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

[BantyChooks]

Why do you people wait until after chick is hatched to sex them?

I find sexing the eggs is much more efficient.

Cos we don't have ESP like you do

 

[Akrnaf2]

The mri is for lower back never issues. I was thinking about taping a 1/2 dz in the small of my back.

L4-L5 discuss?

 

[5Sons Coop]

get some turkey eggs

I don't care for the turkeys I have now. They eat too much, but could hatch and sell them.

 

[Jessimom]

one of mine beat the snot out of another, so i now know i have 2 boys and a girl, i could tell the browns apart at 2 weeks old, maybe less but was uncertain on the white

I can't assume the beating up of other birds means boys....I have a silkie pen that had ONE EE hen mixed in - she grew up with the silkies and didn't want to hang with anyone else. Sunday, I caught HER on top of a silkie - like a roo would, plucking EVERY single feather out of the silkies head. Needless to say, she got relocated to the big girl pen - let's see how she likes being picked on.

 

[5Sons Coop]

L4-L5 discuss?

He talked about both but I think L4 is the thin one.

 

[Akrnaf2]

L4-L5 discuss?

He talked about both but I think L4 is the thin one.

Welcome to the club. .....

 

[5Sons Coop]

He talked about both but I think L4 is the thin one.

Got new med that hasn't done much yet, but I am slowing upping the dose. It is Gabapentin.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

So I decided to leave it alone and have 3 now. I think someone mentioned it earlier, but could not find it on a quick read back, but the eggs are remarkably clean. I think they were washed!

So now your chicks values are down to $13.33.

This is my first year back into poultry, from a breeding standpoint, after picking up some birds in the fall. I have young birds that are all within a year old. One pen is giving GREAT fertility and the other is just getting it back. I have 2 pens with a male covering 5 and 6 hens. The male giving minimal fertility is being moved between two pens (3 and 3) of his girls to keep him interested. (This is what got fertility back in that pen) My problem is the hatching... They go full term but wont hatch :\ i just dont get it! The bator has been calibrated but maybe a good sanitizing is in order.

On short days, males also have to be photostimulated.
If the incubation is perfect - turning, temperature, humidity, etc., there could still be many other issues to cause the hatch to go wrong.
I don't know what breed you have or how constricted their gene pool is but reduced vigor could be an issue if inbreeding is suspect.
What are they eating?

Odd...

Curled toes reminds me of something, can't remember what for the life of me though.

I get curled toes when they hatch late, from pushing on the shell too long.

could be... The ones with curled toes are the ones that had trouble unzipping.

That's it.

its pretty consistantly at 40% and then I bring it up to about 50 for hatch. Id bring it up more but the air cells say otherwise.

Your hygrometer is wrong.

I've got an electronic and GQF hygrometer, and theyer both reading 40% at the moment. :\ what kind of thing will stop a chick from hatching or attempting to pip!?

They're both wrong or your eggs aren't very porous.

peroxide simply kills most external bacteria that might creep in once the eggs are warmed up and the eggs start pulling in more moisture. The less bacteria the lass contamination to the embryo trying to develope.

When the egg is heated from the outside, it doesn't pull in moisture, it expels moisture.
Hydrogen Peroxide also kills new cells so if any gets into the egg it can affect embryo development.

But how is everyone tonight

Busy. So busy it took me a day to answer you.

@fancychickenlover I know I have not been part of your discussion, but I have been reading it.

I think too long in the egg is the cause of most curled toes, feet and wry necks. I think I recall too high of temps also being a cause.

All of that said, instead of the peroxide and denagard spray, try double dipping your eggs. I use 120 degree water to rinse the eggs, then dip in the bleach rinse and dip again and rinse then let them dry for just long enough for me to write the hatch date on the egg.

The USDA vet is the one that had me disinfect in this manner, I was leery but it works fine. The 120 degree water does not hurt the eggs as the internal temp of the egg must reach 117 degrees to inhibit incubation at ths stage.

Next make sure the incubator is disinfected, incase you have a linger bacteria in there. DO NOT TOUCH YOUR EGGS WITH BARE HANDS! I wear latex gloves no matter how short a time I will be reaching into the incubator or touching the eggs. Pretend you are a TV doc and this is your sterile area.

I use 45% for my incubation humidity. I bump it up to 65-75% at "lockdown". Do not break lock down to rescue one chick, others will die if you do. At the point of hatch, "lockdown" do not pay any attention to the air sac. It is too late to help that problem. You need to have that corrected before day 14.

At the point of lockdown, moisture has one purpose. that is to weaken the shell so the chick can come out and moisten the membrane to keep heat wrap shrinking from occurring. If you use a lower humidity to compensate for too little moisture early on you will not help anything just make it worse.

Also know your eggs, 21 days is an average, it is not a tmeline written n stone. I have had to change my hatching on my legbars. They have always been slow hatchers. It has gotten to the point it is screwing me up. I am now putting my legbars in the incubator a day earlier than my other eggs to see if I can get the hatch at one time.

I can tell you my Easter eggers hatch first. Followed by my toads ,Doms, and Yokohamas, (nothing stops those littel fighters, toughest chick alive) in that order.... Then the Sussex and Appletinis and the rest. Legbar always pull up the rear by a day.


Good luck, remember incubation is as much of an art as it is a science, play with it and have fun. You are at about the same latitude as me I would guess, our best hatching is just starting. I start low every year, by May I am at 90% It is frustrating early in the season, but we are fighting mother nature on fertility, eggs freezing or getting to chilled, chckens not making enough vitamin D and who knows what else.

It will come around give it time and make small adjustments not wholesale changes to a lot of things. Then remember them for next year.

Quote:

Oh,,,,And I know a ton of you will disagree with me on the above post, which is your right, I am just saying what works for me and my opinions........

And if you do disagree and take me to task, it will not matter because I will never see it when I get back 498 posts will have occurred......

I thought your post was excellent.
And as you can see, about 500 posts have happened since I quoted you.

Good mornin', y'all
Looks like we survived another one.

It's official; I'm losing it!
I have no idea where my head was last night. Well, actually I do, but I won't go there.
I just now went to let the birds out, only to discover that I'd never locked them up; they'd been out all night. They were still inside the 6' fence around their paddock, but the run & coop were wide open. I hadn't pulled that stunt in forever.
Guess the furry critters weren't hungry.

I've done that occasionally and in the morning I remember why. I usually count the doors/buildings that need to close and if I get distracted because I have to do another task in a building before I close up and then I think I already did it.
Usually I'm lucky, sometimes not.

I simply MUST get my automatic door project on track.
With that and the bulk feeders and automatic water I already have, I could probably leave for a week with not too many worries.

Has anyone had a brahma giant before

Is that a rabbit or chicken?
I've had Brahma chickens.

Pics can help us help you more.
we could throw all sorta humidity numbers to you, but the fact is your checking air cells and running humidity via that, I dont even look at my hygros anymore I know my incubators enough to know what pans to add water in and when to do via visual inspection of air cells,, nothing wrong with that, your doing it right, IF you are certain you know what they should look like. So if you have some in the bator and mark air cells and snap a pic of them and what day they are on it can help us help you. Also you take eggs out of the cabinet and hatch in a hatcher correct? if you are staggering I pray your using a different hatcher, and rotating trays as some may get warmer and cooler.

AS FAR AS PEROXIDE, I think you have a good grip on this AS LONG AS YOUR NOT MIXING IT WITH OTHER CHEMICALS!! it may be the addition of denregard? is that a possibility? @fancychickenlover Also you have plenty of air flow, turners are in working condition and water for adding humidity is clean and not getting moldy?

Hydrogen Peroxide as an Alternative Hatching Egg Disinfectant
http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/70/5/1092.short

I have a friend checking shelters in PA for you.
Look at all the birds at MARS.
http://www.maars.org/aboutus/birds/index.php

Ugh - So, my pygmy gave birth to twins. She just abandoned them. didn't cleanthem up, didn't help them with the afterbirth, so one still was stuck in the sac, and the other was barely alive. I brought it inside and washed it off and got an ounce of warm goats milk into it. Now I have to go milk her to keep her from getting engorged or getting mastitis.

First time mom, and she picks the morning I'm trying to get back to the hospital to go see my son, to give birth and be a bad mom....

When it rains, it pours. That's always when you have lots of children issues to deal with too.

Generally, she could be rebred in 8 weeks or so if we lose all the kids. However, we want to milk her, so I'd probably wait about 4 months before drying her up and trying once more time before selling her. It's her first time, and she's not very bright compared to some of my other goats. So maybe she's just... slow?

If she does it a second time, after she dries up, you might want to make some birria or grilled goat shoulder rather than giving the problem to someone else.

I'd kill me if I hatched 200 chicks.

I'm close.

Hey all

Hey!

Today I got one freakish Araucana egg ever!
Normaly they lay 55-57 grams egg today I got a 87 gr egg!

I crossed 2 breeds/varieties that lay extra large/jumbo eggs. White Minorca hen and a Black Penedesenca Rooster. I hatched a pullet from them. Her eggs were very large from the beginning and after about 2 months they were huge. I sold her but the last 2 eggs I got from her were 81 and 92 grams. I think she's still alive at her new home.

 

[5Sons Coop]

Welcome yo the club. .....

Been a member for years. Nothing seems to help so most of the time I ignore and hope it goes away. Seems to work as well as anything else they done for me.

 

[Akrnaf2]

So I decided to leave it alone and have 3 now. I think someone mentioned it earlier, but could not find it on a quick read back, but the eggs are remarkably clean. I think they were washed!

So now your chicks values are down to $13.33.

This is my first year back into poultry, from a breeding standpoint, after picking up some birds in the fall. I have young birds that are all within a year old. One pen is giving GREAT fertility and the other is just getting it back. I have 2 pens with a male covering 5 and 6 hens. The male giving minimal fertility is being moved between two pens (3 and 3) of his girls to keep him interested. (This is what got fertility back in that pen) My problem is the hatching... They go full term but wont hatch :\ i just dont get it! The bator has been calibrated but maybe a good sanitizing is in order.

On short days, males also have to be photostimulated. If the incubation is perfect - turning, temperature, humidity, etc., there could still be many other issues to cause the hatch to go wrong. I don't know what breed you have or how constructed their gene pool is but reduced vigor could be an issue if inbreeding is suspect. What are they eating?

Odd... Curled toes reminds me of something, can't remember what for the life of me though.

I get curled toes when they hatch late, from pushing on the shell too long.

could be... The ones with curled toes are the ones that had trouble unzipping.

That's it.

its pretty consistantly at 40% and then I bring it up to about 50 for hatch. Id bring it up more but the air cells say otherwise.

Your hygrometer is wrong.

I've got an electronic and GQF hygrometer, and theyer both reading 40% at the moment. :\ what kind of thing will stop a chick from hatching or attempting to pip!?

They're both wrong or your eggs aren't very porous.

peroxide simply kills most external bacteria that might creep in once the eggs are warmed up and the eggs start pulling in more moisture. The less bacteria the lass contamination to the embryo trying to develope.

When the egg is heated from the outside, it doesn't pull in moisture, it expels moisture. Hydrogen Peroxide also kills new cells so if any gets into the egg it can affect embryo development.

But how is everyone tonight

Busy. So busy it took me a day to answer you.

@fancychickenlover I know I have not been part of your discussion, but I have been reading it. I think too long in the egg is the cause of most curled toes, feet and wry necks. I think I recall too high of temps also being a cause. All of that said, instead of the peroxide and denagard spray, try double dipping your eggs. I use 120 degree water to rinse the eggs, then dip in the bleach rinse and dip again and rinse then let them dry for just long enough for me to write the hatch date on the egg. The USDA vet is the one that had me disinfect in this manner, I was leery but it works fine. The 120 degree water does not hurt the eggs as the internal temp of the egg must reach 117 degrees to inhibit incubation at ths stage. Next make sure the incubator is disinfected, incase you have a linger bacteria in there. DO NOT TOUCH YOUR EGGS WITH BARE HANDS! I wear latex gloves no matter how short a time I will be reaching into the incubator or touching the eggs. Pretend you are a TV doc and this is your sterile area. I use 45% for my incubation humidity. I bump it up to 65-75% at "lockdown". Do not break lock down to rescue one chick, others will die if you do. At the point of hatch, "lockdown" do not pay any attention to the air sac. It is too late to help that problem. You need to have that corrected before day 14. At the point of lockdown, moisture has one purpose. that is to weaken the shell so the chick can come out and moisten the membrane to keep heat wrap shrinking from occurring. If you use a lower humidity to compensate for too little moisture early on you will not help anything just make it worse. Also know your eggs, 21 days is an average, it is not a tmeline written n stone. I have had to change my hatching on my legbars. They have always been slow hatchers. It has gotten to the point it is screwing me up. I am now putting my legbars in the incubator a day earlier than my other eggs to see if I can get the hatch at one time. I can tell you my Easter eggers hatch first. Followed by my toads ,Doms, and Yokohamas, (nothing stops those littel fighters, toughest chick alive) in that order.... Then the Sussex and Appletinis and the rest. Legbar always pull up the rear by a day. Good luck, remember incubation is as much of an art as it is a science, play with it and have fun. You are at about the same latitude as me I would guess, our best hatching is just starting. I start low every year, by May I am at 90% It is frustrating early in the season, but we are fighting mother nature on fertility, eggs freezing or getting to chilled, chckens not making enough vitamin D and who knows what else. It will come around give it time and make small adjustments not wholesale changes to a lot of things. Then remember them for next year.

Quote:

Oh,,,,And I know a ton of you will disagree with me on the above post, which is your right, I am just saying what works for me and my opinions........ And if you do disagree and take me to task, it will not matter because I will never see it when I get back 498 posts will have occurred......

I thought your post was excellent. And as you can see, about 500 posts have happened since I quoted you.:/ I've done that occasionally and in the morning I remember why. I usually count the doors/buildings that need to close and if I get distracted because I have to do another task in a building before I close up and then I think I already did it. Usually I'm lucky, sometimes not. I simply MUST get my automatic door project on track. With that and the bulk feeders and automatic water I already have, I could probably leave for a week with not too many worries.

Has anyone had a brahma giant before

Is that a rabbit or chicken? I've had Brahma chickens.

Pics can help us help you more. we could throw all sorta humidity numbers to you, but the fact is your checking air cells and running humidity via that, I dont even look at my hygros anymore I know my incubators enough to know what pans to add water in and when to do via visual inspection of air cells,, nothing wrong with that, your doing it right, IF you are certain you know what they should look like. So if you have some in the bator and mark air cells and snap a pic of them and what day they are on it can help us help you. Also you take eggs out of the cabinet and hatch in a hatcher correct? if you are staggering I pray your using a different hatcher, and rotating trays as some may get warmer and cooler. AS FAR AS PEROXIDE, I think you have a good grip on this AS LONG AS YOUR NOT MIXING IT WITH OTHER CHEMICALS!! it may be the addition of denregard? is that a possibility? @fancychickenlover Also you have plenty of air flow, turners are in working condition and water for adding humidity is clean and not getting moldy?
[COLOR=008080] [/COLOR]
Hydrogen Peroxide as an Alternative Hatching Egg Disinfectant http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/70/5/1092.short

I have a friend checking shelters in PA for you. Look at all the birds at MARS. http://www.maars.org/aboutus/birds/index.php

Ugh - So, my pygmy gave birth to twins. She just abandoned them. didn't cleanthem up, didn't help them with the afterbirth, so one still was stuck in the sac, and the other was barely alive. I brought it inside and washed it off and got an ounce of warm goats milk into it. Now I have to go milk her to keep her from getting engorged or getting mastitis. First time mom, and she picks the morning I'm trying to get back to the hospital to go see my son, to give birth and be a bad mom....

When it rains, it pours. That's always when you have lots of children issues to deal with too.

Generally, she could be rebred in 8 weeks or so if we lose all the kids. However, we want to milk her, so I'd probably wait about 4 months before drying her up and trying once more time before selling her. It's her first time, and she's not very bright compared to some of my other goats. So maybe she's just... slow?

If she does it a second time, after she dries up, you might want to make some birria or grilled goat shoulder rather than giving the problem to someone else.

I'd kill me if I hatched 200 chicks.

I'm close.

Hey all

Hey!

Today I got one freakish Araucana egg ever! Normaly they lay 55-57 grams egg today I got a 87 gr egg!

I crossed 2 breeds/varieties that lay extra large/jumbo eggs. White Minorca hen and a Black Penedesenca Rooster. I hatched a pullet from them. Her eggs were very large from the beginning and after about 2 months they were huge. I sold her but the last 2 eggs I got from her were 81 and 92 grams. I think she's still alive at her new home.

Didn't you keep any chicks from her?