First batch of eggs ever starting today!

[Cynthia12]

Okay, I was reading about the "egg bomb" and was a little concerned about them, especially the bright yellow ones. By what day can I be absolutely sure there is nothing in them?

By day 10, you will want all of the eggs that you are sure about out of the bator.

 

[rlwt]

I do have 23 eggs and that's a lot in town. You can have 20 chickens at the most but it depends on how much property you have in Lawrence. However, I'm really hatching these eggs for my parents who have wanted chickens forever and have a lot more property. Any of them that turn out to be roos are going to one of my students' family because they are all set up for roos and they are outside of Lawrence proper which doesn't allow roos.

I had my eggs mailed to me which I didn't really want but ended up working out. All of the eggs that I've candled have either had veins or have had a dark circle inside of them so I am hopeful that we will get some chicks but not all 23.

As far as my set up. I have put all of the eggs pointy end down into egg cartons that I removed the top from. The egg cartons are then set with one side up (I used sticks from the backyard that I cleaned off because I don't have any other wood lying around and they seem the most stable). Every time I want to turn the eggs I just take the sticks out from under one side and put them under the other side. I find that it is less time consuming but, more importantly, the temperature in the incubator doesn't fluctuate much because it takes me about 10 seconds to complete turning all of the eggs.

From what I've read it sounds like this system will work all the way through to the hatch and I decided to take the risk. As I said it seems like the eggs are developing well so I am hopeful that this will work.

It's been an exciting week!

 

[Hillbilly Hen]

Ahh, you have your own flock of Icelandics now..do you ever sell eggs..? Maybe I'm behind the times here, and folks know you! lol..

My "flock" consists of one bad rooster and three hens. I haven't sold eggs yet but do plan on it. Right now I am saving them up for a friend.
I did end up getting three more Icelandic eggs yesterday! So I have a total of 24 Icelandic eggs and 18 Delaware eggs in the bator. Just trying to make sure the humidity is where it should be.

 

[Squawkbox]

I cracked open the 3 that I was pretty sure were duds, and they were..I think. 2 of them had this weird brown thing in them, it didn't look like an embryo but I'm really not sure

.

 

[rlwt]

I found a link that shows pictures of "eggtopsies" and explains what went wrong in each picture. It ranges from chicks that were close to hatching to embryos that were barely formed. Might be good to look at: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/363717/eggtopsy-what-happened-to-my-egg-graphic-pictures

 

[jessupsketchup]

just set my first eggs ever today!! totally thrilled. I have 18 Black Copper Maran eggs in my L.G. bator... temp is holding steady at 99 and my humidity is right at 44%.. I went with the auto egg turner so I don't have to fuss over them too much. plan on candeling at 7 days... I know from reading the forums L.G. isn't exactly the goto bator.. so if anyone has any tips or fixes for problems they have dealt with I would love to hear from ya!!
Happy Hatching !!!!

 

[nicokl502]

very happy to say that i try the candle test today and looks like all 4 of my egg are developing only will tell

 

[Hillbilly Hen]

just set my first eggs ever today!! totally thrilled. I have 18 Black Copper Maran eggs in my L.G. bator... temp is holding steady at 99 and my humidity is right at 44%.. I went with the auto egg turner so I don't have to fuss over them too much. plan on candeling at 7 days... I know from reading the forums L.G. isn't exactly the goto bator.. so if anyone has any tips or fixes for problems they have dealt with I would love to hear from ya!!
Happy Hatching !!!!

&

Good luck hatching those beautiful eggs!

 

[Squawkbox]

I cracked open the 5 and 3 of them had the same brown thing as the duds today. I think it is about a 1 day old embryo. So, now I am left with 13/22 that I set..Ugh.

 

[rlwt]

I haven't checked all of the eggs but I did look at a couple today. They seem to be doing nicely. Sunday will be day 10. Just a couple more weeks and they'll be hatching. 21 days seems a lot longer at the beginning than it does now.