EDUCATIONAL INCUBATION & HATCHING CHAT THREAD, w/ Sally Sunshine Shipped Eggs

[BullChick]

Inconceivable!

 

[DwayneNLiz]

@mlm MikePer a phone call, add two more bucks, that makes me 5-1 with only one dairy doe left to kid
At least they are alive, but I lost a doe, and now have no replacements.

sorry

Last chick just hatched! 11/11, a 100% hatch. Baby is getting a chance to dry off in the incubator and then it will go to the brooder with the others. The 3 chicks that hatched yesterday have started nibbling at food and stood in my hand to eat. They aren't showing much interest in the water yet but we are working on that.

Thus concludes my first hatching! Thanks everyone for your patience when I asked questions.

Think I'll take a nap.

congrats!!!!

 

[daxigait]

Last chick just hatched! 11/11, a 100% hatch. Baby is getting a chance to dry off in the incubator and then it will go to the brooder with the others. The 3 chicks that hatched yesterday have started nibbling at food and stood in my hand to eat. They aren't showing much interest in the water yet but we are working on that.

Thus concludes my first hatching! Thanks everyone for your patience when I asked questions.

Think I'll take a nap.

e I am happy for you, but still waiting for pictures.

 

[daxigait]

I'd rather be riding

 

[ChickenCanoe]

The problem is, there's no legal alternative to the USPS for shipping eggs or live birds (insofar as I'm aware), so they can handle them any way they want to.

I agree with that and it is our only choice. I did find a ride for a rooster to Ohio once and someone delivered 4 birds to me from Washington state.
Trouble with the PO is that usually, no one handles the packages except when you drop it off and pick it up. Most of the rest of the time it is automation. Conveyor belts, sorters and bins the packages drop into. If the bin is near full, the box doesn't drop far. If it is empty, it drops much farther.
I almost got a job programming one of the sorting facilities after Ford closed our plant.

hi,

i'm getting my incubator set up to hatch some chickens. this is only my second time hatching, so i've been rereading all the 101's.

my big problem right now is that i have 2 digital thermometer/hygrometers and a couple of glass thermometers that came with the incubators and they all have different readings.

i'm not sure how to calibrate the digitals because they don't have probes that i can put into boiling water or ice?

i think that maybe last year, i was using an average of all the different readings. i had successful hatches, but can't remember exactly what i was doing to read the temps.

I went through the same thing when I first started incubating. The glass ones from the incubator manufacturer turned out to be the farthest off. They were accurate at 70 and way off at 100.

Get a Brinsea Spot Check and a Thermoworks RT301WA http://www.thermoworks.com/RT301WA
Then take the rest to the nearest trashcan.
Quote:

Now I remember why I come to visit for a while, then leave for a while, then come back....lather, rinse, repeat..... I go to bed for a just a few hours sleep and come back to over 100 posts. Whew!! My eyes are old!! The rest of me matches. As for hatching this year, I'm still on the fence. We'll be traveling a ton this year. Our favorite feed store is expecting chicks today, but I'd already decided that I was going to skip any chicks this season. HELP ME BE STRONG!

The reason I like to use a leftover piece of wire welded fence is because to raise it I just pull up on the middle. To lower it I smoosh it down in the center. Easy. When I first tossed the heat lamp forever, I was looking into alternatives. I was fascinated by the EgoGlow brooders but:

A - I couldn't justify the expense for as seldom as I thought I'd be raising chicks
B - I wanted something soft and snuggly, more like Mama Hen, rather than something rigid
C - I liked that the cave was nice and dark, just as it is for them under a broody, rather than just being a straight canopy over their heads, so at night time they sleep all night through.

I fought buying the heat plates for the longest time too because of the cost. I had been using ceramic heat emitters.
I don't know how much your heat blanket one uses in wattage, but when I did the math, the Premier heat plates paid for themselves in one hatching/brooding in energy savings.
I have a small and an extra small with the dome covers.

I don't like spiders.....

I'm none too fond either. I used to be petrified of them till I had way too much exposure and realized most won't kill you.

I used to do a years worth of cardio when I'd walk into a web while walking through the woods. Especially at night.

Good luck this evening. A kayak on Lake Superior sounds cold.

Only if one of those roller waves causes one to do an Eskimo roll.

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Not really sure, they are mixed with the rest of the flock and have been eating the same purina flock raiser. they are on the smaller side as compared to the rest of the flock but I haven't noticed any bullying issues.

Did you say if you were turning by hand or with a turner?
At what point are they quitting?
Are you feeding anything else like scratch, supplements or does flock raiser make up the whole diet? Are they free ranging? Did they hatch out of pullet eggs?

 

[The Duck Ladie]

Lockdown for ducks is day 25 right? Then I stop turning, get the umidity to 55% and get the temp. umm.... 99? 98?

 

[dan26552]

Lockdown for ducks is day 25 right? Then I stop turning, get the umidity to 55% and get the temp. umm.... 99? 98?

Correct, unless like me you get pips on day 25 and ducklings on day 26 in that case you do everything a day early. Anything over 55 and under 75 is good, keep in mind it'll spike when the first duckling hatches.

I've never lowered temp, never had a problem though I'll let more experienced hatchers help you on that.

 

[microchick]

I am happy for you, but still waiting for pictures.

Me too!

I'm going to try to get new pics later when they have had a chance to rest and I put down fresh paper towels for them. Amazing in that three were hatched yesterday on day 20 and 8 were hatched between midnight and 1pm today. I expected them to start pipping on the 19th because the Brinsea's thermometer settled at 100 once the eggs temp had come up. I had calibrated with a second thermometer before the incubation started and they were both spot on 99.5. I expected the temp to go up a bit with the eggs but I used a little button thermometer I picked up on Fleabay for secondary temp and humidity and we calibrated that with our little unit that we have in the family room and the readings were close enough to pass inspection. The button thermometer consistently read a few tenths of a degree lower at egg level than the mounted Brinsea thermometer except for a few exceptions when it read dot on with the factory thermometer.

I worried about it for awhile and read a few articles, including some here on BYC that said, don't fret over a few tenths of a degree and obviously that advice was correct because all the eggs hatched within 24 hours of day 21.

 

[The Duck Ladie]

Correct, unless like me you get pips on day 25 and ducklings on day 26

in that case you do everything a day early. Anything over 55 and under 75 is good, keep in mind it'll spike when the first duckling hatches.

I've never lowered temp, never had a problem though I'll let more experienced hatchers help you on that.

Thanks dan. Why hasn't he delivered the fridge yet?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

1 chick out right on time. About 5 more pips that I can see. I put way too many eggs in there and the pedigree bags/boxes are taking up a lot of space.