HALLOWEEN Hatch-a-Long 2016 w/ Hosts, Mike, Sally & BantyChooks

[Mylied]

Thanks for the sympathy. How do the other three look? They pipped about 6 or so hours ago. I feel like they are doing good and there is a little condensation on the incubator, so I think the humidity is good. They are funny. When I cheer them on, they start pecking more. I really haven't been interfering, except to remove the dead one and put in a warm wet cloth. I just look at them a lot and worry. Lol.

 

[kajira]

That's exactly what I was thinking!

If it's a pullet, she's definitely staying.

(I still feel so badly about it.

)
If it's a cockerel, I may have to fit him in.
I think it'll be a pullet by the coloring.

And I haven't quite figured out why yet...but I get more girls than boys.



The chick would look like the blue with the darker head, second from the right IF it's a pullet.
All above are EE X EE except for the tiny Old English hen. (Yep even the Silkie) Go figure.

those are beautiful

 

[lpatelski]

That's exactly what I was thinking!

If it's a pullet, she's definitely staying.

(I still feel so badly about it.

)
If it's a cockerel, I may have to fit him in.
I think it'll be a pullet by the coloring.

And I haven't quite figured out why yet...but I get more girls than boys.



The chick would look like the blue with the darker head, second from the right IF it's a pullet.
All above are EE X EE except for the tiny Old English hen. (Yep even the Silkie) Go figure.

Don't feel bad. I have miss-counted and left eggs in the incubator. They got rolled all the way to hatch until I hear peeping in there and look in to see a chick looking back! They survive despite what we do to them.

Others die despite our best care.

I finally figured out it is not up to me.

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Looks like my legbars finally started laying again! I got 2 eggs from the girls today.I'll be saving up whatever I get from them this week to set on Friday. I'll be a little late for Halloween with them but they'll be close enough At least the AC should hatch before Halloween!

 

[junebuggena]

Thanks for the sympathy. How do the other three look? They pipped about 6 or so hours ago. I feel like they are doing good and there is a little condensation on the incubator, so I think the humidity is good. They are funny. When I cheer them on, they start pecking more. I really haven't been interfering, except to remove the dead one and put in a warm wet cloth. I just look at them a lot and worry. Lol.

The darker brown one is zipping. If there isn't any progress after an hour, start helping.

 

[Mylied]

The darker brown one is zipping. If there isn't any progress after an hour, start helping.

It's been like that since this afternoon... It's alive and peeping.

 

[Mylied]

Things went down the pooper with this hatch and I've started a new thread, if anyone wants to give some advice.

 

[BullChick]

Things went down the pooper with this hatch and I've started a new thread, if anyone wants to give some advice.

 

[Cynthia12]

blood island or blood ring? Thinking its a late starter as i just noticed the little in the middle. Just on day 5.

Keep this in until day 7 or 8. If you don't see anything like a little bean in the middle, or a little black dot moving...toss it. Also, you should be able to see a definite air cell at the base..a real light one.

 

[DwayneNLiz]

Hello! This is my first clutch under a hen. I candled them for the first time tonight and I could confirm 9 out of the 11 are for sure developing!!! Fingers crossed since this is my first time.

Woohoo!!
Good luck!! what breeds?

Set some eggs for one of my customers last Tuesday, a little early for Halloween though.

Awesome!

Make that 49. Don't know if a couple of them are going to make it but they've hung in there so far.

87.5% of those in lockdown hatched so I can't complain. Watching an otherwise healthy looking chick with severe scissor beak and a handful with clubbed feet is heartbreaking though. Never had health issues before this.

though great hatch rate

Ok... I have an interesting situation with my duck eggs. The ducklings are due to hatch in about a week. Well, I noticed one of the eggs wasn't forming an aircell. I thought maybe I was just missing the location of the aircell so, I didn't worry too much about it. Well, when I checked on the eggs this afternoon I decided to actually locate the aircell on this one egg. Turns out the aircell formed at the narrow end of the egg!

Question: Has this ever happened to anyone else? What did you do? And, does this duckling even stand a chance of hatching?

strange, no idea but good luck!!

Wow, I miss a few days and lose like 15 pages!
@kajira I recently had a singleton hatch, and I used a real feather duster dangled from the lid of his brooder box. Worked like a charm!
@Sally Sunshine Sorry for the delayed reply! I am using two Brinsea's, an Octagon 20 and Octagon 40, both with humidity pumps. I mostly have CCL's and BCM's, but am currently waiting for 2 Silkie eggs to hatch in the 20. I have kept the temp in both at 100.5, and humidity at 40%, which goes up to 65 at lockdown. I've been incubating in the 40 and lockdown in the 20. I'm getting what I think is more than normal loss of life both during incubation AND lockdown. I've used two different hygrometers and taken the average results to determine the approximate percentage of humidity in both bators. I have no idea how to calibrate a hygrometer, or where I would get one. I've toyed with the idea of trying to surround, but not cover, the bators with styrofoam. Do you think that would help if the temp really is dropping at night?
Thank you so much for all your help!

Calibration is a MUST: HOW TO CALIBRATE post #9068

Day 20 and some have piped! How much longer?

as long as they want

good luck! any update?

Quick question, this round of hatching most of my shipments were delayed by days and eggs have the loosest aircells ive seen yet... they have not attached to anything and so jiggle and move EASILY...despite that, I have several Cornish developing and a couple Sussex and some brahma... question is:

Should I NOT have them being turned at all this time except by hand? I've gotten quite a few blood rings already.
TIA

hand turning is much gentler

Good morning everybody!!!

Today is the first day since June? July? August for certain...that I haven't had any chicks in the house.
I've been stagger hatching and I've had a continuous flow of chicks and keets hatching so I've had continuous chicks starting in the laundry room.
I put the last 3 out in the brooder in the shop yesterday. It feels so...empty not hearing them.

My chickies!!!

I had a single chick a couple of times.
I threw one of my toques (stocking caps for you guys I think?) and the chick seemed to be happy to cuddle up with it.

Oh no!! empty nest syndrome!!
time to set some eggs!!!

I won my GOOSE EGGS!!! :O

6-8 geese egg, due to go into my incubator by next weekend. *happy dances*

I toldmy husband I won the auction, and all he said was "how big of a house does a goose need?"

Dun Dun Duuuuunnnnnnn!!!!

Good Luck!!!!!

have 16 eggs stuffed in the incubator for an expected halloween hatch...most are either light sussex (pure) or light sussex x araucana but two are from two of my slightly older "scrub bantam" chooks (basically a backyard flock of very funny looking tiny birds that have a tendency to be so broody that they'll try to hatch everything from river stones to potatoes)....IF they are fertile they are also crossed with the light sussex roo (im not even sure it the logistics of that are possible, but I figured it would be worth a try)...

Hopefully this will do better than the last batch, where i had 5 clear eggs, and one baby that failed to even pip and died in the shell >.<

LOL

My 2 Silkies hatched today, right on time! I've never had Silkies before, can anybody tell what colors these are?

Congrats! more pics??

Is it too late to join the Halloween HAL?

On the 6th I got 19 Araucana eggs from 2 different breeders back East. I gave them 12hrs to come up to room temp, then I candled them and marked what I could see...and I set them at 1230am on the 7th...

This is my 2nd attempt at hatching eggs, and of course, they had to be expensive, shipped eggs!

The empty spot separates the 2 different clutches. A dozen on the left and then 7 on the right. The 2nd egg up from the bottom left, it has wax on a crack... that's the visible line.

not too late!
Good luck!!

10 EGGS OUT TO THE HATCHER DUE 10/13
9 EGGS INTO THE INCUBATOR DUE HALLOWEEN - anything they lay today will go in this evening.

good luck!!

The first one to pip last night died. It was cheeping when I went to class at 9 and I didn't hear it at 1 when I got home. It pipped face down. I don't think it could turn in the egg because it was a small egg. Any other thoughts? Two more pipped and I'm worried for them. I put in a warm wet cloth when I took the egg out. Humidity seems fine. Here's a pic after I peeled eggshell from its face. It only cracked the shell a half inch.

so sorry!!

blood island or blood ring? Thinking its a late starter as i just noticed the little in the middle. Just on day 5.

looks like a blood ring but i dont toss anything until d10

Wow did I do a bad thing.

But it's a good example of what NOT to do.

I moved the older chicks from the shop brooder into the coop brooder a couple of days ago
Then I moved the few chicks I had in the house to the shop brooder.
This morning I hear this odd peeping that didn't seem to be coming from the 3 chicks in the shop.
I finally figured out, much to my HORROR that somehow I didn't see one chick was left in the box from the bunch that was moved to the coop.
Here the poor little fellow has been in this covered box, no feed, no water and no heat!
It's been freezing here every night.
I checked the box after I moved them. It's a dark blue chick, maybe he was in a shadow in the box? My coop is pretty dark.

The chick seems perfectly fine.
I put it in with the 3 chicks because it's probably a bit stressed, hungry and thirsty...and there's less competition with 3 chicks.

It's the bigger chick back right corner.

sounds like a strong little chick!!

stuff happens

That's exactly what I was thinking!

If it's a pullet, she's definitely staying.

(I still feel so badly about it.

)
If it's a cockerel, I may have to fit him in.
I think it'll be a pullet by the coloring.

And I haven't quite figured out why yet...but I get more girls than boys.



The chick would look like the blue with the darker head, second from the right IF it's a pullet.
All above are EE X EE except for the tiny Old English hen. (Yep even the Silkie) Go figure.

so cute!!