Beginner's Hatch-A-Long

[ivyrash]

Hi Everyone!

I'm not sure if I qualify here as I've only read a few pages so far and have not seen anyone in my situation, but I'm a NOOB!

I ordered 4 bantam Coachin blue/black frizzle eggs on Ebay, received 5 and put them under my broody bantam brahma straight from the mail. They came in 2 days all the way from Texas. I hope a couple survive as my mama seems so proud. I've been making sure she eats a lot so she won't lose her broody behavior too early.

Well, next time I'll join you guys with an incubator, but I can't afford one yet!

PS-- I know incubation time is 21 days, but if it took about 4-5 days for the seller + transportation... when does the clock start for them? Once they are under the warm hen? Thanks!!

I would say once they are under the hen is when you start counting. If I had a broody hen to use I would have done that but none of mine ever go broody it seems. I think mama chicken can do a much better job at incubating then we ever could. Good luck!

 

[My peeps]

The outside temp dropped from being in the 80's to being in the low 50's during the day and in the 30's at night. The first night that it really dropped I woke up to the incubator being in the 80's I went to bed at midnight and the temp was fine. Woke up at 6 and it was low. I really hope it didn't hurt the chicks. I started with 13 and already got rid of 8. The kids will be so sad if they don't hatch.

 

[Alaskan]

I am with you!

I think my incubator is breaking/broken.

I am SO UPSET!

I have 22 super lovely eggs in there, and I am trying to get stuff to work, but things are NOT going well, and it is very likely that they are all dead, or will be soon the way this #%^*~ incubator is behaving. I live in a tiny town, so even if I decided to buy an incubator, I would have to mail order.

Not much I can do at his point, except try my best to baby it along and wait until Wednesday, when my eggs will be one week. I am thinking that if there is no sign of life on day seven, I will toss them all and decide if I want to try again ( with a DIFFERENT incubator).

 

[ivyrash]

I started my eggs in the evening so technically this evening will be day 20 and I have 7 pipped eggs this morning. They are just a cross bred chick from my egg layers but it still seems pretty early, makes me wonder if my temps have been higher than I though they were. I will not incubate again until I have thermo/hygrometers that I trust. Makes me crazy not knowing if the temps are right and I have trust/control issues anyway! lol

After I locked down yesterday morning I thought everything was good so I left for the day. When I got home nine hours later I found my temps sitting at around 95 and figured they probably all died anyway. I had a heck of a time getting them back up last night but finally did get them back up in the safe zone but I can't keep them steady for anything.

 

[Alaskan]

Oh ivyrash! What frustration!

And pipped? But not hatched yet?


I am with you....keeping temperatures stable is very difficult.

Frustrating and upsetting

 

[FFAChickenFan]

I'm kinda afraid that my humidity has been up too high while I've been incubating. Is there such a thing as too high of incubation...?

They're on day 10 today and my Hygrometer has been reading around 60-80 the whole time, which I know is way past what they recommend. I've tried to absorb some of the water I've put in there, but the Humidity doesn't move a whole lot.

What do you guys think?

 

[Alaskan]

Yep, if there is any way for you to lower the humidity, try it.

Take out any water you have in there, dry it out with a paper towel...

And if you do all that and it still doesn't drop to 40ish %RH, I would consider buying a dehumidifier.

Or, is there a room in your house that is less humid than the room the incubator is in right now?

 

[ivyrash]

So I am home and now have counted at least 7 chicks in the incubator. They are bumping all over in there and making lots of noise. The windows are all fogged up and it is chaos inside the incubator so hard to count right now. Trying very hard to wait to open it up and take out the little chickies but it is hard. There is a lot of yellowish goo in there all over everything, is that normal? It's been a long time since I hatched anything. I don't think my humidity did very good during the whole thing but at least they are hatching and I can see more pips so I'm sure there will be more tomorrow.

 

[ivyrash]

one of the chicks has it's intestinse hanging outside of his body! I pulled him out and put him under a heat lamp, is there anything else I can do at this point? I could try to put it back in but don't know if there's much point. I am open to advice at this point.

 

[Alaskan]

Blach..... (About the intestine)I would say try to read through some threads here on BYC, I am sure that it has been discussed lots as it is a common occurrence.

But I haven't had that before, so am no help, sorry.



IDK....it sound like you are pretty crowded....if you have lots more trying to hatch, I would think that taking out the already hatched chicks, so they don't accidentally kill a hatching chick, is maybe a good idea.

I guess you have to balance, how much the humidity might drop...and high humidity is important for the chicks hatching....

But if it is crowded in there..... The ones already hatched might be bumping the trying to hatch and make it too difficult for them.

Tricky choice.

But, at least you know you got a good number, congrats!