Did anyone else set eggs today on Valentine's Day?

Hey Jake, MamaMarci,Comptons, and Greenriver,

I just candled last night, Day 10, and was a little disappointed that i didn't candle sooner.All the embryos were pretty well formed so I really missed seeing the little dark blob with all the veins looking like a spider. i was happy to see big developed blobs that took up about a third or so of the egg.

i also observed the air space and marked it on all the eggs with a pencil. Some of the Red Sussex eggs have irregular shaped air spaces all the others are pretty normal circles to ovals. Any of yours have irregular shaped air spaces? Any significance to this phenomena? only one of the 36 eggs that I set seemed not to develop at the same rate as the others and it had a dark ring around the egg which was one dark vein. the embryo was much smaller so i removed that egg. My EE eggs i couldn't even see anything besides the airspace, the light would not penetrate through those shells for some reason.i think my candler could be a bit weak.

Humidity has varied from 35% down to 20% it has been quite dry here. I have started to humidify our cabin a bit by boiling water and it has raised it back into the 30s. Temperature has been solid between 99 and 100.

i would love to hear how your setting is going!!!!

Scott
 
Candled yesterday and had 6 in question. I marked the ones in question with a ( ? ). Today I re-candled and ended up opening the 6 in question. Out of those 6, 4 never were fertilized, 2 had blood rings and I could see a baby chick in 1 of them. The chick was about the size of a pencil eraser... dead.

So, I'm down to 9. I have to add around 1-2 TBL of water a day to keep humidity around 25-30%. I live in an old cabin and heat with wood. Needless to say the air is dry but I would change it for a thing. I had to bump the dial a tad to bring temps back up to 99-100 since I removed 6 of the eggs. I didn't think the removal of 6 eggs would play with the temps as bad as it did. I learn something new with each incubation
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I candled last night and out of 18 eggs had one that wasn't fertile. All others were dark and growing. Until.........this morning we lost power for about 6 hours. Temp dropped down to 75 in the bator. I took the top off and set the bator by the wood stove and managed to get the temp up to 97 and finally the power came on. I'll be posting a question about this.
 
Jake,

thats a good percentage! only one infertile. Oh that sucks about the power going out. At least you were there to do something. i was thinking about what i would do in that situation the other night.i read somewhere that women have put eggs in their bra to hatch them and i was imagining myself bedridden for the duration of the hatch with all the eggs on my belly hahahaha! The woodstove sounds like a better option!

all right, i'll candle once more before lockdown and report back. Fingers crossed!!

Scott
 
Comptons,


Oh yeah, i actually stopped burning wood and am running an electric heater for the duration.It has been such a dry winter here too. Do you put a pot of water on the woodstove to humidify your house?

and the one blood ring egg that i had it looked like the embryo was at about the five days stage or so , i tossed it actually my dog ate it :)

This is a little funny but i feel similar to the way I did when we were pregnant with my daughter. You know talking all about the pregnancy experience with this building excitement, looking for others that are or recently have had the same experience to talk to hahaha! I'm pregnant again!


Scott
 
I love hatch alongs, I set some Araucanas and LF cochins on the 17th, is that too late?
 
Scott,

Ha, my hubby thinks I have fell of my rocker. I'm called "crazy chicken lady" amongst our friends. Though, my daughters are highly enjoying this part of life with me and are as delight as I am.

The majority of the week we use the baseboard heat until about 3:30 when I get off work and crank those old wood stoves up
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. Weekends we try to stick around the house and have the wood stoves going. I love the ambiance of the fire and how nice and warm the house gets. Living in an old log cabin has it's fun, but wholly cow does it get bitter cold in the winter months. Yep, we have come to the conclusion that our electric company love us
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.

We do use old cast iron pots on top of the stoves filled with water and a couple sprinkles of cinnamon for some nice aroma. It helps some but not enough to not have to add water to the bator on a daily basis. I'm sure once the weather stays decent, I won't have to any water.
 
Scott,
I'm excited for my eggs to hatch if they do considering what happened today. I heat the house with wood and the humidity is around 25% and this is with a 3 gallon pot on the stove. So I do keep an eye on the incubator humidity. Especially during lock down which for me will be next Friday.
 
Yeah I decided to stop using wood heat. The cabin that my daughter and I are living in is about 15 feet x 20 feet, think super small studio apartment.

we have a small wood stove that basically doesn't have any air intake adjustments just the stovepipe flue. It gets to be a sauna in here if i put a couple logs on. I really love dry heat myself but i'm feeling like those little gallus domesticus embryos might not appreciate it as much as i do.

I been trying to imagine the conditions in the nest and seeing how well the incubator holds the moisture in, granted I've got 35 eggs in there compared to what you all have, like the air trapped in the hens fluffy down feathers would hold that moisture in there too right? The only thing that concerns me is that little fan in there blowing all the time seems it could be a drier environment then the fluffy hen underbelly!

O.K. I'll be going on lock down on Friday night. First i'll candle then lock em down. Comptons when are you lockin down? Oh and where are you that it gets so bitter cold. We have it mild here usually right around freezing is the average winter low but occassionaly dips to the teens.


see ya soon
 

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