December Hatch-A-Long 2014

[Renee572]

Today is my official candling day! I am waiting till this evening when it gets dark. I am so excited and nervous to know if we have any chicks growing. Hopefully I can get some good pictures in case I am unsure of any and then I can have you all help me decipher what I am looking at. I will post results tonight. I know there were a few others with about the same hatch date as me so I am looking forward to hearing about all the chicks you all have growing as well.

Can you tell I am so excited for today!!

 

[Sustained]

Today is my official candling day! I am waiting till this evening when it gets dark. I am so excited and nervous to know if we have any chicks growing. Hopefully I can get some good pictures in case I am unsure of any and then I can have you all help me decipher what I am looking at. I will post results tonight. I know there were a few others with about the same hatch date as me so I am looking forward to hearing about all the chicks you all have growing as well.

Can you tell I am so excited for today!!

I get to candle some tonight too! Yay! I just love candling I never have any luck trying to take pictures of candling. I did get a new candler a week or so ago so maybe I will try again. Good luck on your candle!!!

 

[ChickenLady2014]

Today is my official candling day! I am waiting till this evening when it gets dark. I am so excited and nervous to know if we have any chicks growing. Hopefully I can get some good pictures in case I am unsure of any and then I can have you all help me decipher what I am looking at. I will post results tonight. I know there were a few others with about the same hatch date as me so I am looking forward to hearing about all the chicks you all have growing as well.

Can you tell I am so excited for today!!

Good luck!

 

[mistyhollow]

Lockdown yesterday for 8 barnyard mixes and 9 OE/EE. Due December 1st. Moved them to a still air incubator with no turner...but placed them upright in egg cartons and separated them with a metal bread basket that I bought from WalMart. It fit over the egg carton with plenty of space on the sides without hitting the heating elements on the top! I will add a picture when I get home this evening!

 

[HerbGir1972]

One careless mistake transpose 1 number, my eggs to be delivered today are bouncing all over Cali...my incubation dates are moved back a couple days.

 

[Sustained]

Lockdown last night for 6 serama and lockdown tonight for 4 or 5 more. I have to candle one more time before transferring to the bator. One looked no good but I was going to give it a few more days to be sure.

 

[Renee572]

Candling was awesome! Started with a dozen mixed eggs and out of those #1 was clear and #2 had a huge blood ring but #3-12 all had veins and growth! We got to see 1 really moving and that was so awesome. We could see the eye on about 4 of them. I am Sooo excited because now I know I am doing something right. To be honest I really didn't pay much attention to all the air sacs but the ones I did notice looked the right size for day 7. The only thing is that the first few good eggs the chicks looked a bit bigger than the others, they are bigger eggs but would that account for the difference in size? I moved them around in the incubator in case those top first ones were getting more heat than the lower ones.

Anyway, I am so excited that we only had 1 infertile and only 1 blood ring and 10 growing chicks! Now to keep them alive for 2 more weeks!

 

[Sustained]

Yes bigger eggs generally mean bigger chicks so that should be fine. Congrats on having such a great first candle! That's so exciting!

 

[Renee572]

Yes bigger eggs generally mean bigger chicks so that should be fine. Congrats on having such a great first candle! That's so exciting!

Oh good!

I'm a little bummed that the clear and blood ring were 2 of the 3 that I had that were supposedly Buff Orpingtons so I hope the 3rd one makes it. If I remember correctly that may be the one that was moving around. But I am happy we still have 10 good ones!

 

[ochochicas]

My broody is sitting on 8 eggs. Call me crazy for hatching with a broody in December, but she is a great momma so I know if any of them hatch she'll take excellent care of them.

There are four speckled sussex eggs, one cream legbar, and three olive eggers (the latter are actually her eggs). In November I hatched 4 Olive eggers, but three of them are cockerels so I thought I'd try again. Expected hatch date is December 13th.

Today I candled quickly. The OEs looked good, the legbar looks good, and there is a lot of veining in the sussex eggs but they didn't look quite right to me. I'll check them again during the week. There was one clear egg, but I realized it wasn't marked; My old red star hen had snuck it in the nest yesterday. She did the same thing today. I might have to move the broody if the pushy ol' hen can't mind her own business and lay her eggs in a different box!