Can't wait to start hatching soon! Anyone else with 10/14 hatch day?

[Floridachicken1958]

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If your in lockdown then , not a good idea to open bator! Lockdown means just that LOCKDOWN.

I know, I don't even like taking out the early hatchers - I do it - but I think it can compromise the rest of the clutch. I'm giving them until Sunday after church - then I'll candle each egg and see if I can figure out what went wrong. I didn't have a good idea of the numbers going into lockdown b/c of the darkness of the eggs and lack of candling skills on my part. So the rest may very well have not developed far enough to hatch. We'll see - but you're right - I am not opening the bator until Sunday - I'll just keep peeking in the window repeatedly

Good idea!

 

[crazypetlady]

Congrats to all the pips zips & hatchs

I candled last night the first batch of 15 is down to 5 seramas and only 3 were moving, but I'll take it. The next batch of 15 sermas are 3 days behind but 11 look hopeful and the one of my bantams I threw in for a control group looks perfect, of course it didn't have to go thru the postal sytem. I set another 8 sermas this morning that cam in the mail yesterday. I haave 5+ ssilkie eggs shipping out on wed then 18+ coming on Nov 7th I WILL put the bator away after those.

 

[Cattitude]

Now that the Marans eggs are finished hatching (25% on shipped eggs), I'm hatching only my smallest eggs (Silkie/Silkie-X, Sebright, Rosecomb) and selling the larger eggs. I need bunches and bunches of Silkies for my breeding project, plus my Sebright roo died mysteriously. And most of my Rosecombs are little black roosters! If I need eggs for a recipe, I just hold back a few of the little eggs. And I have plenty of room for more bantams.

 

[crazypetlady]

And I have plenty of room for more bantams

lol there is ALWAYS room for more bantams

 

[bobbieschicks]

Well - nothing happened while we were gone today in the bator

so I think we're done with the hatch - I'll verify tomorrow after church. At least we got 5 orpingtons and 3 silkies.

At first I was worried that the orpingtons were bulling the silkies because they were pecking the silkie feathered feet - then I realized that they were also pecking each other's feet - so they weren't discriminating who they picked on LOL!

Here's a few pics of the fuzzy butts!

Looks like our hatch rate wasn't as good as I would have liked with the Silkies - 3 out of 27 shipped eggs - had a better hatch rate with the orpingtons 5 out of 10.

 

[Godiva]

Well we got our first chick yesterday morning. Since there was no pip in the remaining egg and the humidity was starting to drop I quickly opened the 'bator and refilled the reservoirs with warm water and grabbed the chick out too. We have been out of town since this morning early and will only get home tomorrow lunch time!!! driving me crazy wondering how the two are doing - is the one in the brooder ok and has the other egg hatched and have the temp and humidity been stable enough!!!! I hate this being so far away after working so hard on getting these two to this stage of the game! the single chick is pathetic on it's own! Poor thing really needs some buddies! Everytime I put my hand into the brooder it runs up to it and snuggles down either in the palm of my hand or gets under my hand and hides there, just kind of nuzzles against my hand. The kids are besotted! DH and i decided to order a few chicks from a hatchery to be the flock for these chicks. We are going to have a bunch of packing peanuts if anyone is interested! I don't have room for a bunch of roos! the kids don't know that there are going to be chicks in the mail next week! So it should be quite a thrill for them after the disappointment of losing so many of the eggs. Will let you know what happened with the remaining egg once I get home tomorrow!

 

[bobbieschicks]

Quote:
Oh so sorry - the extra chicks will help! I'm done with my hatch too. I still have to clean out the bator and there are 13 eggs in there unhatched

Most are Silkies. I'm debating about looking inside. Next time I don't know if I will hatch or purchase. Enjoy your new chicks!

 

[Floridachicken1958]

So sorry about only 1 chick hatching but hatching chicks to me is alot more cheaper than buying them.If they don't get you with the price of the chicks then they will get you with the shipping.when you get shipped eggs you should let them sit for 24 hours with large end up and have your bator running 24 hours before you get your eggs.My eggs should be here by wednesday so Thursday they will go into bator.To have bator running for 24 hours is to have your temp & humidity right for when your eggs get to you.

 

[pnp4kidz]

I have eight hatched! a few more look possible, but so far only the three cochins from the shipped eggs hatched... (not so great from a shipped order of 30 + extras, totaling like 35 eggs...) the box was smashed, and obviously many were scrambled...
all 17 on lockdown looked like live chicks, wonder what happened...?

 

[bobbieschicks]

Well I did an eggtospy and looked at all the silkie and orpingtons that did not hatch - of those only one had pipped and failed to hatch - it got knocked over on it's hole by the wild orpington kicking around in there and never finished hatching. The rest helped me understand better what I did not do correctly and how to fix it for the next time.

I HATE looking inside but I did find some interesting information - there were a few that were never going to be chicks - one even looked like a cooked hardboiled egg. The others however had chicks mostly or fully formed with shrink wrap look to them. What I have read is that shrink wrapping happens when the humidity levels are not correct throughout the hatching and that the air sac change is most important. I can only surmize that they might have had a better chance to hatch had the humidity levels been corrected for air sac levels. I will work harder next time to keep the air sac at the right level and humidity in control. I had read that humidity early (days 1-17) on didn't matter as much as later (days 18-21) so I wasn't as concerned about it. Then today I did research on dry hatch and I think for an experiment I will try a dry hatch next time.

It wasn't fun to see those poor lifeless chicks - I hate thinking that I somehow did something that killed them. I will let the Lord help me get past those feelings of guilt and surrender them to Him. Even though I know that a 50% hatch rate on shipped eggs is usual - when the chick is fully formed in the shell I can't help but think that it's more my incubator then shipping that is the problem.

Oh well - praise God I have 8 lovely little fuzzy butts - 5 lavender orpingtons and 3 silkies - looks like one black, one lavender and one partridge

They are adorable!