Excited! My first time hatching eggs

[zestokasis]

My family and I decided to get some chickens this past summer and it has become a great experience for all of us. We purchased our chickens from a local lady whom we call "The Chicken Lady", she raises heritage breeds and has been very helpful. My youngest son decided that we should start hatching out our own eggs and asked for an incubator for Christmas.

Well he got his 'Bator, and I purchased some eggs from an individual in the for sale section of BackYard Chickens. I knew it was a risk purchasing shipped eggs for our first attempt at incubation but we want ahead and did it anyway, and GOOD news for us! Our babies are starting to hatch! You would think that we were having some kind of big party from all the family and neighbors that are coming over and hanging out in my sons room watching the event.

So far we have 4 baby Ameraucana chicks and the rest are peeping! Keeping our fingers crossed for the rest of the batch.

 

[chlskt]

Congratulations! Its always so exciting hatching eggs, I'm still that way. I think its just the process that is so fascinating. If you can, you should post some pictures of the little guys. Keep us posted on more progress of your eggs. How many eggs total did you incubate?

 

[sumi]

Congrats! Watching chicks hatch is an amazing experience, isn't it? How many eggs to go?

 

[outdoorsii]

Congratulations! Its always so exciting hatching eggs, I'm still that way. I think its just the process that is so fascinating. If you can, you should post some pictures of the little guys. Keep us posted on more progress of your eggs. How many eggs total did you incubate?

Yea, the first hatch we did a while back was definately exciting but everytime I see those lil suckers wiggling those eggs it just lifts me up I swear, its such a miracle seeing it happen, I still can't see how on earth they do it!!

 

[zestokasis]

I started out with 15 eggs 14 that I had purchased and 1 from my own chickens, after 7 day's I candled them and found that one of the purchased eggs didn't develop so I tossed it out. I now have 8 chicks hatched so far and I believe all but one of the rest are peeping, kind of hard to see with everybody running around in the bator (lol). Thanks for the replies and I'll try and keep you all updated and get some pics up later today.

 

[outdoorsii]

I started out with 15 eggs 14 that I had purchased and 1 from my own chickens, after 7 day's I candled them and found that one of the purchased eggs didn't develop so I tossed it out. I now have 8 chicks hatched so far and I believe all but one of the rest are peeping, kind of hard to see with everybody running around in the bator (lol). Thanks for the replies and I'll try and keep you all updated and get some pics up later today.

Awesome sounds like a good hatch! You might want to take those in the incubator out & put them in the brooder to stay warm, playing soccerball with the other eggs isn't usually a good idea lol, we try to avoid that, sometimes we'll put the chicks in little cups/bowels to prevent them from running around the incubator

 

[Chicky Tocks]

Congratulations! You've done well! Especially with shipped eggs. I've hatched over 100 chicks myself, but every time I load my bator (Hink JC Lavender Orpingtons due 2/6) I still have to come back in here and soak up the hatching excitement.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

 

[McPhersonFarm]

My family and I decided to get some chickens this past summer and it has become a great experience for all of us. We purchased our chickens from a local lady whom we call "The Chicken Lady", she raises heritage breeds and has been very helpful. My youngest son decided that we should start hatching out our own eggs and asked for an incubator for Christmas.

Well he got his 'Bator, and I purchased some eggs from an individual in the for sale section of BackYard Chickens. I knew it was a risk purchasing shipped eggs for our first attempt at incubation but we want ahead and did it anyway, and GOOD news for us! Our babies are starting to hatch! You would think that we were having some kind of big party from all the family and neighbors that are coming over and hanging out in my sons room watching the event.

So far we have 4 baby Ameraucana chicks and the rest are peeping! Keeping our fingers crossed for the rest of the batch.

That's awesome it sounds like you're having a great hatch rate on shipped eggs!! Can I ask what kind of incubator you're using and did you only get Americauna eggs??

 

[zestokasis]

All right guy's sorry I took so long but here is a picture of our new babies, and here is how it all went down. Of the 15 eggs that made it to day 21 13 eggs hatched! I gave the other 2 eggs an extra day and they just never did anything so I tossed them out and shut down the bator. Of those 13 that did hatch 2 of them died within 12hrs of hatching, I don't know if I did something wrong or even if it could have been avoided, I prefer to think that it's just one of those things that happen? The good news is that I now have 11 very healthy happy baby chicks running all the around the brooder and 2 very excited little boy's. All in all I don't think that we did too bad for our first time. We're hoping to get the bator fired up again next week, and I can see this becoming an addiction.

McPherson Farm- The incubator is a Brinsea Octagon Advance with an automatic egg turner. All the eggs were Ameraucana eggs with the exception of one of our own eggs and it was a mix breed, hen was an Ameraucana and the Rooster could be any of 3 different roosters.