First timer - starting my first batch Sept 15

[gladahmae]

Wow, quite a spike Gladahmae! In the first 24 hours of my incubator with the eggs in, it got to 101. They seemed to have faired well though being how many I have cooking happily at the moment. Being you are a week from lock down that's even scarier! I bought an old or appears to be an old hova-bator thermal off Craigslist a few days ago and it is holding temp very well. Either it has been around quite awhile or they were just careless with it's aesthetics, either or, it is ugly and seems to work great despite it's age...for now. I am using that one for lockdown, while the other eggs continue to cook in the new incubator. I have read that the little thermal unit does go bad, but I don't know how long it takes for it to go bad. I did price them online for $14.00 on one site, don't remember which one, I am sure they are everywhere though. Hope they all enjoyed the heat spike instead of it being detrimental! Time will tell for now though. I wrapped my incubator with an old pair of pajamas around the seam a few days ago and it has worked miracles with stabilizing temp and humidity. Almost hands free again except to add water. It seemed like I was having to hover over that thing day and night like a new born baby just to keep temp in check, before I wrapped it.

Yeah, I've already got an extra wafer. We needed one for the brooder, so I ordered 2 so that *when* I needed a new one I would have it already and save on shipping.

I don't think my thermometer is 100% accurate, because during the last hatch we put a 2nd thermometer in during lockdown and it consistently read about 1.3deg higher. I'm not worried too much about the spike since 102 is within the acceptable range, and it was only for a few hours. I just can't figure out why I've had to turn my thermometer a half-turn all of a sudden!


Our incubator is VERY ugly as well. Our 'retrofits' didn't help things either.

 

[Cooper Farms]

i put the 3 black sex link chicks out in the barn last night and found one dead this morning. he had goten caught between the wal and cardboard draft sheild and i think it was to cold for them. i brought the other 2 in this morning. its too bad cause the chick looked like mumble the penguin from happy feet. the kids are veary sad.

 

[mmgillan]

I have candled a couple times and not sure what i'm seeing. There is 1 definite viable as I see the moving around. The other,s there is large dark areas but not sure.

This is my first time hatching, so not really sure what i"m doing. Just following all the great posts and hoping for the best.

 

[gladahmae]

I have candled a couple times and not sure what i'm seeing. There is 1 definite viable as I see the moving around. The other,s there is large dark areas but not sure.

This is my first time hatching, so not really sure what i"m doing. Just following all the great posts and hoping for the best.

after day 11 or so it gets hard to see much of anything (from what I've read). I keep any eggs in there that aren't obviously bad and I can always throw them away at day 25 or so. Blood rings and clears are pretty easy to spot, and any eggs that may smell bad (those were also clears for me) go in the trash.

I really like this post for ideas on what you should be seeing for candling......if you haven't already looked at it.

 

[seventreesfarm]

We ended up tossing one more that had a blood ring early, but we wanted to make sure.

Now I can't seem to keep the humidity up with minimal water added, so I'm going to fill up more of the water wells tonight and wrap the bator seam. Not sure what changed, but oh well. At least it's the weekend and I can peek at the sensors a million times a day

Lockdown is 10/3 for us, so we probably won't candle until then. Then it's fingers crossed...

 

[dwegg]

I took the three eggs that were developing in the bator and put them under my silkie in the basement so she is sitting on 7 eggs so I have not messed with her and don't really know what is going on under there so it is wait and see for me....

I have 12 of my own silkie eggs on to replace the bator...but it is only weeke one for them...

 

[CamNorth]

I have candled a couple times and not sure what I'm seeing. There is 1 definite viable as I see the moving around. The other,s there is large dark areas but not sure.

This is my first time hatching, so not really sure what i"m doing. Just following all the great posts and hoping for the best.

I completely understand where you are coming from. I did read the link that had the great candling pictures. So this morning I candled all my eggs. I found 5 duds, that are mostly clear with a few blood vessels, no movement. Movement at this point (day 14) was my biggest indicator. In a couple I could tell that the dark mass was a head by the 'feather' ragged shape that was on one edge. It was pretty cool to see the embryo move around in one of the eggs. Then I rearranged my eggs abit so that I could get to the spot where the water goes better, and put all the dead eggs in one corner. On Tuesday of next week I will remove the egg turner and the dead eggs.

 

[cchardwick]

Well I'm coming up on 12 days so far and decided to candle for the first time. I have 19 eggs out of 20 developing! I threw out the one clear egg. I did have two that seemed a bit lighter than the rest, but hopefully they will all hatch! I'm starting to save up eggs for my RCom 50 Pro that I'm supposed to get next week, I'm so excited!!!

 

[ShelterFarm]

5 days out here. candled tonight and i think ive got one quitter. will probably crack it tomorrow night. all of the rest look great! lockdown starts Wednesday evening. when can i expect to start hearing them move about?

 

[CamNorth]

Yep, I'll be in lock-down on Wednesday too. I am very excited, but am worried about keeping the humidity high enough, it seems like every time I look, I have to add water.

What are are you guys doing for lock-down humidity control?