Ground Hog's Day Hatch

[kellyn]

I'm hoping I get at least 6 chicks. My usual number. I'm not surprised about te electric thermomter/hygrometer. It was made in china, after all. Or mexico, it's all cheap and a waste of my 10 bucks... I also got two aquarium thermometers and all 3 are the sae exact temperature so for now on I'll chance leting heat out of theincubator to rad the thermometers. How do you do the hygrometer salt test? My hygrometer/thermometer says between 16-38%.

I tried the 'water wiggler' and so far it's doing great.

Buuut, I wouldn't hold my breath the way my luck is.

Does anyone on hre like or have button/chinese painted quail?

 

[kefiren]

I see that people on the web have come up with this salt test for cigar humidors. Don't know how accurate it is...but lots of people seem to use it.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/436904/hygrometer-accuracy-test-howto

 

[JulieNKC]

I pulled out 5 clear call eggs today, and 2 with blood rings. Down to 15, of which 13 look really good. 2, including my double yolker, are pretty iffy but I'll give them another day at least. I'll be happy with half a dozen ducklings. They were shipped, it's not breeding season, and it's cold, so I'm not expecting a great hatch but I want at least a few hopefully.

 

[Mahonri]

I'm waiting till at least Saturday to candle.

15 days to go!

 

[TinaK]

Just a quick update as I have my mother & grandmother down for a special visit.... wanted to say I'm soooooooo **** excited! Day 7 today and I candled my eggs... As expected the 10 guinea fowl eggs look like duds. They were probably 14 days old before I put them into the bator....

BUT

my duck eggs are all growing! all 7 of them! Fingers crossed from here on in!

 

[Mahonri]

duck eggs are all growing! all 7 of them! Fingers crossed from here on in!

 

[Mahonri]

Wow! Not a busy day for all of us heh?

Temp and humidity holding steady. Looking forward to candling on day 10 Sunday!

Wahoo.

 

[twentynine]

Had to make me a old fashioned candler today so I could candle at 8pm.

30 eggs cooking, first candling results

26 growing, I could see veins in all, movement in some
2 porous shells, should never been placed in the incubator in the 1st place. Had no candler when I set the eggs.
2 duds, no activity, no growth

I didn't pull anything out yet. Plan is to candle again on day 10 or 11. I will pull duds and stuff then.

Like I said if I get 50% out of this test hatch, I'll be ecstatic.

 

[TinaK]

26/30 growing is an awesome result so far twentynine!! Hopefully you get better than a 50% hatch rate!

My house guests have gone so I'll candle again in a few days & take out all the guinea fowl eggs after that. I didn't remove any yet... but I'm paranoid about egg-plosions so I went to get the duds out soon!

My bator wasnt made for 17 eggs anyway! The 7 duck eggs will fit just perfect & have loads of room when I pull out the guinea fowl eggs. I wish some of the guineas were growing though. I might search around for some fresh, fertile guinea eggs for my next hatch! (Can see that the bator will be running continually for a very very long time now that it has started

)

I've had to up my humidity as it was sitting just around 45 - 50%. **** humidity hungry duck eggs! Hope everything is good & not too steamy! I'm at work now... first day the bator has been left running home alone (but I haven't had to change anything except water surface area since I started).....

Look forward to everyone elses updates

 

[Dingo]

I candled a couple of the OEGB eggs while rolling. I couldn't tell on one, but the other had a definitive darker spot on the yolk. This is only day 2, I wont see veins until tomorrow or the day after.
Quail eggs are going in on Saturday, I have 3 dozen of them waiting now and still a few more days to collect more. Thats over 4 dozen eggs total, I'm gonna need a huge brooder.