Confessions of a City Slicker

[mortie]

I feel like if I set up a brooder that would be like sort of...assuming eggs would hatch...which would mean they wouldn't. Murphy's law at work.

 

[flowerfaeiry]

Oh, they will hatch! Maybe just a few, or maybe most of them, but you will have chicks! As long as you are "in the range" and up the humidity at lockdown, nothing else to do but sit on your hands. I read on another thread that during a power outage the bator temp went down to 60, and still had a decent hatch! Candling seems to help ease the mind when you see the little buggers moving around in there. You have a great support group here at BYC. Many to help you through it.

 

[aart]

I feel like if I set up a brooder that would be like sort of...assuming eggs would hatch...which would mean they wouldn't. Murphy's law at work.

Yeah sure...wait until you candle on day 14 and see how big they're getting....then the last week will fly by as you get the brooder ready!!

 

[mortie]

I am just worried I cooked them. Poor little boogers. I peeked in a couple of them tonight and I still see veins. The blue ones are so hard to see into!

 

[Beanzie]

Small town of 8,000... Makes me chuckle. Good luck with your hatch, just remember to breath and not to make any rash decisions. I am on day 20 of my first ever hatch, so trust me when I say I know how easy it is to get nervous. Read as much as you can, but keep from burying your mind in the negatives. Acknowledge the possibility that something could go wrong, but don't let it take hold of you. Again, good luck to you! Chickens are great. They are like a cheap parrot that can provide you with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

 

[mortie]

There were a lot of much smaller towns around us. For our area we were quite the metropolis. Now I live somewhere that people still call a small town and "quaint" (that word is used to describe my current city all the time) even though we have like 200k people here. To me this is not a small town!

 

[flowerfaeiry]

Mortie, is today day 7? Any candeling?

 

[mortie]

I didn't candle them all because I did it on day 5 or so and I don't want to bother them too much. I did pull out a few to spot check and they look good. In all the ones I checked I could see a little chick swimming around. I got a different flashlight and pulled one different one out last night to try out the light and sadly the egg I picked appears to have quit. Some of the eggs are harder to see into than others but in this one I think I see the red ring of death and no other veins. Bummer. So as it stands right now I have 24 good eggs, 2 infertiles, and 2 quitters.

I am planning to candle everyone on wednesday night so I'll double check those and toss them if needed. Hopefully I don't find too many more quitters.

 

[flowerfaeiry]

I can never seem to keep my hands off for too long, gotta candle just few every few days. I always keep a log and number each egg, candle a few every few days and sequentially each egg gets checked. That way, I figure, I'm not chilling the bator for too long at a time, a bit like momma hen leaving the nest to eat, and it satisfies my undying curiosity

 

[mortie]

I didn't think I would be able to do this but I got curious and broke open the quitter. The chick seemed to be stuck to the shell a little bit. It was well formed but definitely dead. It expired around day 6 so I identified it right away on day 7.

Finding quitters helps me keep my paws off the eggs because I don't want to find more! I know not all eggs hatch and I was expecting around a 50% rate so I am doing great as far as that goes so far (24 of 28 left) but I prefer to think that they're all still going!

Tomorrow we are halfway done!