Candeling and hatching diary.

[sasimpson77]

Cool that sounds great I will do my best to keep it going I have 42 eggs in this batch and then another 44 eggs I set the following day they are all due to hatch on the 21st and 22nd. I just switched incubators previously I was using a Hovabator but have now switched over to a Redwood Cabinet incubator with a huge capacity. This incubator seems to do a better job of holding a stable temperature then the last one did. I will keep everyone updated. By the way out of the original eggs I was candling (there was 35 in the batch they all made it to lockdown) I only ended up with 3 chicks two are very healthy but I do believe there were nutritional issues with the parents because one issue has a badly twisted neck and I have been told this is a result of improper nutrition. He/She is doing well now and I am hoping his/her neck will continue to improve. I will post a link to Penguins thread.

 

[sasimpson77]

Ok so these are day 11 eggs they were put in the bator on 2-28 time is flying with these eggs

 

[pinusresinosa]

My first set was placed in the bator about the same time, so this is fun to see.

 

[sasimpson77]

My first set was placed in the bator about the same time, so this is fun to see.

Cool they were moving around like crazy but it was hard to catch it on video I will try to video it again tonight. I have about 6 batches going right now they will all get moved over to Hovabators for lockdown and hatching having a hard time getting humidity to stay up at all in the redwoods I refill the trays every single day as they dry out completely every day really watching my air cells so far they do not seem to bad. I have a lot of shipped eggs right now all with detached air cells and they all have to be handled differently they are on day 5 and day 3 when i candle them they stay in there trays.

 

[pinusresinosa]

Cool they were moving around like crazy but it was hard to catch it on video I will try to video it again tonight. I have about 6 batches going right now they will all get moved over to Hovabators for lockdown and hatching having a hard time getting humidity to stay up at all in the redwoods I refill the trays every single day as they dry out completely every day really watching my air cells so far they do not seem to bad. I have a lot of shipped eggs right now all with detached air cells and they all have to be handled differently they are on day 5 and day 3 when i candle them they stay in there trays.

You know what you're doing far better than I do! I'm a hyper candler, but I think I got most of it out of my system... didn't candle yesterday! I know that people say to candle as little as possible, but I've been justifying it with some stuff I read that eggs do fine as long as they don't get too cool for too long/it's good for eggs to get a little cool once a day or so during this point in their incubation etc. Might not be right info there, but what eggs I got in the mail that were fertile and not dropped (I dropped one, felt really bad about it) are developing nicely despite my daily candling sessions. No air sac drama on my first shipment, so wonderful... I feel lucky there. Being that this is my first go at incubating eggs and that my eggs are incubating in home made bators that I made for the first time, and the fact that they came in the mail and I still have many that are doing well is good enough for me. I'm doing alright.

 

[mortie]

Mine that I set 2/23 are doing great. I have 12 farmer's market eggs. 2 of those were infertile and one quit after about 6 days. I still have 9 going strong. Those are big and easy to see into.

Also had 16 ameracauna eggs. Those are a little smaller and harder to see into because of their blue shells. One of those quit around day 3 but I still have 15 that I think are doing ok. It's really hard to tell at this point. Since those eggs are smaller, they are very nearly full. All I can see is a dark mass and an air cell in most of those. Up to this point I candled a couple almost every day but now that it's so hard to see I don't even bother with the blue eggs much although I still peek in a brown egg almost every day. Still looking good.

 

[pinusresinosa]

Mortie, eggs that you bought from the market are developing? That's cool! I didn't know you could do that but it makes sense.

 

[mortie]

Yup, they're doing great. I have no idea what breed or mix they are. It will be interesting to see what they come out as. I had a hunch these would be fertile so I bought 18 and brought them home and cracked two open - yup! So I set 12 of those. I would have set more but a few were dirty and I didn't want to set those. I should have looked them over better when I got them and cracked open the dirty ones to check for fertility, then I would have had more to set. As it is, 24 eggs is plenty for me (9 farmer's market and 15 from the breeder).

 

[sasimpson77]

Yeah my first batch I wanted to candle every day but when I got to where I had all three of my bators full I just couldn't peek at all the eggs now I just peek at the lighter eggs although I do check everyone at about the 10 day mark and pull those that are in fertile or with obvious blood rings. going to try and come up with some way to label the trays in my Redwood incubators so I know what dates are in what trays. As I stated before I will be doing all my lock downs in the HovaBators. that way I am able to get the humidity up high enough and I have windows to monitor the eggs. This was something I did for my kids lol but I am the one who is head over heels into it lol. I lost my 2/22 batch so I am going to have a couple weeks with no eggs. but then I will be busy again for a while.

 

[sasimpson77]

Yup, they're doing great. I have no idea what breed or mix they are. It will be interesting to see what they come out as. I had a hunch these would be fertile so I bought 18 and brought them home and cracked two open - yup! So I set 12 of those. I would have set more but a few were dirty and I didn't want to set those. I should have looked them over better when I got them and cracked open the dirty ones to check for fertility, then I would have had more to set. As it is, 24 eggs is plenty for me (9 farmer's market and 15 from the breeder).

I have been thinking about getting some fresh eggs from some sellers on Craig's List and seeing if they were fertile but seems like the word fertile doubles the cost of the eggs.