flying by the seat of my pants & feeling pretty foolish..... ;)

[Mom2Cool]

Ok so we're at day 15 here of incubating 15 eggs I'd purchased. I had the incubator from my son who had once tried to (unsuccessfuly I might add) hatch some duck eggs. Like the rest of the "chicken people" here I found myself somewhat anstie & so I was on this egg auction sight & they had the eggs of the chicks I'd just decided I was going to get next spring & well one thing lead to another & before I knew it I had eggs on the way here to me.... Don't you all hate when you find that just happens???? LOL Anyway I figured I'd just use this little bator I had sitting around & I'd sort of thought of this as all an experiment & if I get any hatches great & if not well it'll be a lesson to me.... Frankly when I'd purchased my buff Orpingtons last summer I did so because I heard they were a brooky chicken & I figured they'd do this part of it all for me....

I'm remember now why I'd made that decision as I came here tonight realizing I should have some kind of monitor in the incubator monitoring the humidity? I have had water in the little rut's or dishes supplied but I've not actually had a gage in there. I have candled the eggs & there is definitely something there in every egg & they were all fertile eggs. I've not really seen movement while candling or not like I see when we've watched the candling video's on youtube but then I didn't have them there too long because I didn't want to handle them too long or have them out of the incubator. I have been turning them 3 to 4 times a day & so I've got 6 days or so to see if anything is going to hatch. Do you all think there's a chance that I could still get a hatching from this? the temp in the incubator has been pretty steady on 100 & there is some kind of development I just don't think I'm see hearts pounding or swimming like on the videos I see. Just thought I'd check in with the groups here.

 

[onthespot]

Yes, get a hygrometer, from walmart in the gardens section. Set it inside your incubator, where you can see it through the windows with a flashlight and don't open it. You want the humidity to run around 40% or so the first 18 days and then bump it up to fifty to sixty percent for the chicks to hatch. It is probably too late to worry about the days already gone bye, but the last three days are very important. Also, if you have a candler, you want to see if the eggs have dried out a bit over the past two weeks. When youfirst set the eggs, the air bubble is about penny or nickle sized, up at the tip of the wide end of the egg. After 18 days, the bubble should be noticeably larger, maybe a fifth of the egg total, and the other part of the egg should look dark. Good luck and keep us posted!

 

[Mom2Cool]

wow thanks for such a quick reply. I hear I can get one of those at radio shake too & so I'll get one tomorrow. I thought I had noticed the air pocket at the top portion of the egg when I'd candled the other day. I'm not sure really what I was seeing & I would have felt a lot better about it if I'd seen all the viens & movement like I'd seen on the video's of others. Though there is some thing there and that had to come from them being set to start with & frankly that alone is a miracle & so I figure stranger things than getting a hatch when I shouldn't have happened. LOL I mean those egss were *shipped* when I thought it would be in the 60's & it turned out in the 30's & so again any development at all had been a miracle...

 

[shelleyd2008]

If you only have 6 days left, there really isn't much to see, other than a big dark blob and the air cell. You can see them move occasionally at that point, but you won't see them swimming like you would if it were earlier. Good luck on your hatch. Get a hygrometer for next time. Make sure to add some wet sponges for the hatch!

 

[Mom2Cool]

ok good so then seeing a dark blob is what I'm suppose to be seeing....... I wasn't sure if that was right or not. & you say some sponges huh? You mean like regular old kitchen sponges? I have it figured so that I stop turning on Wed. so I have a couple days to figure it out & prepare & so yes if I need a particular thing a tip now would be good. And thanks.

 

[cherndon712]

Regular old brand new sponges work fine!

 

[Mom2Cool]

ok when I get these sponges I'm saturating them & putting them in with the eggs along side of them? I'd actually put a humidity gage in there & it says it's at about 50% I've had it with the same set up from day one til now & so I can't imagine it's been any different... If I understand correctly now the humidity has to be increased right? & the saturated sponges will do that? I had sort of planned to add water using a tubing from like a fish tank & one of those bulb thingamabobbies you use to flush out an ear. I'd thought I'd just string it in through one of those air holes when I needed to add some water & squeeze the thingamabobby. As I think of it though I would imagine the sponges would keep it a more even setting right? is there a particular way you all set up your sponges inside for this & do you saturate or just make them damp or what? Just checking to make sure I have this straight. Oh yea guess what I'm doing on New Years Eve? Making the final settings on the incubator before I go hands off..... and so after all this time of turning eggs & adjusting etc. now I'm suppose to keep my hands from doing what???? LOL Oh & how do you make the finger crossing symbol?

 

[shelleyd2008]

I usually put the sponges in a small bowl, so they have a constant supply of water. Or you can just wet them real good and set them in there. You can use the air tubing and 'booger snatcher' (

) setup still to rewet the sponge.
But yeah, you do put the sponges next to the eggs, or you can put them under the wire. Just don't have them touching the eggs. You want to try and get the humidity up to at least 60%, 65% is better. The humidity is rasied by having more wet surface area, so yeah the sponges will help with that, a LOT.

As for the smilies, when you post a message, off to the right you will see a thing that looks like this

Smilies [show] [hide]

Click on show, and that will display all the smilies provided by BYC. Just click on the one you want, or 'hover' over it and it will show the code for the specific one. The code for

is colon (

and fl together!

Oh, and at least watching your bator on New Year's will keep you out of trouble!