Hatch-Along - Setting eggs this weekend (Jan5/6) WHOS WITH ME!

[Peggy-Sue]

Is anyone else planning to set a new batch of eggs?

We are I'm pretty sure we will be getting ours by next Wednesday... The are being mailed on Monday to avoid the chance of getting stuck at the post office on Sunday! We are getting "12 hen's choice." I believe these eggs could possibly be Welsummer, Barred Rock, Golden Lakenvelder, and Laced Red Wyandotte! Once we have 12 our chance of hatching at least 2 increases by a little(At least I would think). Our first time incubating we only had 6, we where using our quickly thrown together incubator which did not hold temp very well. We also kept the incubator in the basement which at times can be very drafty. Then we got our 10 Marans which as you all know none of them hatched. I don't know if maybe they got to cold on their way here or what they were coming from New Hampshire. I must say though the lady we got them from packed them really really well and even included a heater pack! So I blame the post office!!!!!! A week later we got our 6 mystery eggs. (we now have 4 due to 2 starting to smell)... They were totally unexpected lol. We signed up for the January WYGS that Reese Poultry holds and before "claiming" the Marans I had said that we would take eggs from the WYGS... So I guess we knew there was a chance of getting eggs but like I said we didn't expect it... Anyways so these 6 eggs were put in the LG incubator with the Marans till the Marans went into lock down. We then modified the homemade incubator to allow more air flow so our temps didn't fluctuate as much and our 6 eggs went in... The homemade incubator has been doing very good so far... Once today is day 25 for our Marans we are going to candle and use a stethoscope later on tonight to check one last time for life... If we don't hear or see anything we will be tossing them BUT.... Our 4 mystery eggs go on lock down tonight sooo I think we are going to move them from the homemade incubator to the LG once the humidity is already up at 57%... We plan on candling these 4 and use the stethoscope. As of day 14 these little guys where kicking and the eggs were pretty full already!!! The only concern I have for these eggs is the air cells seem to be on the bigger side! I guess when we candle tonight we will find out. I told my fiancee that I have a feeling these ones are going to hatch on Friday which would be day 19...

On a good note our 5 girls here at home have given us 95 eggs for the month of January!!! And one of our girls just started laying and has only given use 3 eggs out of the 95 from the other 4!!!! So we are pretty proud of them! We sold 5 dozen for 5 dollars so it bought us 2 bags of feed!!! We actually have a waiting list for eggs haha!

 

[dblea202]

@feyraine (im using my phone so I want quote things! Lol) I have read a lot places too that people ware having trouble hatching marans so it kinda makes me feel a little better that it may not be something we are doing. Our four eggs going into lockdown were in the incubator with our marans until lockdown and are now in our smaller handmade one until we take our marans out so they will be in our LG baton for lockdown. We also have decided not to try marans until we have a little bit more experience with hatching and incubating. We have gone through two batches of eggs without getting any luck. So hopefully the third time is so going to be the time we get chicks..im really looking forward to these four eggs but I don't want to get my hopes up to be let down again. Our fingers are crossed for these four babies!! These eggs were sent to us kind of unexpectedly and I just halve a really good feeling about them!

 

[Chickluver2012]

Ok, so I am new at this, is there a forum page for eggs that hatch by hens? This mostly seems to be incubators....Thanks...CknLuver

 

[fisherlady]

Sounds like a few of us will be starting more eggs next week. Should we start a new thread or continue on with this one?

I kinda hope you continue with this one... though I understand if you start a new page... I have really enjoyed the folks here and all of the help/support that has been provided. And even though we weren't using an incubator I have learned a TON of info for future reference on them!!!

If we don't hear or see anything we will be tossing them BUT.... Our 4 mystery eggs go on lock down tonight sooo I think we are going to move them from the homemade incubator to the LG once the humidity is already up at 57%... We plan on candling these 4 and use the stethoscope. As of day 14 these little guys where kicking and the eggs were pretty full already!!! The only concern I have for these eggs is the air cells seem to be on the bigger side! I guess when we candle tonight we will find out. I told my fiancee that I have a feeling these ones are going to hatch on Friday which would be day 19...

On a good note our 5 girls here at home have given us 95 eggs for the month of January!!! And one of our girls just started laying and has only given use 3 eggs out of the 95 from the other 4!!!! So we are pretty proud of them! We sold 5 dozen for 5 dollars so it bought us 2 bags of feed!!! We actually have a waiting list for eggs haha!

I am SSSOOOOOoooo hoping your mystery eggs give you some chicks!!! I hated seeing the troubles folks were having on their hatches and am glad you had a back up plan!!
Glad to hear you have some more headed your way this week...
Congrats on having a good market for your eggs! It is awesome that they are helping pay for your feed like that. We haven't tried selling yet really, other than to one fellow who is related and has insisted on paying. Many who we give our eggs to are folks who have helped out at some time during the past with 'chicken sitting' when we go away for weekends or have provided us with firewood or sawdust and that sort of thing.... more like we are now 'repaying' them with the good eggs!

 

[Peggy-Sue]

I kinda hope you continue with this one... though I understand if you start a new page... I have really enjoyed the folks here and all of the help/support that has been provided. And even though we weren't using an incubator I have learned a TON of info for future reference on them!!!
I am SSSOOOOOoooo hoping your mystery eggs give you some chicks!!! I hated seeing the troubles folks were having on their hatches and am glad you had a back up plan!!
Glad to hear you have some more headed your way this week...
Congrats on having a good market for your eggs! It is awesome that they are helping pay for your feed like that. We haven't tried selling yet really, other than to one fellow who is related and has insisted on paying. Many who we give our eggs to are folks who have helped out at some time during the past with 'chicken sitting' when we go away for weekends or have provided us with firewood or sawdust and that sort of thing.... more like we are now 'repaying' them with the good eggs!

We've given our neighbor a dozen or 2 for putting up with them... I don't think they mind but where we live your next door neighbor is maybe 100 feet away if that... Our property is like a normal housing plan lot...

 

[fisherlady]

Ok, so I am new at this, is there a forum page for eggs that hatch by hens? This mostly seems to be incubators....Thanks...CknLuver

Hi there.... we were lucky enough to have a broody hen who we gave eggs at the same time these folks set their incubators, so we got to 'hatch along' so to speak...

There are a couple of threads more devoted to broody hens though. Folks pop in and out of them depending on if they have a hen working or sometimes just to answer questions for folks.

See if they are what you are looking for....

1) this is a long running thread, and nearly every question there is about broodies has been asked at some point or other. I have spent many hours just reading it for learning purposes
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ody-hen-hatch-a-long-and-informational-thread

2) another good one for getting questions answered and finding other folks with active broodies.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/496101/broody-hen-thread

 

[SusanRenee]

just thought I'd share a few pics of our sweet chickies from this weekend...and for future reference, how do I calculate "hatch rate"? Is that simply the percentage of live hatchers out of the viable chicks going into lockdown? or percentage of live hatchers out of viable chicks from the beginning, including culls along the way? (I'm assuming it does NOT include infertiles culled throughout incubation) We started with 40 eggs, culled 16 over the first 10 days that were, in fact, infertile. Left us with 24 fertile eggs, went into lockdown with 18 looking great, and 6 looking long-time dead, but set them anyway, just in case. As I expected, the 6 never hatched (on later inspection, all six had died very early, they looked like first week deaths, and two were within days of setting, given their small size), but all 18 that were good at lockdown hatched. part of the crew... the one center-left, white with pink and silver stripe (and feathered legs!) was our first hatcher... the "red-head" most in focus, with stripe down back, is the chick whose egg we accidentally cracked back at day 10 or so of incubation...lovingly christened "candle" at this point thank you for the melted birthday candle advice! given the behavior of this chick now, I'll be surprised if it's not a roo...growing really fast, much bigger than the others, and VERY dominant! we have three that look like this one, and they have feathered legs, too! (the tiny one in the foreground, not the green jammies in the background there's only one that looks like her) we have three or four of these little yellow chicks with black polka dots on them, and feathered legs...then some other little yellows without spots or feathers on the legs...and one that's kind of blue-gray I'm so intrigued to see what these birds all look like! I'm going to call the breeder tomorrow and ask what all she had in that coop, so I can at least narrow my pool of guesses as to heritage! what might feathered legs be? that surprised me!

I'm pretty sure that your little ones with the black head stripe on the head are at least part Light Brahma, I have one and her chick looks like that, an the friend who gave her to me said she looked like that as a chick.

 

[Outrun Acres]

I kinda hope you continue with this one... though I understand if you start a new page... I have really enjoyed the folks here and all of the help/support that has been provided. And even though we weren't using an incubator I have learned a TON of info for future reference on them!!!
I am SSSOOOOOoooo hoping your mystery eggs give you some chicks!!! I hated seeing the troubles folks were having on their hatches and am glad you had a back up plan!!
Glad to hear you have some more headed your way this week...
Congrats on having a good market for your eggs! It is awesome that they are helping pay for your feed like that. We haven't tried selling yet really, other than to one fellow who is related and has insisted on paying. Many who we give our eggs to are folks who have helped out at some time during the past with 'chicken sitting' when we go away for weekends or have provided us with firewood or sawdust and that sort of thing.... more like we are now 'repaying' them with the good eggs!

I agree I think we should continue with this one. I have really enjoyed how much everyone participated and all the useful information that was posted. I have learned so much during this whole process and from all the BYC members.

Four days ago we found our Columbian Wyandotte hen in the nesting box at dusk. I checked in the morning and she was still sitting there. This behavior has continued for the last 4 days. I think we may have a broody hen on our hands! She must have heard all the chicks cheeping in the house and decided to hatch some of her own. I didn't think Wyandottes are a breed that tends to go broody. I left the eggs with her (only 4) it will be interesting to see what happens. I may sneak a few more under her. I think I will be able to collect enough eggs to start incubating by monday or tuesday.

Who else is going to continue hatching with there incubators and/or broody's?

 

[chicken pickin]

Does anyone know much about hatching pullet eggs. I cant remember if we discussed it here or if I was reading about it else where. I am setting eggs again probably on Sun. I been hoping for a while that one of my pullets who is in with a rooster would start to lay eggs so I can hatch them. Well lucky me my Japanese bantam laid her first egg today. Are these new pullet eggs ok to incubate or is it best for me to wait till next months incubation?

 

[fisherlady]

Who else is going to continue hatching with there incubators and/or broody's?

I would do it again in a minute! I am crossing my fingers that seeing Gracie with her chicks will give some of the other hens a nudge! I am totally hooked!