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

[Lazy Farmer]

Hamsters. Deer are really hamsters. And horses are gerbils.

 

[ronott1]

View attachment 1164712 Okay so day 20 lots of peeps! 4 external pips. Super excited! But is this one unzipping wrong? Could it be malpositioned? A minute ago I heard some frantic peeps. I’ve watched a few hatching videos and I’ve only heard them peep like that when they pop out of the shell. Is this okay or normal?
-helicopter chicken mama

Looks perfect!

(mal positioned, alive and pipping does not happen)

It's fine, leave it, lol. Some seem to go funny like that before they straighten out and zip normal. Congratulations!

Yep! they do that sometimes

 

[MrsChicky55]

This crack is making me even more nervous! I’m never going to be able to sleep tonight!

 

[duluthralphie]

View attachment 1164762 This crack is making me even more nervous! I’m never going to be able to sleep tonight!

Go to bed...take something to sleep for two days..check them when you wake in two days...after making huge breakfast..give them hands off time....

 

[Faraday40]

View attachment 1164762 This crack is making me even more nervous! I’m never going to be able to sleep tonight!

Yes. That looks similar to the one I mentioned above. Mine pipped sort of in the middle then cracked vertically from about the lower penciled air cell line almost down to the bottom. All I did was make sure the humidity was nice & high. (My home-made incubator has trouble staying above 60%, so I added extra sponges & such to keep it at 65-70%...I rarely can get it to 70%)

 

[Faraday40]

Go to bed...take something to sleep for two days..check them when you wake in two days...after making huge breakfast..give them hands off time....

Great advice!

Every time we have a hatch, the kids & I look like raccoons. We call it the incubator station because I set it up in the family room, the viewing window is as big as our TV, & we spend a lot of time watching it during hatch time. At night, some one is always passing by to check for pips & if one is about to hatch, it's his/her duty to wake everyone up to witness it.

 

[Faraday40]

Here's my home-made cooler-bator:

 

[duluthralphie]

Great advice!

Every time we have a hatch, the kids & I look like raccoons. We call it the incubator station because I set it up in the family room, the viewing window is as big as our TV, & we spend a lot of time watching it during hatch time. At night, some one is always passing by to check for pips & if one is about to hatch, it's his/her duty to wake everyone up to witness it.

Lots of people just think I am joking. I am not. I really do leave them completely alone for a few days. I put them in the hatcher on day 18. They have yolks to last three days beyond hatching.

I do not open the hatcher until day 23. Unless I have to ship them, then I pull them out so they are in the mail before they are a day old.

I know when I pull some out to ship, I will kill some that would have hatched if I had no opened the door.

I do look at the temps and humidity. But I will not open the doors even if I see a chick that will die without help...

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" Spock.

 

[MrsChicky55]

I'm being a good little girl and sitting on my hands. I know it's still early. So my incubators humidity is at 60%. I purposely had it on the low side because some of my air cells didn't grow as much as I would have liked. Do I really need to add water? Since I can't see the membrane yet and some of the eggs are closish to hatching and increasing the humidity anyways can't I just leave the incubator closed?

 

[MrsChicky55]

Here's my home-made cooler-bator:
View attachment 1164783

Love how easy it is to see into!