December hatch-along?

[AllenK RGV]

Well my experiment with broodies went bad. Segregated 3 broodies to a broody breaking cage this afternoon as we found 2 dead chicks from our 7 viable eggs. This hen was allowed to remain as the solo broody! 4 are all hatched out last doesn't appear to have zipped or pipped yet but I was not too inquisitive as 19th and 20th were my hatch out dates.

Mt CF card for the DSLR stopped formatting yesterday so I can only used crummy whatsapped pictures from a cellphone:

 

[Rockporters]

Well my experiment with broodies went bad. Segregated 3 broodies to a broody breaking cage this afternoon as we found 2 dead chicks from our 7 viable eggs. This hen was allowed to remain as the solo broody! 4 are all hatched out last doesn't appear to have zipped or pipped yet but I was not too inquisitive as 19th and 20th were my hatch out dates.
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Mt CF card for the DSLR stopped formatting yesterday so I can only used crummy whatsapped pictures from a cellphone:
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Sorry for the losses, but the ones doing okay are very cute! Good luck with the last egg.

 

[Rockporters]

All eggs that made it to lockdown hatched. 6 Silkies, 4 Orpingtons. One of the Orps hatched with a protruding eye, which isn’t good, according to what I’ve read on here. Not sure what we’ll do with it yet. The rest of the Orps are total monkeys. Running full speed, and jumping. My little brooder won’t hold them for long. Anyway, here they all are..

 

[Kat MacK]

It’s been a long time since I’ve had this good of a hatch, now to figure out what to do with all this fluff balls.

That's easy: keep your favorites, and use the rest to lure a currently chicken-less friend over to the dark side. You know - chicken math, hatchaholics anonymous, etc.

 

[Rockporters]

Here is the poor little bad eye Orp..
Other than the eye she is really strong and doing well. We will see, I guess.

 

[Rockporters]

That's easy: keep your favorites, and use the rest to lure a currently chicken-less friend over to the dark side. You know - chicken math, hatchaholics anonymous, etc.

Ha! Great idea! I do have a fave in the blue cream Silkies already. It actually seems to like me, which would be a first for me and any Silkie lol.

 

[Scrambles55]

@AllenK RGV
You have a bunch of fluffy cuties there.

 

[wolfwalker]

so last 3 in the incubator, decided to do eggtopsy to find out what went wrong, seeing it is day 25. Egg shells were extremely thick and hard to break, had to resort to picking up a small rock and using it to crack the egg shell. first one I did that too, it was shrink wrapped, and when i went to tear the membrane it moved. So rushed it back into the house and into the incubator. Other 2 dead, but also shrink wrapped.

I've noticed huge air cells in the eggs; the digital humidity monitor, bought from incubator warehouse, never showed the humidity ever going below 51. Not to mention the temp gauges had to be off tremendously to have hatches at day 25.

Don't expect this last egg to hatch, there was some blood, not a lot, but... the only thing to do now is to increase humidity to over 90 percent and hope.

 

[Gringa]

So my second broody hen is finishing up her hatch today.



As far as the incubator goes, I had one hatch on Day 23 and one more getting ready to pip and zip today on Day 24. Is this normal for eggs in incubators, to hatch days after the fact?

 

[AllenK RGV]

The last egg zipped and hatched over night we currently have the odd head peeking out under superbroody! 5/5 hatched from the viable eggs after the 2 soccer mom deaths.