Hatching journey - my silkie babies

[Mother of Chicks]

OK - here we go. I have 12 silkie eggs in 2 incubators. 7 in my Brinsea Mini II Advance and 5 in my Mini Brinsea Eco. I have a staggered start but from the same batch and supplier. They are shipped, but only 13 miles (I am on super-lockdown as I have bad asthma). Due dates: 15th May for 7 and 19th May for 5.

Both have calibrated thermometers/hydrometers in them and I am running dry incubation until day 16/17 (dry around here is about 25%-30%).

One has a detached air cell hence the egg carton (fingers crossed).

I am new - be kind - help me out, folks.

Are you incubating? Can you share your tips?

I will be posting updates, candling pics and hopefully getting a video channel going for 'chick cam' (nope it's not rude )

 

[Kuekenkrazy]

No tips but I am in the same boat a few days behind you. I have 8 silkie eggs in two different incubators also doing a dry hatch with 20-30 percent in one of them. I did dip them in warm hydrogen peroxide and have all of them incubating in a carton because of the shipping but am still turning them slightly 3x a day. I am so nervous I keep checking my temps like every 30 mins. It's like being pregnant all over again

 

[Mother of Chicks]

No tips but I am in the same boat a few days behind you. I have 8 silkie eggs in two different incubators also doing a dry hatch with 20-30 percent in one of them. I did dip them in warm hydrogen peroxide and have all of them incubating in a carton because of the shipping but am still turning them slightly 3x a day. I am so nervous I keep checking my temps like every 30 mins. It's like being pregnant all over again

I have never heard of the hydrogen peroxide thing - what does that do? I candled my first set yesterday and all 7 were fertile - but I spotted a huge detached air cell on one of them so I am about to pop it in an egg carton upright.

Here's a candling picture

 

[Kuekenkrazy]

I am pretty sure the lady that sent me mine washed them off which us a big nono so my thinking was to 'sanitize' the egg surface before sticking them in the incubator. I will be laying all mine flat like they are supposed to be after day 3 I just wanted to make sure the chicks know which way is up after being knocked around through the post unnecessarily.

Seriously the breeder lives 15 minutes away and I followed tracking online, my babies went to post faculity in Augsburg (2 hours away!!) and then Ulm before coming back down here to Allgäu. It took 3 days.

 

[Mother of Chicks]

They have had a bumpy ride - poor babies. Mine too. They were local and in normal times I would have travelled to pick them up - but the situation is a bit limiting to say the least.

I let mine sit in the right orientation for 3 days to settle them. So far, only 2/12 have detached air cells so they are getting a bit of extra TLC.

Tonight is weigh day - we'll see if my humidity needs to change

 

[Gardencottager]

Good luck with your hatch. I’m afraid I don’t have any tips either as im in a similar boat to you. My silkies are on day 7 but I’ve only got three left out of six as the others were blood rings so im desperately hoping the others survive. I’m also trying a dryer hatch - it’s gone from 40% down to 20% over 7 days. Don’t know if that is too low? I haven’t weighed them but I have drawn where the air sac is and will keep monitoring that way.

 

[Mother of Chicks]

I read an article saying that for a dry incubation you need 15%-30% up to day 18 but weighing is important. I am aiming to proportionally reduce the weight by about 12% by day 18 and so some maths is in order. You can see how I am going to track here

Please feel free to use as a template if it's helpful. If when I candle tonight they have lost too much weight, I will up the humidity a tad. I'm being super cautious as my first hatch of 2 eggs failed :/

This article was incredibly helpful. I am monitoring humidity in my rooms too now.

Let's know how you are getting on!

 

[Gardencottager]

Thanks for that article and the tracking info. I’ll try weighing them as well although not sure how to work that out now I’m on day 7? Maybe if I go with keeping the weight loss to under 8% (2/3 of 12) from now on? I’ll mostly rely on the size of the air sac though as weight loss might not be as accurate from this stage.

I also had a bad previous hatch so hopefully this goes better. I’ll let you know any success/failures I have.

 

[Mother of Chicks]

I wrote an equation to backtrack - it's in the spreadsheet. I forgot to weigh one batch on day 0 because I am a muppet - you should be able to use it as a rule of thumb still - especially if you go by periodic losses rather than total average.

 

[Gardencottager]

Ok thanks, I’ll try that. Maths is not my strong point though