is it the darkness of the shell, or what?

ETA: 6littlechickies: ironic, isn't it, that your name is same as number of eggs! So, you HAVE to have all 6 hatch! BTW, I can relate with the flashlight story. Sounds like my house. I had a timer (for the lights) sitting next to my computer for 2 weeks. Now, I need it ..... it's missing! LOL