December Hatch Along, anyone want to join?

[adtillma1]

There's a December hatchalong going already in the subforum here, too

I'm expecting on the 21st. 14 Barred Rock eggs in.

Law I just realized that there was a sub forum!

 

[Mosey2003]

Yeah, I didn't realize it either until I went looking for a December Hatchalong thread and searched.

 

[Cohea homestead]

We had 8 out of 10 eggs hatch yesterday

 

[Tbjenkins2007]

We started our incubator process on the second too! We set 30 eggs in our home made incubator.

On day 2, one of our egg carton home made turners collapsed, and we lost 4 eggs to cracks and we fixed the problem (we’re new to all of this and made our own)

On day 6 the incubator was spiking temps, so I decided to open and candle eggs I saw 8 with “for sure” life and 6 maybes 12 I thought were “no” but I decided to let them stay in the incubator a bit longer.

Today is day 10, and we decided to candle and remove the duds....

Results....
Of the 12 “no”s 6 actually had life in them!
Of the 8 that were “yes” , 2 had blood rings
Of the 6 “maybes” 4 of them were still maybe, and 2 we could confirm movement!

We had 4 with blood rings.
Kids wanted to do an eggtopsy. What a great experience! They got to see 2 embryos and it was just cool. I can’t wait to keep learning, and again

(Eggs up top are living, left are from my neighbors with legbar rooster so first gen ee, right are mine; going to be EE 2nd gens so they will be fun to hatch
Bottom eggs are the maybes)

(From day 6 candle)

Eggtopsy

Our homemade incubator, that’s plexiglass, and the lid to it helps me adjust for heat loss and gain to help maintain the temps inside

 

[Puffles]

Followin'!

 

[Mrsbickenchicken]

Dang it, I’ll be a bit behind. We won’t get our hatching eggs until the 21st. This is our first set and I’m so excited and nervous! Best wishes for all of your eggs to hatch!

 

[adtillma1]

We candled about half of our eggs yesterday evening on day 10 . There were only 2 questionable ones that we set to the side and figured we would give those a few more days and then candle those again. It was pretty neat to see how the embryos were moving around so much. So exciting!!!

 

[adtillma1]

View attachment 1612689
We had 8 out of 10 eggs hatch yesterday

What breed are these fuzzy little ones?

 

[Cohea homestead]

What breed are these fuzzy little ones?

They are mixed. My rooster I believe is a valdarno and my hens are Rhode island reds, cinnamon queens, and sex links.

 

[Just Rosie]

I started a "test run" hatch to both see if my newly laying hens had fertile eggs (I dont like to crack and check, that's one less egg I can hatch!) And also to test my incubator that I used on my first (and only) hatch last year.
Turns out, the eggs are viable. The incubator is about the most frustrating thing I've ever had to deal with but the embryos so far seem to be progressing. Out of the original 8 that I set (keep in mind these are literally the first eggs these hens have ever lain, and it's been in the 30-40s here in GA) 1 was infertile, 2 were early quitters, day 4 or 5. Of the 5 I currently have, 1 is questionable, the rest look good! We are on Day 14
But since my incubator is being such a brat, I went on Amazon and bought another, and set another 12 which are due new years eve. I havent candled them yet!
And.... I found my original incubator from years ago that I pulled out and set up, its holding its heat well, so I plan to set another batch of eggs in it... you could say yes, I have a bit of hatch fever!
If anyone is looking for ameraucana chicks I might have plenty by January!