Bunch of candling development pics!

[Kiraeh]

There's been a bit of rocking, a bit of pipping, and a lot of peeping! Seems like a louder chorus every time.

#9 is still resting, but four other eggs have cracks, tho some are pretty small, not sure if they count as a proper pip. They're not rocking a lot, but they're not able to much either. I got some good wiggles playing mama hen sounds at them, and then a lot of peeps when I turned it off!
This was a bit more action than I was expecting for day 19, possibly I've been running a touch hot. Wouldn't be surprised, I was aiming for 100 degrees more to have a goal that's easy to discern at a glance through my initial murky plastic view window(quick switched to this acrylic when I sent into lockdown) than because I calculated it based on my thermometers relative height to the eggs.

 

[Kiraeh]

#3, my favourite egg. I think there might have been three days I didn't candle her.

Was thinking of doing a breakdown of my incubator setup, for anyone else diy-ing it, since it was pretty successful.

 

[Rakaiachick]

Wow they are awesome. Good job. I'm sure you'll get a good hatch. Thanks for sharing

 

[Kiraeh]

Day 14

It was really hard not to candle them all again, I just did a few and they all had feet out! I want to crack it open right now haha and see if I can find any silkies. that top one is both feet, even tho it's one of my smaller eggs it doesn't look like it got silkie toes.

 

[Kiraeh]

Day 15:
Different sides of the same egg:

Others are almost totally opaque

This one has always been hard to see through, so hopefully the difference is more about the shell than what's going on inside.
They're re starting to fill up in the pointy end now too. And it's nice to see a bit of air cell progress.
There's one egg that's worrying me, but I can't put my finger on what's different about it. It doesn't look like any quitter I've seen pictures of, tho it does seem murkier somehow. But the veins look good and it seems to have movement. I guess we'll see, I hope it make it.

 

[Kiraeh]

Hah I went back and checked those quiet two and they were just asleep, they're kicking now! Ugh I also burned a new ventilation hole in the Styrofoam, so between that and the water and the platform being a bit higher in the incubator the whole balance of things is thrown off haha. Gotta get a fan for next time.

 

[Kiraeh]

I shouldn't touch them, but my incubator holds humidity pretty well and I wanna. No pips yet, even tomorrow would be pretty early for them.

Lots of movement on the air cells today as drawdown begins. Some more so than others- egg three is still kicking back with feet exactly where they were yesterday, but!

That shape is not a foot! Somma these babies are thinking about haaatching!

 

[Kiraeh]

We're almost done!
I'm gonna have a 12/14 hatch! Way better than I was preparing myself for, I'm pretty chuffed. I almost got two dozen eggs because I figured I'd for sure hatch less than 50%.
The two I lost were malpositioned. And were eggs I'd worried about before, too, which is interesting. Haven't fully opened them up, but cracked the shell at air pocket to see what's up because candling looked very different from the eggs that did hatch. Both had the head out of sight, down between the legs. Full veins, no way to pip, no way for me to help without bleeding them out. Quite possibly a heat issue, with the rest of the hatch done at the beginning of day 21 I was definitely running warm. Or a temp fluctuation issue. Or something else, those two eggs are ones that have looked a bit off to me since ~day 10, tho I can't put a finger on it.
Pictures of the fluffy hatch incoming.

 

[AltonaAcres]

Awesome thread and amazing diy incubator! way to go!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Kiraeh]

I'm doing it again! I dunno if anyone cares for even mooooooore candling pics but it's a useful record keeping tool for me.

Day 0: upgraded the rig somewhat! Details over in my incubator thread. I have fifteen more of the same polish/silkie eggs and also twelve assorted orpingtons! Pretty excited for those, that's the chicken I really wanted, but the eggs are more expensive so I wanted to hatch something cheaper first.
Learned a lesson in how easy it is to scramble them though. I had the polish/silkie eggs in the front seat of my car, one full egg carton and one with the three extras. I picked them up to get something from underneath them. The three egg carton was on top and, unbalanced, it fell over onto the car seat. Just that fall, maybe six inches, less than a foot, onto a soft surface, while tucked in the carton with tissue paper(the carton remained closed, nothing fell out) was enough to slightly detach the air cell of one of the three eggs. It's only a little wobbly, so I'm not going to treat it any different, but whew. No wonder shipped eggs get so rough.
Nothing to candle today tho!