February Hatch-A-Long

[RrooKk]

Woo! A little late to this thread, glad I found it though. But I currently have 33 Silkie eggs and 2 D'uccle/silkie cross eggs (for funzies) in my incubator and today is day 14! So excited. It's been years since I've hatched eggs from my own hens. But I got a handsome cuckoo roo last year and I couldn't help but hatch some out! About 16 of them are unrelated to my flock from a local silkie breeder. The remainder are from my own ladies.

Will be following this thread

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Woo! A little late to this thread, glad I found it though. But I currently have 33 Silkie eggs and 2 D'uccle/silkie cross eggs (for funzies) in my incubator and today is day 14! So excited. It's been years since I've hatched eggs from my own hens. But I got a handsome cuckoo roo last year and I couldn't help but hatch some out! About 16 of them are unrelated to my flock from a local silkie breeder. The remainder are from my own ladies.

Will be following this thread

Never too late to join! I’m on day 17 with Silkies from my own flock and have others from another breeder that I just set.

 

[shaila]

Two chicks hatched this morning and two more have pipped.



Hard to tell from angle, but lighter (closer) chick is a bantam. Other than that, I don't know what breeds they are.

 

[-Kiwi-]

LOCKDOWN TOMORROW! Woooooo! Had three quitters so far and one exploded yesterday but fingers crossed!

 

[JoJoM]

Hi!
Have you been running 60% the whole time? I had one of those incubators when I first started out some years ago. They are really hard to maintain humidity. How do your eggs look when you candle them? Do you know if your hygometer is accurate? 60% is high for incubation, fine for lockdown. There are different schools of thought and preferences for humidity percentage during incubation. You do not need to add anymore water at this point.

Humidity was around 25% for the first 18 days. I’d add water and it would shoot up but then drop again. I have two hygrometers in there and they get a 1-2% reading difference. Today was my first day of lockdown. I candled yesterday I think they looked good and I was able to see movement.

 

[RrooKk]

Never too late to join! I’m on day 17 with Silkies from my own flock and have others from another breeder that I just set.

Tha

LOCKDOWN TOMORROW! Woooooo! Had three quitters so far and one exploded yesterday but fingers crossed!

I'm very curious...when people say it explodes is it like... BOOM junk everywhere? or? Did it get on other eggs? I'm very curious as I'm terrified of this exact thing happening to me
Getting down to the wire though!!

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Humidity was around 25% for the first 18 days. I’d add water and it would shoot up but then drop again. I have two hygrometers in there and they get a 1-2% reading difference. Today was my first day of lockdown. I candled yesterday I think they looked good and I was able to see movement.

OK great, I misunderstood your post. Yes the sponge would be fine to keep the humidity up, as soon as the chicks start hatching the humidity will shoot up from the moisture in the hatched shells. You won’t need to worry so much about humidity at that point. Good luck with your hatch!

 

[WallyG74]

You can candle! Just make sure your hands are clean If I am really worried about the eggs, I'll leave them a few more days as the darker shells can be hard to confirm whether there is life in it or not. I usually candle 2-3 times during the whole incubation period. Typically Day 7, Day 14, and Day 18 right as they go into lockdown Always do it fairly quickly to minimize impact on the eggs (unless they are from my own flock, as those ones have been super hardy). And as long as the eggs are fresh, I leave them all until Day 14, just to be sure that I don't accidentally take out ones that are developing when it comes to the harder shells to see through!

That’s kind of why I was asking. Mine are very hard to see through. Medium brown and green shells. They are all from my hens. My first attempt at hatching I made a huge mistake because I couldn’t see through the shells very good. Sadly, that ended up costing me 5 babies because I thought the whole batch was no good. I don’t want to make that mistake again. So I have eggs from the same girls and it’s day 7 again. I know what I’m looking for but since it’s hard to see, will day 10 or 14 be any better? I know we are all big girls and boys here but I won’t get into what I saw when I investigated my “bad” eggs from before.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Tha

I'm very curious...when people say it explodes is it like... BOOM junk everywhere? or? Did it get on other eggs? I'm very curious as I'm terrified of this exact thing happening to me
Getting down to the wire though!!

I’ve never had an egg explode. When you candled at lock down if the eggs smell or are seeping you should remove them.

 

[Offshoreorca]

That’s kind of why I was asking. Mine are very hard to see through. Medium brown and green shells. They are all from my hens. My first attempt at hatching I made a huge mistake because I couldn’t see through the shells very good. Sadly, that ended up costing me 5 babies because I thought the whole batch was no good. I don’t want to make that mistake again. So I have eggs from the same girls and it’s day 7 again. I know what I’m looking for but since it’s hard to see, will day 10 or 14 be any better? I know we are all big girls and boys here but I won’t get into what I saw when I investigated my “bad” eggs from before.

At Day 7 you can often see a bit (in blue/green/chocolate eggs), but if you don't have a high power candler then it is sometimes tricky. By Day 14 you will be able to tell 100% whether they have developed as you can see where the dark membrane meets the air cell in a living embryo. You can candle Day 7, but I would hold off making any decisions until the second candle at Day 14 when eggs aren't easy to see into. It becomes very clear what you infertile or early quitters are as you get well into incubation.