Jan./Feb. 2014 hatch a long

[Heidisgran]

1 frizzled cochin, 1 jap bantam and awaiting the next hatchling any second...2 others pipped

my candy corn polish are all developing!!! woohoo... 5 buff dundottes developing.....sky blue guinea going in today....too early to tell about my tiny call ducks!

went to the stock show yesterday....so much fun....rodeo, beautiful chickens and a big ole turkey!!

 

[kimmommy23]

Congratulations everyone! They Cute cute cute!!!

 

[dolfi]

You need to learn how to play egg tetris! There's always room for more eggs...lol
To do staggered hatch in a single bator here are a few suggestions. Use different colors to mark each batch of eggs so they are easy to locate at a glance. Try to keep groups together as much as possible. Keep humidity as low as you can until you have to raise it for lockdown on each batch. Only raise humidity as long as you have to for each hatch & lower it as soon as the last chick from each batch is out. Set new eggs 7-10 days apart to avoid a continuous lockdown humidity.

I had a couple little cochin bantam roos like that. Very vocal right from the start.


Quotes won't let me post this right, but for the question below, this looks to refer to the day count of eggs in a stsggered hatch. They have them set 2 days apart & some are on day 18 of incubation, some are on day 16.
Other references could be as follows:
4/6 development would mean they had 4 eggs develop out of 6 set.
20/45 hatch would mean 20 eggs hatched from 45 originally set.

Lol that's what I thought. But then it was used for different reasons so I got confused. Thank you

 

[chickydee64]

just what the world needs another blonde chick!

.....Almost chocked on my coffee................
I love this thread....................

 

[chickydee64]

Good morning....................
I hope this is not a repeat from me......

Just want to add to the staggered hatch comments...

I use two incubators.( one for hatching)
I set once a week...always the same day..then my eggs don't get to old.
I mark different colors on the eggs ( as already mentioned) then mark my calendar for lockdown and hatch date
in the same color.
Move lock down to the second incubator on day 18........gives me 7 days to hatch and sterilize the hatcher.
I like this method when I am doing continuous hatch because I always know what day I am doing what
and can plan my other activities better..........ie: set Friday, lockdowns on day 18....hatch over the weekend.

 

[jonih]

Keep humidity as low as you can until you have to raise it for lockdown on each batch

Thanks! How low should I keep it until lockdown? 35%? Or lower? And do I keep turning the younger eggs or do they just have to sit while the first batch is hatching?

 

[halvr]

I set a bunch of mixed LF eggs on the 11th along with 6 swedish flower eggs...So excited for the flowers! I don't candle- I don't have anything bright enough and I am too afraid of making a mistake that would cost a chick its life. I also am anxiously awaiting a bator full of coturnix quail eggs due today. My first attempt at quail....

We have 2 bators; 1 is a Genesis Hova-bator circulating air with egg turner, aka Old Reliable, but I have recently began having a heck of a time keeping the humidity up in it despite having added a sponge for holding water AND putting water in the reservoir. The second is new, and it's a Farm Innovators circulating air with egg turner. It vibrates, which I am not happy about. It has the quail eggs in it and we had to put cotton in the (chicken) egg cups to keep them from jiggling pointed end up all the time. I would've taken it back, but we had already set eggs and it was too late when it started doing this. grrr.

 

[jonih]

I use a separate incubator for lockdown

If you had one circulated air incubator and one still air, which would you use for setting and which for lockdown?

 

[chickydee64]

If you had one circulated air incubator and one still air, which would you use for setting and which for lockdown?

I would use the still air to hatch

 

[JDchicks]

These rings are really great. I've had two now that got half way through zipping and the liquid from the shell hit that soft shelf liner that you and I both seem to be using and very quickly turned into glue. I've had to reach in and forcefully pull them up off of it to keep them from getting stuck in the shell like that. (In fact I think that's part of the reason I lost the one I did.) I was thinking I would have to stop using the shelf liner, but these rings could also solve the problem by keeping the zip from hitting the shelf liner.

If anyone else is using the same sort of liner in the above pic make sure you watch closely during zip! It has only happened to me twice out of 8 eggs that have zipped so far, but when it happens it glues the egg right where it is and the chick can't make any more progress!

Thanks for the heads up. This was the first time I used the liner.

I set a bunch of mixed LF eggs on the 11th along with 6 swedish flower eggs...So excited for the flowers! I don't candle- I don't have anything bright enough and I am too afraid of making a mistake that would cost a chick its life. I also am anxiously awaiting a bator full of coturnix quail eggs due today. My first attempt at quail....

We have 2 bators; 1 is a Genesis Hova-bator circulating air with egg turner, aka Old Reliable, but I have recently began having a heck of a time keeping the humidity up in it despite having added a sponge for holding water AND putting water in the reservoir. The second is new, and it's a Farm Innovators circulating air with egg turner. It vibrates, which I am not happy about. It has the quail eggs in it and we had to put cotton in the (chicken) egg cups to keep them from jiggling pointed end up all the time. I would've taken it back, but we had already set eggs and it was too late when it started doing this. grrr.

I had problems keeping the humidity up also. I ended up putting a plastic mud pan in mine. Holds a lot of water, so no refills. can add several sponges. Plus too high for the chicks to get in. Keeps mine right at 70% in an LG.