First time hatching chicken eggs. First time dry hatching. Hoping for the best lol

[PhantomSlayer]

I started with 22, a little over half were fertile, I was concerned about this batch because I had to wait 7 days to get an incubator free to set them in, and I don’t know how long they set before I set them, the first batch I got from my son were no older than 3 days and 20 out of 21 hatched, so far 5 have hatched, I candled the others and I don’t know if they are alive or not, I’m going to give them another day.

Not bad for an unknown setting time. Hopefully more hatch!

 

[PhantomSlayer]

Update! I am home and while letting mamas have babies have failed miserably (its fixable) anyways i couldnt resist candling the 12 eggs. WOW. Only tossed one. However I am having issues with candling 4 greenish eggs.. I mean it looked like they had veins? but not 100% sure. I'll probably still do one more candling before lockdown but the number 11 is kinda scary lol

 

[Tex452]

Update! I am home and while letting mamas have babies have failed miserably (it’s fixable) anyways i couldnt resist candling the 12 eggs. WOW. Only tossed one. However I am having issues with candling 4 greenish eggs.. I mean it looked like they had veins? but not 100% sure. I'll probably still do one more candling before lockdown but the number 11 is kinda scary lol

I found out the reason my last hatch was so poor, where my turn table goes over the shaft, the plastic turn table was cracked, and the eggs weren’t getting turned.
I don’t know how it got cracked, but I will check them periodically from now on.
I usually mark the eggs and take a picture to make sure they are turning, but since I’ve been having good hatching % I didn’t do that in this batch.

 

[PhantomSlayer]

I found out the reason my last hatch was so poor, where my turn table goes over the shaft, the plastic turn table was cracked, and the eggs weren’t getting turned.
I don’t know how it got cracked, but I will check them periodically from now on.
I usually mark the eggs and take a picture to make sure they are turning, but since I’ve been having good hatching % I didn’t do that in this batch.

Sometimes things can be overlooked if were not careful.

 

[PhantomSlayer]

I have a question. I've heard stories about chicks hatching on day 18. But if lockdown is day 18 would it be bad to change lockdown to late day 17?

Also tomorrow is day 14 I'm gonna candle again to see if theres any quitters.

 

[PhantomSlayer]

Lockdown has started a tad early. Down to 8 eggs. I have to say I much prefer candling goose eggs lol. 4 out of 12 were green/blue eggs. I can't see very much in them. 3 out of 8 are those. Basically I looked for 3 things. Maintained heat, veins or movements. Those 3 I could barely see squat lol. Two i saw faint signs of the veins at the very edge. One felt like it was maintain heat so I assume its still alive. One did not maintain heat. So yeah..

 

[PhantomSlayer]

First chick to hatch looks all yellow. So I'm assuming its out of a buff orpington egg. Our EE hen lays green/blue egg. Our roo is said to be an americana mix but I'm just calling him an EE as well..

 

[PhantomSlayer]

Update! So far 3 have hatched. The yellow (#1) were guessing Buff Orpington egg, The Greyish one (#2) EE egg and once the dark one (#3) dries cause it litterally hatched 5 minutes before the pic either Gold Lace Wyandotte or Black Australorp. There is a 4th egg pipped so we might get a 4th chick. All chicks are mixed breeds as our Roo is supposedly a Americana mix but I just call him an EE. So its basically just guesses on all the brown eggs hatching.

I was honestly worried about both 2 and 3 because for some reason they pipped toward the pointy end of their eggs x.x

The yellow one I've been calling blondie is driving me up the walls. Very vocal and its already jumping onto the heat plate. I have a temp brooder in my room right next to the incubator once over they'll be moved down to our basement in our bigger brooder where they can run and jump to their hearts content.