day 20! I think my head is going to POP!!!!!

[midget_farms]

OMG - I should not be this excited -

I have a huge home made incubator - that has been cooking away for 20 days!

So the humidity has been 40-45% the entire time.

I try to bump it up for lock down & it drops! 30-35% now!!! What?

So I open it up this morning & add a jar of water with a wash cloth & add a styrofoam egg carton full of water.

That brings it up to 49% (at least temporarily)

So about 20-30 minutes after I add the water I go check to see that the humidity is good & I FIND A PIP!!!!!

OMG - its day 20 - I didn't expect any of these until tomorrow!

Now I have the brooder warming up - I need to get some chick starter feed - but we got 2 ft of snow yesterday & there is no hope of getting out today.

I have the waterers etc. Maybe I can just feed them layer for a day until I can get to town.

I though I'd have until Friday!

 

[Tanichca]

PICS!!!!

 

[midget_farms]

It doesn't show up very well - but just to the right of the zero is a small set of cracks. Its easy to see with the eye.

 

[midget_farms]

now I have several pips.

happening fast!

 

[funnybirds]

So exciting!! And in your own home made incubator too... AWESOME!!!!!!
More updates please!

 

[HEChicken]

Yep - I see it - that's awesome. I had my first pip around 9pm last Friday night (the eggs weren't "due" to hatch until 5pm Sunday). By the time I went to bed I had 3 pips and I woke up Sat morning to a hatched chick. Oops - guess my temps were a little high. If you are on day 20, it could still be day 21 until you have a hatch and then they can go three days without eating so you still have a little time to get the chick starter and brooder set up. Congrats!

 

[SuziQ991]

How exciting!!! Remember they can go 3 days without food after adsorbing the yolk, so you should be ok. And we need to see pics of the fluffy butts too!!

 

[midget_farms]

I usually just ignore the incubator - thats the only way I can keep from obsessing over it. It is well built & does its thing with out me needing to fuss with it.

Now I'm stuck to the window - I just saw one of my welsummer eggs rock - it hasn't piped yet - those things were expensive (compared to the others) all my eggs were shipped thanks to a coyote who ate my rooster over x-mas.

This is cool! They are all still in paper cartons with the bottoms cut out. I have not seen them move before.

I am not going to get any work done today.

 

[Tanichca]

 

[midget_farms]

I have 48 eggs - I started with 58 but culled 10 after candling - of which 3 were good : (

So from that point on I decided to just leave them all alone - didn't candle again or anything.

Of the 48 - I thought 1 or 2 were suspect - but didn't cull them because they were welsummers & the egg was too dark to see into very well.

In any case - I just heard someone chirping!

But no more pips in the last hour.