I set eggs 2/27/10 ** DUE 3/20th-3/21st** WE"RE HATCHING!!!!

[prncssprplfrog]

What I woke up to this morning!

Now I really don't wanna go to work!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Congrats Jenn!!!


I woke up to find 5 Orps now in my bator. (1 blue, 4 splash) One other Orp egg was pipped, but the little buggers somehow managed to knock it out of the egg carton. So now it's cracked and I don't know if it's okay or not. I'd open it to find out, but I have a silver penciled rock zipping right now.

I now have 4 silver penciled rocks. (5 when the one zipping comes out)

3 eggs left, the 1 cracked Orp and 2 Rocks.

 

[prncssprplfrog]

I have no idea what this little guy/girl is: I can't tell if it was a sebright/buff brahma cross or gl wyandotte/ buff brahma cross as I can't tell the difference between the two eggs. I took a pic yesterday of all 5 varieties of eggs I'm getting. I was expecting teeny tiny eggs from my Sebright, so I thought she wasn't laying. When I get home, I'll post a pick in another thread with the pic of the eggs & see if we can play "name that egg".


This little one is totally black (ish) with a small white oval on it's chest. Blackish legs & beak. He wasn't fully dried & fluffed out before I left for work, but we put a little stuffed animal in with him since he's all alone. I'm so glad my son has a half day today so that he can go home and keep an eye on them!

I seriously thought about taking the whole contraption to school & plugging it in since I have a 1/2 day conference day- but I didn't want to disrupt things further.


Congrats New2chooks.

 

[Sweetfolly]

Congrats on the babies, prncssprplfrog & new2chooks!

I'm having humidity problems again with the Cochin eggs. Both water channels are filled in the bottom of the Octagon 20 AND I have a washcloth dipped into one of the channels and stretched out across the bottom, the humidity is hovering between 60-65% and the air cells still look too big. Other than that, the little buggers look healthy in there, but they're on Day 11, and the air cells look like they should be right around Day 18!

Last year, I had a batch of Cochin eggs and I had the humidity too high - now I've managed to somehow get it too low!

I really want to get it all sorted out and solved before the next batch of eggs arrives on Monday. It's just bizarre that I have the humidity so high - almost high enough for hatching - and the eggs still seem to be drying out too fast.

The craziest part is that the duck eggs are in the other Octagon 20 incubator right next to them, and I've been running that one dry - I haven't added any water to it yet, and the air cells in the duck eggs look perfect.

On a brighter note, after despairing over what to do with the humidity situation with the itty bitty Cochin eggs, I candled the Welsh Harlequin duck eggs, and I could see all their little hearts beating!

 

[nhnanna]

Quote:
I think your humidity is too high. That is what I keep mine at to hatch out at day 18.
I would take the wash cloth out and keep it between 35-40 for now until day 18.

 

[Sweetfolly]

Quote:
I think your humidity is too high. That is what I keep mine at to hatch out at day 18.
I would take the wash cloth out and keep it between 35-40 for now until day 18.

I know - that's the dilemma. The air cells are HUGE (I'll try to get a picture). I had the humidity even higher during all of week 2 (I knew it was too high though, and I was running dehumidifiers in the room trying to get it down!) for my last Bantam Cochin hatch, and one little guy came out sticky, one came out perfectly normal, and one drowned in the shell.

Here's what I was told/read yesterday about hatching these little Bantam Cochin eggs:
Quote:
I had just one water channel filled for the first week or so and humidity was at about 45% (yes- I've calibrated my hygrometer, and it's accurate within 2%) but that obviously was too low for this batch of eggs. I'm thinking I'll keep it up around 55-65% for the next few days, candle again, and see if the air cells improve at all.

EDIT - So, I've been doing some surfing on google for phrases like bantam cochins are hatching, hatched, ect., and I've found a couple of blogs of people who have hatched Bantam Cochins and had air cells taking up an entire 50% of the eggs by hatching time. Of the stories I've found so far, these chicks hatched normally. Maybe I'm overreacting about my big air cells.

I think it's ironic that duck eggs are supposed to be harder to hatch than chicken eggs, and I can breeze right through a duck hatch without the slightest problem, and when I try my hand at chickens, I have all sorts of trouble!

 

[fordmommy]

Down to 1 quail. Another died this morning. Can't figure out why. Just Peanut left. Hopefully he'll live. They seem all healthy and fine and I check them before I go to bed. And when I get up they are dead.

 

[prncssprplfrog]

Aww- sorry for the loss of your quail. The same thing happened to my uncle a while back when he tried to hatch a bunch of them. He had a few hatch & ended up with just Quincey left in the end....I don't remember how long Quincey lived being a lonely quail.

 

[Sparkelrose]

So I finally got my pictures loaded to my comp. Here is my hatch so far I set 8 eggs on 2/26, 6 from my RIR/EBO and 2 from what I thought was ameraucanas, but now know are EE's/EBO and 6 hatched in all both my EE/EbO eggs and 4 of my RIR/EBO eggs. I think that was a pretty good first ever hatch! I took Just under 2 dozen to a friends house and he has called twice once on day 5 and then today on day 12 and said they all look good! I am so excited!!! But what started as a couple babies has turned out to be 11 almost 3 month old banties, 4 month old banties and 20 3-1week old standards. So I think I will be selling wht hatches from the eggs my friend has. I didn't plan on starting a chicken farm, but I guess I have! My friend that is hatching even said that he would give me his silkie broody hen! So I can start on pure breeds too! I am having so much fun!!! My last bunch is due to hatch on the 4th of April.

Here are my first babies!
these are from my EE/EBO

and here are me RIR/EBO

Last sweet baby to hatch.

PS... EBO means English Buff Orpington

 

[fordmommy]

They are aborable, sparkelrose!I love that 1st light yellow one's wings. Sure is going to be a cutie!


Well-Peanut is still here, happy as can be. I got kinda worried last night because he was so quiet. First time for him.

Yesterday I but all the week olds with the 2 week olds and everyone is getting along famously! I am very relieved. Some of the older ones are also 2 1/2 weeks to 3 weeks old. Not one quarel.

Not even with the serama babies. It's like they knew eachother from the beginning.

All is quiet in my bator too. Temp holding at 100.4*.