Diary for my second shipped egg hatch due 8th oct 2015

[bahamabanty]

If it was me I'd put all the good eggs under the hen lol. I wouldnt trust that bleep incubator nomore lol.

 

[appps]

Yeah I've thought about it. A lot. Thing stopping me is this is the point four died under her last time. I'm worried if I don't keep these detached air cells up they won't make it out.

 

[appps]

Well just candled them and the little chicks inside were moving . So cool, I've never seen that before.

Bad news is they both have saddle air cells, one being extremely wonky in shape and the other your normal saddle shape. Guess that's confirmation they both do have detached air cells, but I guess good news is they are at least in the right end of the egg, and it's actually the one that's air cell was rolling round and on the side of the egg when I took it out from under penny that looks the better of the two.

This is the front of my super wonky air cell

And the other side

And the other egg the saddle is on just one side

Starting to let myself get excited they might just hatch yet, though that weird air cell has me worried.

I've now taken out the turner and will leave them propped upright but at a slight angle on my supports till they hatch.

 

[maddogdodge]

Ohh good luck - I really hope it all goes well for you!

It's so cool seeing them move isn't it!

 

[appps]

DAY 18 - wow didn't think lockdown day would ever come!

I have a slight dilemma that I need to work out today though. To get my humidity constant I had to give up in the channels in the incubator. When I filled just one of those it jumped to 75% humidity but 7 or 8 hours later it would be down to 30 then I'd refill and up it would jump again.

So what I ended up doing was putting a four of those little measuring cups come with kids cough medicine in there full of water. They kept it at 45-50% for about 36 hrs before needing refilling.

Problem is I'm not sure if they will be safe to leave in there plus one more to get it up to lockdown humidity. Plus I can fill the channels with a straw through the air hole but I can't fill these without opening the lid.

 

[appps]

DAY19 - let the fun begin!

The eggs are all tucked in and locked down

I'm not opening anymore because I've realised that every crazy temp change I've had has followed it being opened. Following the last minute changes today that had me opening the lid a few times and causing the temp to drop it suddenly jumped up to 40.3 c (104.5f) in it's efforts to reheat It was climbing and climbing so I actually took the eggs out for about five minutes till it stabilised then quickly popped them back in. So definatly not risking opening again.

To tackle the humidity problem I ended up leaving my little containers of water in there but also putting a small rolled up piece of plastic mesh in the containers so that nobody could accidentally fall in and drown. I then added a sponge below one of the air holes and will use a straw and a medicine syringe to add water to that as needed to get the humidity up above the 50% the containers are giving me. Hopefully the containers shouldn't run dry before hatch time.

Have been reading advice from a fellow who hatches a lot shipped eggs from geese to endangered parrots and he suggested with detached air cells to not increase humidity until they do their internal pip as the larger air cell helps when they have such misshapen air cells. I have no idea when they will do that internal pip not being able to open and candle (and not sure I'd recognise it if I tried anyway) so I think I'm just going to at least give them a few more hours at 50% and won't increase the humidity till towards the end of day 19. Then he said put up to 65% as drowning is a big risk with shipped eggs so you don't want it right up at that 70-75% range.

I've also reduced the temp from 37.5 to around 37.2.

Now we cross our fingers and wait.......

 

[maddogdodge]

Any sign of chickies yet?

 

[appps]

Not yet but it's not for lack of watching lol. Hopefully they don't do what pepper did last year and end up days late!

How are your munchkins looking? Locked down?

 

[appps]

Oops double up

 

[appps]

DAY 20 - well I have increased my humidity to 65% by wetting the sponge through the air vent. Unfortunately it only lasts about 4.5 hrs then I have to do it again. Going to be a long night! At least the alarm is working, it goes off when it hits 55%, hopefully it wakes me!

Oh and I think I worked out the problem with the incubator. Reading a thread about them that gave the original factory settings and there are a couple you aren't supposed to touch to,do with it's heating that at some point got tweaked to double what they should have been. Duh.