Hands on hatching and help

[caesargirl]

Wow, he's learned how to be spoiled early on!!!! They're lucky there so dang cute!!

 

[WVduckchick]

Here he is. I tried to get a good pic of his face to show his beak. You can kinda see the line down his beak in the 2nd pick.










He's already a spoiled rotten lil ducky. I held him for a few minutes when I took him out of the hatcher and now he screams if I put him down. He has to snuggle up against my neck and thats the only way he is quiet, lol. Hope his siblings hatch soon so I can put him down.....

Adorable! One of my Swedish has little stripes on each side of the nail on his bill. Another has a green bill, but a totally black nail that almost looks like I painted it!

Edit to add - that Lyon machine looks cool!!

 

[caesargirl]

Awwwwww

I love the crest

 

[pipAchick]

Morning everyone!

 

[RubyNala97]

Yes they are! Temps seem good, I moved the Spot Check to the FI with the eggs. Just waiting for a bit to see how humidity is going to level out before I go to bed. Might have to add another sponge. :/

How did the humidity level out?

Here he is. I tried to get a good pic of his face to show his beak. You can kinda see the line down his beak in the 2nd pick. He's already a spoiled rotten lil ducky. I held him for a few minutes when I took him out of the hatcher and now he screams if I put him down. He has to snuggle up against my neck and thats the only way he is quiet, lol. Hope his siblings hatch soon so I can put him down.....

He's very cute!! Thanks for the pics!

I have the brooder set up in our family room right now but I plan on having a bigger brooder ready in our utility room for next weeks batch of 26 chicks. I'm hoping I can get my first big wave of chicks and these 4 I'm hatching now outside and into the coop by the time the last 20 runners hatch in 3 weeks. How long do you keep your chicks in a brooder before you put them outside? Is 2 weeks long enough if I put a heat lamp in the coop for them at night? My wife is gonna kill me, lol. She says I have baby fever and got carried away with the ducklings. I probably have, but my 11 year old son is gonna take them to the local bird swap and hopefully sell the majority of them. Kind of a life and business lesson for him to find out that hard work pays off! The incubator is called a Marsh Automatic Incubator and it's made by Lyon Electric Company. The lady we bought it from said she thinks the name of the company may have changed though. This incubator is prob ten plus years old but is made out of hard plastic with a clear lid on the top. It also has a fan and an older, metal wire version of an auto turner. She sold it to my mom for 200 bucks and when I first saw it I told my mom she got screwed, lol. But once I plugged it in it has worked great. My mom had looked it up and found that a new Lyon incubator costs 600 bucks and after seeing how much better it holds temp than the FI and the humidity than the Brinsea I can vouch for the high cost of it. Here's a pic of the ol' dinosaur. That lil red piece of tape below the knob is where you set the temp and then there's a bottle of water off to the right that drips the water right in to keep the humidity constant. Yea, this poor lil guy is so lonesome and it's cos he doesn't have anyone to play with cos of my staggered hatch. It makes it really difficult to keep track of which eggs need to go in or out. Seems so much easier to just do them all at one time. I finally got him to lay down and go to sleep by giving him a stuffed animal to sleep with. Guess he thinks that's his sister, lol.

These are all ducks, right? I have a 3 week max on having chicks in the house. But I did have orphaned baby ducks in the house last week for one week. Oh my do they stink!! They are extremely messy and need the brooder cleaned out once a day. With a pregnant wife and her heightened sense of smell, I would get a jump on that utility room brooder. ASAP...lol! I looked up that Lyon incubator and yes, they are expensive!! You're mom got a good deal! I was wondering which one you had. And how much capacity it had. The smaller one looks similar to the brinsea mini.

HI. I have 19 shipped Runner eggs from Idaho going into lock down tonight. 14 have good veins and movement. 5 have internal pips and 1 has external pip. 5 others still have veining but I see no movement. I incubated them in a forced fan styro, upright in carton, turning 5 times a day until Thursday when hubs was hospitalized. During those 5 days they only got turned once a day. They are now in a still air styro. Temp 99-100 and humidity 65-70. Some of these ACs look large, too large. And some strange shapes. Any special things I should watch out for. Thanks for any advice Linda

Yes, with shipped eggs they do get bigger and strange shaped air cells at the end. You can trace the air cells with a pencil or marker so that you make sure they pip into the air cell. Sometimes with shipped eggs they have trouble getting into position, especially with the weird shapes of the air cells. It's actually good that you turned them less at the end. I stop turning shipped eggs a few days early so they can settle into position. You may have to assist if they pip outside the air cell. In which case your on the right thread.

Well, that may end up being what I have to do then.

I've tried it and can vouch it works!

Crap. So after I just talked up the big game about the Lyon incubator, I decided to candle all the eggs and check progress. The anconas are starting day 21 tomorrow morning. The air sacks however looked extremely large on a few of them. I'm not sure what the humidity was cos I had both hygrometers in the hatcher but since I moved the first 4 ducks into the hatcher I have not checked the humidity in the Lyon. It had to be pretty low (our humidity right now is a ridiculous 10 pct in eastern Colorado) because the sacks got huge. Some appear right on for 21 days but about half of them look like they should be on day 27 right now and I'm afraid I need to slow down the shrink before I put them in lockdown on Monday. Same for the runners but most of those eggs didn't look as bad as the anconas did. What humidity should I go ahead and set it for to keep the air sacks right about where they are? I am gonna get it set at 55-60% overnight and hopefully that will do until I hear from everyone in the morning. Thanks!

Yes, keep it up. If you want to totally halt growth, if you think they look as big as they should for day 28, you could even go up to 65%.

 

[WVduckchick]

How did the humidity level out?

Its been up and down between 60-70%, which I'm ok with. It was only like 50%, so I added another small piece of sponge and got it up a little more. The temp started fluctuating (I know that's normal when messing with the humidity), but kinda scared me when the Spot Check hit 103.9. But I pulled one out this morning and candled and still had movement. Hope they are all ok. I hate experimenting when I have customers wanting these! Just makes me ill.

I also checked the 6 lav orp eggs that are now on day 8 and looks like only 3/6 are developing.

No idea why their fertility has dropped off!
On the bright side, all 4 mutt eggs look good!

 

[BigWeenMachine]

That sounds like a good range to me.

My very first hatch ever resulted in a lone chick. The first two nights I ended up sleeping on the floor beside the cage so that I could reassure him once he got going. The third night I pulled the cage in beside my bed.....lol He was out a lot with us while he grew up. He did not like going back to his quarters at night, but he delt with it. lol

I tried the stuffed animals and the mirror and nothing worked with ours. He just wanted to be out with us. I do have some awesome pics though of him with everyone...lol

I must have really dried out those eggs or else my hygrometer may have been thrown off when I disinfected it after I pulled it outta the hatcher. I've got half of the floor on the Lyon filled with water which is over 5 times as much as I had before and I can still only get my humidity to read 55%. Wish those other 3 chicks would hurry up and hatch so I can stick my other hygrometer in the Lyon. Finally have pip number 4 this morning, I think. Looks like a crack halfway down the shell but can't be 100%. One of the other pips has widened their crack a bit so it looks on track. The other one's pip looks the same as last night, but when I play him videos the egg rocks around like crazy. They sure our taking their time.

Yea, our lil duckling peeped all night long and kept us all up. As soon as the others hatch they're goin to the utility room so we can get some sleep, lol. Whenever I stick my hand in he runs up and hops on which is completely different than I'm used to. Mail ordered ducklings freak out if you look at them for cryin out loud.

 

[BigWeenMachine]

Wow, he's learned how to be spoiled early on!!!! They're lucky there so dang cute!!

Yea, he is extremely spoiled but sweet as can be. He's much cuter now that he has fluffed up. Loves his penguin sister though

These are all ducks, right? I have a 3 week max on having chicks in the house. But I did have orphaned baby ducks in the house last week for one week. Oh my do they stink!! They are extremely messy and need the brooder cleaned out once a day. With a pregnant wife and her heightened sense of smell, I would get a jump on that utility room brooder. ASAP...lol!

I looked up that Lyon incubator and yes, they are expensive!! You're mom got a good deal! I was wondering which one you had. And how much capacity it had. The smaller one looks similar to the brinsea mini.

Yes, keep it up. If you want to totally halt growth, if you think they look as big as they should for day 28, you could even go up to 65%.

Yep, they are all messy ducks. They make such a huge mess. I'm toying with a new waterer this year, in hopes that they can't make such a mess. Hope it works but I doubt it since they can make a mess out of anything. Weather looks nice here the next couple weeks, in the upper 60s and 70s. I may put them out during the day and just bring them in during the nights. Should I put a heat lamp outside in case they get cold?

They Lyon's sticker is kind of worn off so all I could see was that it's a "marsh automatic incubator" but no number or ID other than that. The way I have it set up now it holds 40 eggs. You can see how I have them criss crossed in there. The eggs are so big that you couldn't put them in each cross but I almost wonder if it would hold 80 chicken eggs since they are much smaller. Without the turner I bet I could cram 60 duck eggs in it pretty easily though.

Workin on my humidity in the Lyon though. Got it to 55 %. With it being so dry here lately and getting those eggs in there dried out a bunch, I'm having problems getting it much higher. Gonna keep working on it though.

 

[CyndiD]

hi i joined this thread about a week ago, and i do believe in hands on and assisting hatches, if i know what i am doing... and i am learning as i must help my chicks and ducks hatch. my first duck asst, he was upside down, well actually sideways, didnt make it for a few reasons. i can tel you that story later

I NEED HELP at this moment with a Red Dorking that is externally pipping at the wrong end. this is what happend to my duckling and i think i helped him out of his shell too soon. I am afraid to do anything at this point for my chick, for fear of doing things wrong.
what should i do at this time?

thanks for any help.. it is 10:30am Idaho time, Wed

 

[AmyLynn2374]

hi i joined this thread about a week ago, and i do believe in hands on and assisting hatches, if i know what i am doing... and i am learning as i must help my chicks and ducks hatch. my first duck asst, he was upside down, well actually sideways, didnt make it for a few reasons. i can tel you that story later

I NEED HELP at this moment with a Red Dorking that is externally pipping at the wrong end. this is what happend to my duckling and i think i helped him out of his shell too soon. I am afraid to do anything at this point for my chick, for fear of doing things wrong.
what should i do at this time?



thanks for any help.. it is 10:30am Idaho time, Wed

How long has it been pipped?