Candeling and hatching diary.

[Sclark73]

Where are you located Sclark do you ever sell hatching eggs?

I'm in northern Wisconsin. Atm I'm not selling eggs. I have sold some at swaps last year but my chickens haven't been laying so well this winter and just started picking up. Out of 31 hen/pullets I'm only getting about 8 eggs a day. Once they pick up to normal it's something I will plan on doing. Of the BLRW 3 are pullets and just started laying the past 2 weeks so I'm testing the fertility and want to hatch a few batches before I decide to sell their eggs. I have 2 roos atm one of which is new and plan on hatching eggs from him this year to compare last years with. And my BLRW hen decided to go broody already so I have her setting on some of the BLRWxAmericauna eggs just to keep her busy. They will be just EE but when I was selling chicks last year people sure wanted them for their egg color. My plan atm is to sell the chicks at swaps to try and recoup a lil of the thousands that I spent in the last year purchasing chickens, travel expense, new coops, accessories and feed. I purchased 4 of my 5 Speckled Sussex last year as show birds and they just started laying this past week since being on strike since October. Once all this snow goes and I can get breeding pens set up right I will have BO, BLRW, SS pure. I lost quite a few chickens this winter when our temps dropped way below zero for so long. I was intending on breeding my Lav Orps but lost all 3 of my roos to the cold. So far they all seem to be having good fertility. Sorry for such a long answer.
I can't wait for mine to hatch.

I wanted to respond to pinusresinosa's comment about candling. My first batch last year was first ever hatching my own chicks. I had always let my broody hens do the job. Well I swear I opening that thing to candle at least 50 times if not 100 and I had a hundred percent hatch out of it. I was always quick about it, but I think the incubators have alot of play in the outcome also. Or maybe i was just lucky, I don't know but every hatch I do I candle at day 3 or 5 to throw out any infertile eggs if any. I'm nowhere near as bad as I used to be but I still candle alot. If I don't see any veining at day 5 they get thrown out to make room for others. I don't have alot of space to waste on eggs that aren't progressing. I hope with having this Hova-bator now it will make me less anxious to throw out early as I'll have more room.

Here's a few photos of what I have. The BO hens aren't show quality but are good layers so I will hatch some of theirs just to restock and sell chicks this summer.

Hen on right front is my Mary Lou going on 7 years.

Here are my Sussex.

Foley Pullet 1

Foley Pullet 2

Foley Pullet 3

Foley Cockerel

BO Hens

BO Cockerel

 

[Lacrystol]

I'm in northern Wisconsin. Atm I'm not selling eggs. I have sold some at swaps last year but my chickens haven't been laying so well this winter and just started picking up. Out of 31 hen/pullets I'm only getting about 8 eggs a day. Once they pick up to normal it's something I will plan on doing. Of the BLRW 3 are pullets and just started laying the past 2 weeks so I'm testing the fertility and want to hatch a few batches before I decide to sell their eggs. I have 2 roos atm one of which is new and plan on hatching eggs from him this year to compare last years with. And my BLRW hen decided to go broody already so I have her setting on some of the BLRWxAmericauna eggs just to keep her busy. They will be just EE but when I was selling chicks last year people sure wanted them for their egg color. My plan atm is to sell the chicks at swaps to try and recoup a lil of the thousands that I spent in the last year purchasing chickens, travel expense, new coops, accessories and feed. I purchased 4 of my 5 Speckled Sussex last year as show birds and they just started laying this past week since being on strike since October. Once all this snow goes and I can get breeding pens set up right I will have BO, BLRW, SS pure. I lost quite a few chickens this winter when our temps dropped way below zero for so long. I was intending on breeding my Lav Orps but lost all 3 of my roos to the cold. So far they all seem to be having good fertility. Sorry for such a long answer.
I can't wait for mine to hatch.

I wanted to respond to pinusresinosa's comment about candling. My first batch last year was first ever hatching my own chicks. I had always let my broody hens do the job. Well I swear I opening that thing to candle at least 50 times if not 100 and I had a hundred percent hatch out of it. I was always quick about it, but I think the incubators have alot of play in the outcome also. Or maybe i was just lucky, I don't know but every hatch I do I candle at day 3 or 5 to throw out any infertile eggs if any. I'm nowhere near as bad as I used to be but I still candle alot. If I don't see any veining at day 5 they get thrown out to make room for others. I don't have alot of space to waste on eggs that aren't progressing. I hope with having this Hova-bator now it will make me less anxious to throw out early as I'll have more room.

Here's a few photos of what I have. The BO hens aren't show quality but are good layers so I will hatch some of theirs just to restock and sell chicks this summer.

Hen on right front is my Mary Lou going on 7 years.

Here are my Sussex.

Foley Pullet 1

Foley Pullet 2

Foley Pullet 3

Foley Cockerel

BO Hens

BO Cockerel

Five days is kind of soon, I give mine 7 sometimes even 10 days, then I know I'm for sure safe..

 

[pinusresinosa]

Your birds are lovely, indeed! You are not far from me it seems.

I do not think my hyper candling was the end all reason. Some of my failure was the eggs were shipped for one. For two, I was touching the temperature adjustment on my incubator too much (it was homemade). I didn't have proper ventilation either.

I got the nervous, overbearing-ness out of my system. I'm running another batch in the home made bator and it's going very well this second time around. I'll be posting pics later of the eggs. I also bought a incubator that's thermostatically controlled and such, so I don't feel as much of a need to mess with it. My husband calibrated for me over the weekend, and it's been checked with several other thermometers, including my trusty meat thermometer which I'm surprised will read as low as it does.

@Lacrystol , may I engage in a one on one with you in this thread regarding my new bator and it's about to be new contents (exhibition rouen eggs and three seb goose eggs)? Ambitious for me, I feel like I'm willingly jumping off of a cliff. I just got them in the mail. The goose eggs just came today. I'm about to candle and mark air cells. Pictures coming. Incubator is set to 99.5 degrees, humidity is right now at 52%. This incubator comes with air plugs, and we've removed them and set the settings with the plugs open. What do you think?

 

[pinusresinosa]

Okay here goes. These are the rouen eggs, 1-6. Each has a wiggly air cell to some degree but no detached or floating air pockets that I can tell. Number 4 has something floating inside of it. All the others seem like they're totally normal.














And the goose eggs. One has a completely detached air cell, it's moving about the cabin. One has a slightly loose cell with expanded borders but not by much. The last one has an intact cell but the air pocket is moving around a bit. All are marked the best I could. I noted on the air cells on each egg.







These will all go into the same incubator I'm thinking later today. I would appreciate some ideas, especially on the goose eggs on what I should do regarding their air cells however before I place them into the incubator. I've done a ton of reading, but not totally sure on what to do. Place them in later today standing up and gently rock them to turn until later in incubation?

And one of my current success stories. This is day 14 on set two, candled them. Here's the one duck egg from my two favorite ducks:



All of the chicken eggs in bator 2 are looking good too. Too dark for my camera to love taking photos of them though, LOL! But it feels good to be on the right track on them.

 

[Lacrystol]

Your birds are lovely, indeed! You are not far from me it seems.

I do not think my hyper candling was the end all reason. Some of my failure was the eggs were shipped for one. For two, I was touching the temperature adjustment on my incubator too much (it was homemade). I didn't have proper ventilation either.

I got the nervous, overbearing-ness out of my system. I'm running another batch in the home made bator and it's going very well this second time around. I'll be posting pics later of the eggs. I also bought a incubator that's thermostatically controlled and such, so I don't feel as much of a need to mess with it. My husband calibrated for me over the weekend, and it's been checked with several other thermometers, including my trusty meat thermometer which I'm surprised will read as low as it does.

@Lacrystol , may I engage in a one on one with you in this thread regarding my new bator and it's about to be new contents (exhibition rouen eggs and three seb goose eggs)? Ambitious for me, I feel like I'm willingly jumping off of a cliff. I just got them in the mail. The goose eggs just came today. I'm about to candle and mark air cells. Pictures coming. Incubator is set to 99.5 degrees, humidity is right now at 52%. This incubator comes with air plugs, and we've removed them and set the settings with the plugs open. What do you think?

ENGAGE, Sisster.. LOL

 

[Lacrystol]

Your birds are lovely, indeed! You are not far from me it seems.

I do not think my hyper candling was the end all reason. Some of my failure was the eggs were shipped for one. For two, I was touching the temperature adjustment on my incubator too much (it was homemade). I didn't have proper ventilation either.

I got the nervous, overbearing-ness out of my system. I'm running another batch in the home made bator and it's going very well this second time around. I'll be posting pics later of the eggs. I also bought a incubator that's thermostatically controlled and such, so I don't feel as much of a need to mess with it. My husband calibrated for me over the weekend, and it's been checked with several other thermometers, including my trusty meat thermometer which I'm surprised will read as low as it does.

@Lacrystol , may I engage in a one on one with you in this thread regarding my new bator and it's about to be new contents (exhibition rouen eggs and three seb goose eggs)? Ambitious for me, I feel like I'm willingly jumping off of a cliff. I just got them in the mail. The goose eggs just came today. I'm about to candle and mark air cells. Pictures coming. Incubator is set to 99.5 degrees, humidity is right now at 52%. This incubator comes with air plugs, and we've removed them and set the settings with the plugs open. What do you think?

FAN or NO FAN?

 

[Lacrystol]

OK, just about getting off of work, so I will take a better look when I get home. One looks like it has a lot of pores, sometimes these ones will start developing but stop at one point. I don't recall having a porous shell completely develop from beginning to end.. But I'll analyze them more when I get home..

 

[pinusresinosa]

FAN or NO FAN?

Still air actually. No fan.

 

[pinusresinosa]

OK, just about getting off of work, so I will take a better look when I get home. One looks like it has a lot of pores, sometimes these ones will start developing but stop at one point. I don't recall having a porous shell completely develop from beginning to end.. But I'll analyze them more when I get home..

Alright, we're a go! I'll try my best to keep up with you later. It's hard for me to be around in the evenings with the whole family at home and being needy.

 

[sasimpson77]

So I am expecting more eggs this week so I will start a candling diary on these shipped eggs. By the way this weekends hatch is up to 48 out of 58 that went into lockdown. I had 12 shipped eggs in the original bunch of which 6 made it too lock down and I had 5 babies successfully hatch one internally pipped but then died ( i think I could have saved it if I had intervened but I chose a hands off approach this time) so I figure that isn't to bad seeing as how they had detached air cells. Hatching in the cartons up right was very successful I highly recommend that method my chicks could not play kick ball with the unhatched eggs and I felt better about them in general I did not have any humidity issues and I was in and out of the hatcher more then I should have been my humidity only dropped below 50% after I tried streaming from inside the hatcher the cellphone strangely seemed to affect the humidity. What does everyone think of my overall results? By the way I originally set 75 eggs but out of one group of 18 10 of them were clear. and then there was a mixed group of clears and blood rings in the other eggs which left me with 58 at lock down.