Hatchalong! Setting Eggs April 6, 2012. Anyone else in?

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I set my first eggs since 9th grade (11 years ago) yesterday too! I only got 7 because it's been a while and we have the same incubator- my ex was supposed to hatch them for me but bailed out on Wednesday night since his snake is laying a clutch so I had my mom grab one at the feed store Thursday night. OMG it took me FOREVER to get the temp within range. I picked up my eggs from the post office (i know, the HORROR
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) this morning at 8 and set them around 4:30 ish. and literally have been going back and forth to my closet every thirty minutes adjusting the temp. Well since there's only 7, considering they're shipped, AND the incubator (although i did hatch 36 of 36 back then and i didn't even have a hygrometer) We are just hoping everything goes well and will be happy if we only get just one! They're Blue/Splash/Black Silkie eggs. I want a splash sooooo bad. The person I got them from had 2 splash roos 3+ splash hens and 3blue hens and a black hen so I'm holding my breath.
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Here's my pictures and a little more info: out of the 40 eggs, 3 were broken when I went to put them in, so I took 3 eggs from my refridgerator that was given to me to eat. I'm not sure they will hatch because I'm not sure how long they were already refridgerated at this point since they were eggs given to us to eat. They are from the same people I'm hatching these eggs for so it was worth a shot. I marked them with an R on top so I can tell which ones they are. All the vents are open and this incubator is in the basement bedroom.
I have a hovabator 1583 forced air for incubating, first time using this one is this year. I just finished incubating duck eggs in this which are now in my old incubator that I will be using for hatching for these chicken eggs as well. My old incubator is a hovabator 1602N still air. Also I'm trying the dry hatch method as I just did with my duck eggs. I'll be able to tell more how all this worked after my ducks hatch. Hopefully I can correct any problems during this hatch that I see happened with the ducks.
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Notice the temp is only 98.8 from the water wiggler in there. I turned this temp down from 99.5 because my duck eggs are already externally pipped and they are not due to hatch til wednesday the 11th. So first thing I noticed from first hatch is my temp must be running a little high.

I have 2 digital thermometers in this water wiggler and the thermometer that came with the inc is on top of the eggs. hygrometer you can see is in the egg turner. reading about 20%. room humidity on digital outside of inc is about 40%.

Now all we have to do is sit and wait
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and hopefully not make to many tweaks.
 
No, this is my first time dry hatching anything, But I'll let you know how it goes. the humidity in the room has been around 40% the whole time and I just added a little water during the incubation process. I don't think the humidity was ever above 30% in the inc. Air cells were a wide range even on the same side of incubator sitting next to each other one rack apart. I started with 12 duck eggs, threw out 4 after 10 days that were either clear or stopped developing. 8 went into the hatcher on Friday when I put the chicken eggs in the inc. all were moving and showing good veins still, air cells were still a wide variety. I was hand turning the duck eggs when I noticed a dark spot on one of the eggs Saturday night. I candled it and noticed that it had internally pipped and could see the duck taking up most of the air sac it was not just his beak in there. I checked a couple of hours ago and have 6 pipped duck eggs. the first one to externally pip was the one I had marked that had the smallest air sac.
 
I set mine on April 3rd and i am waiting to candle them on day 7 can't wait to see what's going on in there! This would be my first hatch ever so fingers crossed it all works out we will see. I am hatching French Black Copper Marans and pure Amerucana's I have 3 yes 3 Thermometers in there and a hygrometer as well. I am doing the dry hatch method posted here on BYC. Room humidity is at 60% and 28% in the bator for now. Temp has maintained well at 100 so i am keeping my fingers and toes crossed that they hatch we will see
 

This is a picture of one of the chicken eggs I threw out before putting in the incubator. No visible cracks on the outside but candled it before putting in it and saw all these lines and cracks.
 
Interesting. I haven't used the dry hatch method before. I have hatched duck eggs in an incubator once, but, they were naturally incubated until their mother abandoned the nest after we had some predation issues. I would have thought as water birds they wouldn't be good candidates for dry incubation. It will be interesting to see what happens. Thanks for sharing your info with us!
 
there's a thread here on BYC It is a sticky under geese or waterfowl section very detailed info by Pete55 I found it a good read and decided to try it. It's called Goose Incubation & Hatching Guide - Completed!! https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/491013/goose-incubation-hatching-guide-completed
I didn't weigh the eggs like he does but I probably should have. It applies to chickens too. I think he uses a goose egg as an example.lots of candling pictures too. I've done things a little different using things I have,and some of the things I've done in the past, it's definitely worth the read.
 

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