Going Big!

[kuchchicks]

Last weekend I got a new Hova Bator 1588 digital. I set it up and ran for 2 days before placing the eggs. I bought eggs from 2 different local farmers and also placed 3 from my own chickens (48 eggs total - 13 silkies, 3 polish, 14 Easter Eggers, and the rest were a barnyard mix). My new bator only held 41 eggs so the other 7 went into my friends incubator. After doing a lot of reading on this site I decided to go with the dry method. For the last week, my temp has been beautiful (99.6-100.3) and my humidity 29%-34%. I just candled them and honestly feel a little disappointed. I had 9 total clears, 7 of which were silkies. The unknown on top of that are all of my Easter Eggers. I tried to candle those and could not see inside no matter what I did...think the shells were too dark/thick? So I did leave all of those in the bator not knowing if any of them are progressing.

I do feel good about my air cells though. I have never really marked or watched my air cells before but after tracing all of them I think they are where they need to be based on the diagram I've seen. So a couple of questions. First is it normally difficult to see inside blue/green eggs? I have heard people saying they have a hard time on dark eggs but did not think these were really dark...? Second, when you all talk about your hatch rate do you normally figure it out by how many you have left in the bator after day 7 or do you figure from the number of eggs you place on day 1? I am hoping that at least 1/2 of what I have left hatches. I have 39 eggs left in there so I am not sure if that is a lot of wishful thinking or it that would be typical. And finally - and this is me now worrying just because that is what I do - but with candling the 48 eggs and opening/closing the bator, it took me about 30 minutes to candle all of the eggs, mark them, and get my temp back up to 99.5; is that 30 minutes something I should be overly concerned about? I keep telling myself that the hen gets up to eat/drink/poop but not sure how long she is gone. I have only ever had 1 broody hen and to be honest I never saw her off those eggs (though I know she was cuz obviously she was eating).

7 days down, 14 days to go...more or less!

 

[XxMingirlxX]

Wow that's a lot of eggs! You sound experienced but this is the best hatching guide around :
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/hatching-eggs-101

 

[kuchchicks]

Actually just had my first "successful" hatch last Saturday. I was thinking it was about 35% hatch rate ( I had placed 13 eggs, 5 were fertile, and 4 hatched). But think I figured hatch rate wrong... anyways... No I am VERY new to this. I did try to incubate 3 batches 3 years ago and they were dismal failures. 2 yielded no hatches and the third only 2 out of 6. My son wanted to try again so I did a lot of research this time around. The new incubator was because I was tired of getting stressed about babysitting my other one all of the time. And this one is working MUCH better. The 48 eggs... not really planned. I went to pick up the Easter Eggers and she ended up giving me an extra dozen of her barnyard mix because she said she was not going to use them and they would go to waste. Then when I went to pick up the silkies he gave me a dozen of his barnyard mix. I was thrilled! Then when I was driving home I realized that I had 48 eggs but only 41 spots in my turner...oops! My friend let me borrow hers and put the extras in there.

I still have my friends bator running. I put the 9 "clear" eggs in there because I am afraid to throw them out. I don't feel comfortable saying for sure that they are clear and would feel terrible if I opened them and found something growing. So I thought I would let them stay in the extra bator for another week and by then it would be really clear (haha) if there was something developing or not. I think next weekend I would be comfortable tossing them.

 

[drumstick diva]

There are also photos on BYC (somewhere) of candled eggs showing what they should look like at different times, and even shows what duds look like. You could try putting
"Egg candling photos," in the search box. I would think they will pop up.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Last weekend I got a new Hova Bator 1588 digital. I set it up and ran for 2 days before placing the eggs. I bought eggs from 2 different local farmers and also placed 3 from my own chickens (48 eggs total - 13 silkies, 3 polish, 14 Easter Eggers, and the rest were a barnyard mix). My new bator only held 41 eggs so the other 7 went into my friends incubator. After doing a lot of reading on this site I decided to go with the dry method. For the last week, my temp has been beautiful (99.6-100.3) and my humidity 29%-34%. I just candled them and honestly feel a little disappointed. I had 9 total clears, 7 of which were silkies. The unknown on top of that are all of my Easter Eggers. I tried to candle those and could not see inside no matter what I did...think the shells were too dark/thick? So I did leave all of those in the bator not knowing if any of them are progressing.

I do feel good about my air cells though. I have never really marked or watched my air cells before but after tracing all of them I think they are where they need to be based on the diagram I've seen. So a couple of questions. First is it normally difficult to see inside blue/green eggs? I have heard people saying they have a hard time on dark eggs but did not think these were really dark...? Second, when you all talk about your hatch rate do you normally figure it out by how many you have left in the bator after day 7 or do you figure from the number of eggs you place on day 1? I am hoping that at least 1/2 of what I have left hatches. I have 39 eggs left in there so I am not sure if that is a lot of wishful thinking or it that would be typical. And finally - and this is me now worrying just because that is what I do - but with candling the 48 eggs and opening/closing the bator, it took me about 30 minutes to candle all of the eggs, mark them, and get my temp back up to 99.5; is that 30 minutes something I should be overly concerned about? I keep telling myself that the hen gets up to eat/drink/poop but not sure how long she is gone. I have only ever had 1 broody hen and to be honest I never saw her off those eggs (though I know she was cuz obviously she was eating).

7 days down, 14 days to go...more or less!

Yes, the greenish are harder. I haven't had a green one I could see well in, even though I didn't consider them all that dark either. I think it's the pigment. I never count clears in my rate. I don't feel it's a true reflection of the hatch to count something that was most likely not fertile to begin with. I give to hatch rates. Fertile/hatched and lockdown/hatched. When I am rating my hatch for myself I go by lockdown/hatch because those are the ones that I am expecting to hatch. I don't count on anything until lockdown and then I expect those to hatch.

 

[kuchchicks]

Just candled again. All of my air cells seem to look like the diagram for day 14. But i also had 4 with blood rings. When i started i had placed 13 silkies. 7 of them were clear on day 7 and now 4 more with blood rings. The rest of my batch looks good (of course i have no idea about my EE cuz i cant see inside...i have 14 of those). So i guess i am wondering if anyone has any idea why one particular breed would be doing so badly in relation to all of the others. I only had one other with a blood ring that was not a silkie. And what causes the blood rings?

 

[kuchchicks]

Should i eggtopsy the 6 with blood rings? Will it really tell me where i went wrong? Never done it before and afraid to....

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Should i eggtopsy the 6 with blood rings? Will it really tell me where i went wrong? Never done it before and afraid to....

It won't tell you anything. Too early a "death". It happens very early in the gestation period when for whatever reason the embryo dies. It's from the blood vessels pooling together after death.

 

[kuchchicks]

Oh ok. Can you think of a reason that most of what i lost are all the same breed when i placed such a wide variety?

 

[cow bay rooster]

I though I read somewhere that the blood ring was indication of bacteria getting into the egg.