I have 150 eggs set as of Saturday Feb 13th.

[TDCLARK9]

Hey Dave, I'm New To The Incubating Biz. My First Hatch Was Ducks, Someone Said Chicks Were Harder. I Built An Incubator That I Did The Ducks In. I've Got Rir X Bar Rock
Eggs In The Bator Now. I Found This Thread Last Saturday After I Came Home From An Auction With Nine Doz Assorted Eggs. I Built Another Bator In A Hurry And Am Going To Build Another One Tomorrow Or Friday, Was Wondering If Youmight Have A Few Pictures Of Yours.

 

[dave27889]

I don't have any right now and it's raining here and my back and legs are acting up. I will get some out just as soon as possible. I will send it to your pm and try posting them. Good luck with your hatch. By the way I always heard it was harder to hatch duck eggs than chickens. I hatched out 12 kaki's and a few peking ducks before and with the misting and higher humidity I found the duck eggs to be a lot more bother than chicken eggs. Well good luck with all and I will try to get the pictures up. Later, David

 

[TDCLARK9]

Thanks, Dale

 

[texasgal]

OK .. this thread has my hyperventilating .. lol.

I hatched 23 eggs this month and have 18 chicks and I am almost overwhelmed.

I can NOT fathom 150 ...

 

[dave27889]

Okay you guys you are just proving my wife right. I guess the medications drove me crazy. My wife said I was crazy but I looked at it this way. First shipped eggs usually are only about a hatch rate of 65% to 55% . I then figured another 10% loss from the cold weather. So using the 55% plus the 10% that is a 65% loss total. That would leave me with only 52 eggs. Then if you figure that you might get a 50% split of Hens to roosters that leaves you with only 25 hens that will be laying eggs for you later. Then if you really want to push it there is the likely hood that some of those pullets won't make it to the laying stage due to illness or just don't lay for some reason. Let's just say that number is 2. That leaves you with only 23 hens out of 150 eggs you hatched.
Then just to show I am not totally crazy. Those eggs were split between BCM, Welsummers, RIR's, Delaware, EE's and Jersey Giants. I had anaverage of 20 of each type of egg. So I figure that in some of those breeds I would only get about 7 chicks from the hatch and only 50% of those would be hens. That would give me possibly 4 hens from each breed. That would be 4 hens per breed times the 6 breeds = 24 hens.
Ain't math a great thing when it works towards your crazy goals. So as you see I did not really get to many eggs. In fact I should have gotten about 50% more to make my goal of about 6 of each breed, but I can always do another hatch this Spring. The shipping percent would go up and so should the hatch rate. I need to copy this and have it ready when my wife tries to commit me to the hospital to see if I am sane or not.
I really don't expect such loss. In fact my shipping loss was less than 15%. I have only had a loss in incubation of about 2% so far and don't expect a loss of much more than another 5% incubation loss. I am trying to see how this works so it is not all a total bunch of hooie. I will post it at the end of incubation along with all the chick pictures and other stuff. Take care and talk with you again soon. Later, Dave

 

[IggiMom]

Dave! Right away I can see that I am not hatching out nearly enough eggs! Why did I not see this before.

Thanks!

On the other hand, wives are always right. Of course, since I AM the wife this is important to know.

Catherine

 

[dave27889]

We have 1 BIG RULE at our home. If the wife ain't happy nobody is happy. Thus to keep the wife happy the wife is always right. She sometimes let's me be right but some how it was my fault. I kid a lot. Paula is my whole world and I love her more than words can express. She knows I love this and she really does support me in it. She just does not want me to get over whelmed with it. She worries about my back, heart and the diabeties. We are both working toward a better life style and trying to eat better and exercise more. The chickens take my mind off of things until it's time to buy feed or eggs. With the eggs I have now I hope to have the egg buying come down abit. Take care, Dave

 

[dave27889]

UPDATE ON HATCHING.
I checked 80 eggs this morning from the hova bator. The total on loss is now 2 RIR's, $ Delaware, I mix Jersey Giant and 9 EE's. I am not real hopeful on these EE's. They were in the cold weather with a heat pack in the box but, that was almost cold when it got here. The weather was really bad and I just don't know how the other 3 are going to do. I do have another 14 that came from another person that are in another incubator.
The other eggs in the Hova bator are doing well and I have seen some movement in the eggs. I can even see the heart beat in some of the lighter colored Delaware eggs. The BCM's are just getting darker and Darker in the shell. I take it that is the chick growing so I am very hopeful on that. I will check the homemade coolers tomorrow and report.
My feet and back hurt so I will say good day and good hatching. P,S. We had a short period of light snow around noon today. It only lasted about 20 minutes but it was pretty. Glad it is gone though. That is Eastern N.C. weather. If you don't like the weather wait 2 hours and it will change. Take care and best wishes to all. Later, Dave

 

[TDCLARK9]

DAVE, thanks for the math lesson. hopefully it will help. I figured out how to get 200 eggs in my next home made bator and I'm going to another auction tomorrow night. I may need some advanced math classes. Our weather here in Fl is going to be near freezing tonight. I brought my little ducks inside. hope it warms up by the time the chicks arrive or things could get ugly. dale



















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[dave27889]

My wife's family is from Sanford Fl. Her Dad was born and raised there. Have seen some beautifly weather there but some cold stuff also. Good luck, Dave