Hatching

[telfer55]

Hi Everyone. I have just had a great hatching of chicks for my first go but ran into some problems during the hatch . I had 38 eggs in a 60 egg manual turn incubator. The problem arose when they started to hatch. The hatching chicks kicked the other eggs all over the place. We left them in as long as possible but thought we might lose too many still to hatch so started taking them out when they were fluffy. That of course lowered the humidity for the others. We ended up with 33 out of 38 which was amazing but I lost the last little fellow from dehydration and had to help one out. Any answers for handling this the next time as I am about to have another go ? Yes I think I have an Incubation addiction problem!!

 

[curious1969]

You might try putting them in an egg carton or flat for hatching. This way the babies can't move them around very much. If I have large hatches this works well for me.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Just for your information , incubation addiction is not a problem, it is a state of being. Like alive versus dead.;-) When you put your eggs on lockdown, put them in the bottoms of egg cartons. You don't need to turn them the last couple of days anyway. They stay in place and you can see what's happening better. Hatch on!

 

[telfer55]

Thankyou fgor that. I wondered about egg cartons but wasn't game enough to do anything that wasn't in the instruction manual. Will try that with my next batch.

 

[Gypsy07]

If you can fit as many egg cartons as you'd need into your incubator, that would work great. You can use cardboard or plastic ones, it doesn't really matter, but remember to cut out a big hole in the bottom of each cup, and cut the top of the carton down a bit. The holes in the cups are for maximum air circulation to get oxygen to the growing embryos, and cutting the top down a bit is to make sure the sides of the carton don't obstruct the chick when it's pipping, zipping and hatching. If you're incubating very small eggs, you might need to cut the carton down by as much as half!

But 33 out of 38 for your first ever incubation is an excellent hatch result. There's every chance the ones that didn't make it were just slightly weaker, and even with a higher humidity and not getting kicked around they still might not have made it. That's just how hatching works...

 

[Jobele]

That's a fantastic hatch! I don't think even an experienced hatcher would complain about that ratio!

The egg cartons are the way to go if you don't want your eggs to move too much with the chicks moving around.

 

[telfer55]

Yes I was really pleased to get 33. We even had to turn them off and do a 50 km journey there and back with them on my knee wrapped in a towel and lifting them for bumps ! I expected to get no chicks. I do think the turning was the saving grace. They were turned at least three times per day without fail. We have a real mixed batch of very cute little fellows. All colours and sizes. Hope we have some hens as the chap I got the eggs from has since lost quite a few of his lovely chooks and ducks to a fox . I will be able to replace some for him.

 

[cmom]

Congratulations on your hatch and welcome to the hatch-a-holic club. Hatching is very addicting...

 

[telfer55]

Lol Yes I know. The next lot are going in tonight. Hope I didn't just have beginners luck

 

[cmom]

I just set 34 more eggs in the incubator and around 50 in the hatchers today. I have hatches on Oct. 29th, Nov. 2nd, Nov. 9th, and Nov. 16th so far.