Gah!!! All of my hatches are going haywire!

[Bettacreek]

Well, I, like the idiot I am, miscalculated the chicken hatches. I calculated them as standard chickens and apparantly the banties take a shorter time. So... I was candling to move my first batch to the hatcher and found a pip. I scrambled around and got them tossed into the hatcher. Two hatched and two had to be helped because the humidity wasn't high enough. I'm not sure if the last two will make it. Then, today I was pulling everyone/everything out of the hatcher so that I could move my second batch of chicken eggs and my button eggs over. Everything is running smoothly, until I open the incubator... Two little button babies went scrambling under the autoturner!

They were due tomorrow, but I couldn't move them to the hatcher because the first batch of chicken eggs were in there. Now I know to space the staggared hatches a little further apart, so if something goes a little funky, I'll have more squeeze room.

The buttons, there are three of them that are hatched and three or so that were pipped or zipped. I'm hoping that these eggs aren't going to be shrink wrapped like my frizzle/sizzle eggs were, but I'm not holding my breath, since they weren't moved to a hatcher with a higher humidity until the day of/day before hatch.

 

[Chicktastic]

I feel for you. I am having hatching frustrations too. Mine is my stupid incubator now. It is having troubles staying at the right temp. I feel like a babysitter always checking on it.

 

[peepinglaura]

Seriously, bantams take less time? I'm soooo glad you told me. I probably have a move to do today, then. How fewer days do they take?

panic panic,

Laura

 

[Akane]

My bantams always hatch on exactly 21 days just like my standards. However you should be getting them moved on day 18 so even if they go a day early it should not be a problem.

 

[peepinglaura]

I was just going to hatch mine out in the incubator. Now I want a hatcher, to be sure. I did a search on google and Amazon to see what I'm searching for, and I can't find anything. Do they have another term beyond "hatcher"?

 

[kelseygirl707]

Quote:
It's really just a second incubator. I use a second incubator as a hatcher because I have two different hatch dates for my eggs, they are about 1 week apart.

If I were to hatch in the same incubator as the eggs that are a week younger, I would drown them because I have to up the humidity for the eggs that are hatching.

 

[peepinglaura]

Awesome, thank you. I was hoping that would be the case, since I want to upgrade my incubator anyway.

Thanks,

Laura

 

[Bettacreek]

I heard that bantams commonly hatch at 19 days, after doing some digging. These guys were at... umm... day 18 when they started pipping. They were all fully developed (the ones that hatched). I was getting ready to move them to the hatcher when I found a pip in one, it didn't hatch until the wee hours of morning.

A hatcher is just a second incubator, without an autoturner. Makes it so that you don't have to put eggs in at the perfect time so that they hatch on the same day, you can have weekly hatches if you'd like (which is what I was planning for when my quail start to lay).

 

[Akane]

I would say your temps are too high then. The only bantams that regularly hatch on day 19 under proper temps are seramas. Everything else might pip day 19 occasionally but more likely day 20-21 unless your temps are running too high.

 

[Bettacreek]

It was 99.5 to 100 throughout the entire incubation period. Would .5 degree make that big of a difference?