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

[lamoka]

LovestoHatch, I was right in the middle of all the fun 14" of snow made me a nervouse wreck they where threatening power outages luckily I did not have any, alot of surrounding areas did. I came home from work and the pip I had earlier had hatched and is doing great. I have 4 more pips hopefully they hatch before I go to bed. I am off tomorrow so it should be fun. Good luck everyone this is the exciting and stressful time we have been waiting 3 weeks for.

 

[nickie]

Leave it alone.

It seems like there has to be something I can do. It is so HARD.......

Sure, you can do lots of things... Sit on your hands and stare at the incubator, flip through a magazine and think about the incubator, stare at the tv and think about the incubator, hold a book open in front of your face and think about the incubator... Tons of stuff you can do. In all seriousness, leave it alone. I know its hard, real hard, but chill. And keep your hands off the babies until at least tomorrow.

 

[lamoka]

Ok so I forgot how quick they can hatch sometimes, I just went and checked the bator and in less then 10 minutes one of them had went from pip to fully hatched. I now have 2 hatched and 5 more pipped dont think I will be getting much sleep tonight good thing I am off tomorrow.

 

[fowlsessed]

Sure, you can do lots of things... Sit on your hands and stare at the incubator, flip through a magazine and think about the incubator, stare at the tv and think about the incubator, hold a book open in front of your face and think about the incubator... Tons of stuff you can do. In all seriousness, leave it alone. I know its hard, real hard, but chill. And keep your hands off the babies until at least tomorrow.

LOL. I actually just set up my brooder, and when I came in..... TADA! number four was out.

 

[fowlsessed]

So does everyone agree that I should wait till morning to take the chicks out? The first one that hatched came out at five am this morning, so tomorrow morning at five will be a full 24 hours. I guess what I'll do is, if there has been any progress with the current, and I think last, pip; then I'll leave em alone for a while longer. But if everything looks the same, then I'll go ahead and pull them out. Still adding some water and leaving the bator running though, just in case. And, is anyone on here at five in the morning?lol

 

[SilverDuck284]

Terrible news from my batch... I got home from work about 3 hours ago and the light in the bator had blown and somehow fried a bit of wire/tape. The temp was at 91 but temps from the wiggler were in the low 70's. I had to take the eggs out to fix the incubator, so before I put them back I candled them and saw no movement at all. They were so cold!! I'm so scared that they are all dead!! :'''(

I couldn't sleep without checking them. The temp is back up and the wiggler is reading about 90. I candled and I think I might have seen movement in 2. Barely. One of them I only saw what looked like a vein throbbing. I'm trying to stay optimistic... But maybe my eyes are playing tricks.. =/

Anyone know what my odds are? I'm so upset!

 

[Zootopia]

Terrible news from my batch... I got home from work about 3 hours ago and the light in the bator had blown and somehow fried a bit of wire/tape. The temp was at 91 but temps from the wiggler were in the low 70's. I had to take the eggs out to fix the incubator, so before I put them back I candled them and saw no movement at all. They were so cold!! I'm so scared that they are all dead!! :'''(
I couldn't sleep without checking them. The temp is back up and the wiggler is reading about 90. I candled and I think I might have seen movement in 2. Barely. One of them I only saw what looked like a vein throbbing. I'm trying to stay optimistic... But maybe my eyes are playing tricks.. =/
Anyone know what my odds are? I'm so upset!

OH that sucks, Maybe some of them will still make it. Just give it a couple of days.

fowlsessed-- leave the babies till tommrow and everyone in there is nice and dry. Then open up grab them and shut it quqck! I have had some hatch on day 23 and I always leave them to 24. You'll kill anything with a chanche getting too antsy.

That said, after the screwed up air cells (one was all the way down the side and at the bottom) and having to wash all those beautiful $$ eggs, I loaded the bator back up and am just caheking the hatcher once in a while, still hoping that I'll get a couple out of the 6 that made it to lockdown.

Good hatching vibes to everyone and remember they call it LOCKDOWN for a reason!!

 

[live2shine]

YAY!!!! I just got home and my first chick from my eggs set on April 6th hatched! The other 3 set on the 6th have all pipped...I might have them all in the morning! Most of my eggs have hatched a day earlier then expected based on their set date...weird! ?? I don't know if this has something to do with me getting my eggs from my hens outside. Maybe them sitting on them right away gives them a head start.

Anyway, I wanted to encourage everyone- especially those concerned with doing things perfectly- and let you know that I did everything absolutely "wrong" and I've had success! I have a basic incubator that I set the temperature for and always made sure there was a little water in and the temperature was maintained. A few times during incubation, it dried up...I don't know for how long. Quite a few times the temp was way off, too. I set eggs on various days- BUT I realized I coincidentally did it brilliantly because my first hatch was set on the 2nd and 3rd, and the rest of the eggs are the 6th and 8th. The eggs that hatched from the 2nd and 3rd I was able to get out, then I was able to set the rest of the eggs on lockdown in time! The second batch got a lot of turning from those chicks rolling them around in there after hatching, too. That brings me to the last thing I did "wrong". I took the chicks out after about an hour or two after hatching to put in the brooder. I did it as quickly as I could, but the chicks were banging around all the eggs in the incubator. They even cracked one, I think. I felt better just transferring them into the brooder and not worrying about them ruining the other eggs.

So far I have 10 chicks out of the 16 eggs I set. I have two eggs left from the first group set on the 2nd and 3rd, but I'm expecting 4 more from the ones set on the 6th and 8th. Once I upload my pictures I'll post them. I'm so excited- they're sooo cute!!!! Nothing is cuter than a day-old chick falling asleep while it's standing up.

Oh, and word for first timers- they are really tired and just lay there after they hatch- some longer than others. I kept thinking they were dead and it took everything in me not to open the incubator and "help". I'm glad I didn't.

 

[steveclank]

Nothing yet as of this morning, don't really expect any activity till tonight at the earliest. My temperature was running 99.6 most of the time, and now it rose slightly during lockdown to 100.5. Should I adjust the temperature a little, or leave it?

 

[lamoka]

Ok they had a busy night I now have 8 Hatched and not sure how many pips at this time. My one complaint on my Brinsea Oct. is that it gets way crowded very quickly with chicks and empty shells, I am getting temps up in my temp. brooder to move the chicks to. The open eggshells are sticking to the unhatched eggs so I will need to get them out to. I hate opening the incubator but it is getting way crowded and it is getting almost impossible for the others to hatch.