Diary & Notes ~ Air Cell Detatched SHIPPED Chicken Eggs for incubation and hatching

[chicksooner]

That's really cool and the stained glass rocks too! TAVERN as in booze, swinging doors and gun fights for real?

Wow I love this...I need a Tavern. Bet that would be an easy addition to talk Dh into. Where's the tippler smiley???

 

[ozexpat]

HEY there is OZ! he is the guy with the cane! can you see him can you can you? hugh well can you?

I love chicken people, did you guys actually swap or just meet up. the PA thread wants to get together this summer, but I am not sure anyone wants other birds on their property.

I did not take my cane that day lol

today we met in a city park. lots of chickens for sale and trade.

the park seems like the best option for biosecurity and restrooms

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Quote: crud that's why! we don't get that channel!

Quote: LOL

Quote:

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Ancona DUCKS had an upgraded pond today! took them until 7 pm to not be afraid of it and head in!

ummmmm but I screwed up..... they couldn't get out of it and the bottom is tapered so I cant put a block in it, so tomorrow I think I will make a hinged ramp into it that has a soda bottle with half water half air under it so it sink/floats to a good level that they can get on it to get out, just hope it don't take up too much room. ANY OTHER SUGGESTIONS????

 

[chicksooner]

I thought it was cute, by the time I got upstairs he had all the couch cushions on the floor a cover over them and he was already fast asleep. Priceless just watching them sleep.

you even got sod? I love laying sod! and trust me working at the country club I laid quite a bit of sod in my 30's!

Laid 2 pallets. My arms feel like jello but surely after all that I will have some serious muscle definition...and now I am going to bed as I must be delirious as I actually said something about muscle definition.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Quote: a public park? or did you have to rent it?

I cant see that happening here without some rants from someone.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Quote: Good Night,... I also am off, need to rest my now really old bod!


GOOD NIGHT ALL!!

 

[silver1313]

night sally

 

[cochins1088]

I'm finally uploading pictures. First up is Goosey and "Aflack" Please excuse the mess in the background, the pictures were taken in the old farm house where we store stuff and brood chicks.

Goosey wondering why her house house is beneath her.


"Aflack" standing tall and proud.


Goosey needs to realize that the whole world doesn't revolve around her, haha. If I give "Aflack" attention, she starts yelling at me.


"Aflack"


For some odd reason, I always feel like I'm being followed.

 

[Mianna]

Hello Mianna, welcome, I love that name! you sound very organized and so happy you have researched so you get a great hatch, well as much as possible with shipped anyways! If you have complete clears on day 15 they are probably infertile or they got messed up during shipping unfortunately. When you pull those eggs, you should crack them open in a ziplock sandwich bag and see if you can tell if they are/were fertile. sometimes shipping rips the chalaza and that alone will keep them from growing.

Yeah, I was afraid that those eggs weren't going to hatch.

I'll definitely open them up and see what they look like, especially #7 since it seemed to be developing at first and then stopped.

I have a few questions, your pc fan how did you install it and how does it blow inside the bator? The reason I ask is that I found the PC fan in my coolerbator kicks butt and almost throws the air around too much and I learned that I have to run humidity a tad higher in it because of the fan. We had discussed on the thread possibly shutting off the fan after we see the first pipping but I ended up just using an old styro for a hatcher. Also the fish tubing and pump is interesting too! what we did with the coolerbator is drilled a larger hole just to the left of the fan so that the fan drawls a tad more oxy in.

The fan was originally mounted in a metal screen enclosure in the top of my old case, so I swiped the enclosure out of the other case and screwed it on too, so the fan is covered front and back by a fine black metal mesh. It's hard to describe, but the enclosures had flanges that were screwed to the chassis, so I bent the bottom flanges in opposite directions to make stable, sturdy "legs" for the fan. It's sitting on a sealed plastic deli container full of water (one of the heat sinks) , about 4" off of the floor, and the thermometer and hygrometer are about 1" off of the floor, so hopefully the fan isn't throwing off the readings too much. I hadn't thought about that, and I'm glad you mentioned it. Should I unplug the fan once they pip?

How have the air cells looked or weighed in?
What have your temps been running at?
" " " humidity? Do you use water wells and do u have a turner?

The air cells on the four eggs with movement have seemed to grow at a rate reasonably close to the pictures I've found on here. I've been tracing them with a pencil line and trying to compare them to photos of good air cell development. It's not a perfect method, and I really wish that I'd weighed the eggs when they arrived. I'll definitely make sure the scale is ready the next time I order eggs. The temps have been between 99.6 and 100.1 for the vast majority of the time. Out of the 78 temps I've recorded, 61 of them fall between those two numbers. Another 8 were between 100.1 and 100.9, 4 were 100.9-101.4, 3 were between 94.7-95.4, and the other two were really off. One was 102.1, the other was 93.7. I really hate that they've varied that much, but then again I also realize that most people probably don't check and record the temperature that often, so it might not be as bad as I thought. (Hopefully.)

The humidity has been between 40-50% most of the time, with a couple of jumps higher because of the ambient humidity. The highest was 69% briefly, and there are a few others 60+%. I'm mostly using small pyrex bowls of water for humidity. I ran the incubator empty for 5 days before the eggs arrived, and using the wells seemed to cause problems, I'd add what I thought was a small amount of water and see the humidity increase by 10%, then have to fumble with trying to siphon water out to drop it back down. The pryex containers let me add or subtract water surface area without disturbing the eggs, so it seemed like a good alternative.

I do not have a turner, I budgeted out the coop, run, brooder, etc and it just didn't look feasible to add a turner, so I've been turning by hand 4-6x per day.

I love those homemade waterers! What I need to come up with is a half decent chick feeder that I can use for FF, seems I have issues with chicks getting FF on their feet and getting little hard balls on them and the feathers! I started making the FF thicker now and its helping but sometimes I didn't quite get it right and it still has a little too much water in it.

Oooh, that would be a neat project, I love trying to create problem-solving devices!

What are you using for a brooder?

My dog's old crate, it's 54" L x 37"W x 45" T. The bottom 16" are covered with plastic to block drafts and contain bedding, and the entire thing is covered in a staggered double layer of 1" mesh chicken wire to keep chicks in and nosy cats out. The cats have very low prey drives to begin with, but I don't want to risk a curious poke through the bars. I have a ceramic heat lamp fixture with a black heat emitting bulb in it, so they can stay warm with having to keep light on them 24/7. Still not 100% sure on the bedding, but I'm leaning toward sand, covered with a thick layer of paper towels for the first few days.

Thanks so much for the help, and I'm sorry I can't just give a simple short answer to most questions, lol.