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Locking down the first dozen EE tonight. 6 EE & 6 runner duck (possible call cross) on Friday. 50+ assorted chickens due in 3 weeks and 2 dozen+ ducks a week later. But at least I sold all my extra hens/pullets today. Down to 10 EE,2 cochin , and 1 polish. Also freezer camped several roos so lots of room at the inn now.
 
So I got to take my babies out of the incubator last night, I just cant get over how big and fluffy they are! I'll get some pictures, but its amazing the difference in size compared to any other ones that I've hatched this year! Wonder what would do that since I've mostly hatched brahmas this year and these are brahma X....with mostly red star and easter egger, which aren't the largest breeds out there. Its funny, one of the easter egger/brahma has these big fluffy cheeks on top of big fluffy feet AND he's just a huge fluff ball.

I think I'm going to have to slow down on hatching once when the last box of quail arrive.....the coolerbator needs to be cleaned, getting an odd smell and I went through all the eggs in there and nothing seems amiss. But who knows, I told myself I would be done about 5 batches ago.....
 
Set up my still air to use as a hatcher instead of my Hovabator Genesis 1588 this past week before I left for 3 weeks. My hatches had dropped DRAMATICALLY since I'd switched out to the cabinet coolerbator as an incy and the Hovabator as a hatcher, so I decided to experiment a little. Put 13 EE eggs and 2 turkey eggs in lockdown on Thursday. 10/13 and 1/2 hatched!!! So my bf cleaned it all out and today is locking down 48 eggs in it. We shall see!!! Sure seemed better last weeks hatch! This week will have 17 shipped eggs and 31 EE eggs go in. I candled them on Wednesday last week to pull any bad ones, but he will have to just stick all of those in this week because he doesn't know what to look for. It'll be my biggest hatch yet!!!! And I'm not even there! :(
A few of this past weeks baby pics my sweety sent me for a little fix! Lol
400

400
 
Don't tell my huibby but I set 240 eggs yesterday.....
barnie.gif
Most don't usually have great fertility so I think I will toss about half or more...... I hope. I moved a lot of birds around and I think that will effect fertility since they are now on wire floors but we will see. I have another 6 doz when I get the last batch of Guinea eggs tomorrow probably.
 
And we're off...Three "purebred" EE hatched today (two days early) and 4 more pipped. Pics will come at the end of hatch.
 
LeviS said:
So I got to take my babies out of the incubator last night, I just cant get over how big and fluffy they are! I'll get some pictures, but its amazing the difference in size compared to any other ones that I've hatched this year! Wonder what would do that since I've mostly hatched brahmas this year and these are brahma X....with mostly red star and easter egger, which aren't the largest breeds out there. Its funny, one of the easter egger/brahma has these big fluffy cheeks on top of big fluffy feet AND he's just a huge fluff ball.

I think I'm going to have to slow down on hatching once when the last box of quail arrive.....the coolerbator needs to be cleaned, getting an odd smell and I went through all the eggs in there and nothing seems amiss. But who knows, I told myself I would be done about 5 batches ago.....
Click to expand...

The size of the newly hatched chick is mostly determined by the size of the egg, not the size of the adult. As huge as Brahmas are. they don't lay huge eggs. Most have eggs that are on the low to medium end of large, so that's the size chick that will hatch. Whereas the red star tends to lay an extra large to sometimes a jumbo egg, so that with hatch a larger chick.
 
Candling update Day 14:
Backyard eggs: 10 set, 9 good. One was clear & probably not fertile
Shipped Eggs: 12 set, 8 embryos good size (2 clear eggs & 2 with blood rings + dead 3-5 day old embryos)
The air cells are about the worst I've ever seen. They all started out detached & some floated 3/4 way around the shell, Now many are fused in place but severely saddle shaped.

My daughter's 4-H experiment is to compare the hatch rate of shipped eggs vs. backyard eggs. Her hypothesis is that the shipped eggs will not hatch as well due to all the bumps during transit. My part of the project was building an incubator & paying for the eggs.

With the first batch of shipped eggs, 60% hatched. It was pretty good, but the backyard eggs were at almost 90%.
With the second batch of shipped eggs, we had 10 make it to day 18, but only 3 hatched. (about 25% hatched) Backyard eggs were 83%.
This time, they’re off to a rougher start. We may end up with our 1st ever 0%.

In each trial, my daughter gathered the eggs around the same time, so they would be the same age. I suppose we could have shipped them back to ourselves, but then we wouldn’t hatch the fun variety. It’s good enough for a 9 yr old’s project.
 

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