INCUBATING w/FRIENDS! w/Sally Sunshine Shipped Eggs No problem!

[Chaos18]

Whoops. Sorry chaos. Glad your doing food. I'm fine. Me and my boy went fishing today. I'm paying for it now but it's worth the back pain. We had fun and caught about twenty lbs. Of catfish. We both caught 4 a piece but one of his was a 4 pounder.

It's always worth the pain spending time with the kids. Keep any of the cats for a fish fry?

 

[caeti21]

@Sally Sunshine my phone is being a crazy so idk if my update i posted a minute ago went through or not , so here it is i had 20 out 24 rir hatch , and 8 conturnix quail out of 12 hatch they are happily living with my hen that went broody and she hatched out 5 eggs herself , right now i only have my six for the hatchalong in the bator to hatch then im done hatching for a while

 

[Fire Ant Farm]

OK, all caught up. My update @Sally Sunshine :

I set 8 eggs on March 5. They were from a single pairing of Dumbledore after his recovery from the dog attack (Cream Legbar rooster, aka Captain America superhero protector-of-hens and regrower-of-tail-feathers) and my CL hen Clarissa Theresa Philomena Aileen Mary Josephine Agnes Elsie Trilby Louise Esmerelda Dickson Wright (aka Lissa). She is the only Marek's resistant one (at least so far), who also had great auto sexing as a baby and has pretty good coloring - I need her babies for future pure CLs in my flock, don't want Paula (died of Marek's) or Jenny (alive with ocular Marek's) as parents in the pure CL group as I must breed for resistance - their babies (earlier hatch) will be part of the Naked Neck CL hybrid program instead.

This time I followed Sally's recommendation for blue (CL) eggs, and ran calibrated humidity 32%, and calibrated temp of about 101F for the first 7 days and then about 100.3F until lockdown (per Hubbard guide linked in Hatching 101). This humidity gave me PERFECT air cells! (Thank you Sally!!!!!!!

)

Took out one clear/infertile at 10 days. Seven went into lock down, six happy healthy adorable babies made it out (two boys and four girls). One was pipped at the wrong end (the first pip, actually). I left it alone completely (hearing Sally's voice in my head reminding me that for wrong end pips, the internal and external pip are the same, requiring a LOT of patience). I had a temporary (a few hours?) drop in humidity overnight when the water ran out (user error again), right in the middle of five pips and a zip, but I refilled the water immediately, put in several soaked sponges and prayed a lot, and they all did ok. The wrong end pip made it out all on her own, no problem at all. All hatched Day 20 or overnight that night. They were laid side by side touching, and synchronized themselves in the hatch relatively well - not super tight, but lasted from 12 noon day 20 through overnight that night. Not bad.

The babies are STUPID cute - I just keep staring at them...



The remaining egg was DIS (I held it in the 'bator a while to be sure, even with bad looking candle, then opened staring with air cell for eggtopsy). It was egg #8 - since these were all from one hen (freshest egg numbered #1), and she didn't lay every day, this egg was older (not sure how that fits into this).

Eggtopsy photos below (sorry, I've never figured out how to do photos in a spoiler). I waited until day 22 (2 days after last hatch). Essentially it was a combo malposition - beak over wing as well as foot between head and shell (or maybe partial head between legs). Never even internally pipped. It was a boy.








I'm done hatching for the year, so you can take me off the hatching list - I have a lot of birds, and I also have 20 baby chicks coming on Thursday from Eight Acres Farm (German New Hampshires, Blue Copper Marans, and a few olive eggers for fun). But I will ALWAYS be building something, including a few more tractors as well as a new layer coop for the BCM and olive eggers, so I suppose you can leave me on the coop expansion list indefinitely...

Happy hatches everyone!!!!

- Ant Farm

 

[rIrs roost]

It's always worth the pain spending time with the kids. Keep any of the cats for a fish fry?

No. We have a lot of catfish in the deep freeze. And luckily we can fish that pond anytime and they keep it stocked

 

[Jessimom]

I am done hatching for now. I will be building some pens for different types, selecting my keepers, and selling extras. I have my few (14) from winter hatches including the only three I kept, not knowing what was going to happen, from my original flock. Then I have over sixty chicks of various types from two days to four or five weeks old most from March first. Then I have two GFF CCL cockrels in quarantine that are nine weeks old. Plenty to sort through, and ten are meat birds on a short term plan

Wow, that sounds like a lot of work you have going on! I am already looking at all the babies I hatched, KNOWING that I have to get rid of 90% of them, and there is NO WAY I'm going to be able to choose..... how do you choose? Are you looking for the highest quality - certain traits etc? Or just the ones you like the best?

This striped one is my favorite so far, it's my spraddle leg chick. I have no idea what breed. Anyone have suggestions?

 

[Chaos18]

No. We have a lot of catfish in the deep freeze. And luckily we can fish that pond anytime and they keep it stocked

That's nice to always have a place to wet a line.

 

[rIrs roost]

That's nice to always have a place to wet a line.

X2 we love fishing. He's really my gf son but I claim him as my own. His real dad is almost completely out of the picture.

 

[Coreenelane]

I am using a 25 watt light buld for heat and am going into lockdown now. Raised the wire rack with 2 pcs of 1x1 wood strips and have 3 soaked sponges under the wire. Replaced eggs on wire and sealed up the holes. What if the temp. starts going high like 105 and up? Do I dare try to lower it? I have no idea if any eggs are alive or not.13 eggs 2 are sultun and the others cochin, wwyandotte, dominque and buff brahma. And daddys are cochins. When I candled the eggs I could not see any light area outside of the end air pocket. Are there any pics of candled eggs at 18 days? Still need to rebuild another incubator and return the Little giant to TSC. The controls are a mess and readings all over the place. Son in law stopped home at 7 pm and had 3 beautiful thick styro boxes. Just like Christmas! All different in size. I have my fan from old pc and will pick up water heater temp. thing tomorrow, have wire and cord. Not sure what else I will need.Thanks for any advice you can send my way.

 

[Phage]

Quote: Or maybe because it was weakened from repeated candling and tipping and cooling. Or maybe even bacterial infection???

This was inevitable at some point.

 

[rIrs roost]

Or maybe because it was weakened from repeated candling and tipping and cooling. Or maybe even bacterial infection???

This was inevitable at some point. 

I'm not trying to start a fuss but I was told that most of the time If a chick doesn't hatch on its own, that usually there's something wrong with it. Anyone else heard this?