JANUARY 2015 Hatch-A-Long

Purpletie3 · Jan 25, 2015

mattsinger said:
Good to hear there is lots of chick action happening. Here is the 15 that I ended up with

Beautiful chicks Matt!!!

DevilsDenHen · Jan 25, 2015

Woke up to 3 fuzzies this morning.

Photos arn't the best (still dark)

mattsinger · Jan 25, 2015

Purpletie3 said:
Beautiful chicks Matt!!!

thanks... Ive got another dozen eggs on their way . time to start things back up

Gentry1350 · Jan 25, 2015

So disgusted in my hatch!

Shipped eggs (but "local", in state). 6 Buff Orps, 6 Ameraucanas.

AMs: 1 clear, 2 quit real early, 3 made it to lockdown. Now I have 3 beautiful chicks!
Orps: eggs developed nicely, 1 quit between days 7-14, 5 made it to lockdown. 3 have hatched. 1 has a messed up eye and can't stand, 1 has a severe crossbeak, and the other I partially assisted after 12+ hours by cracking next to the dime sized hole it already had and dropping a few drops of warm water on it. It is out, but still "wet" and on its back. I don't think any of them are going to make it and it looks like the other 2 aren't going to hatch.

After the initial "problems", which weren't actually problems, my temps stayed constant. I had four thermometers in there, all reading the same temp. One was a remote therm/hygrometer that I monitored upstairs. I'm a stay-at-home mom, so was here pretty much 24/7 (I rarely leave my cave) and am positive I had no temp spikes. I candled on days 7, 14, and 18 and pretty much left the bator shut unless I was adding water. I erred on the side of it running a little dry in lieu of opening the bator too much (our regular humidity is around 35% in the house during this timeframe). I did not weigh them, but they appeared to have normal weight loss. I added a ton of water, and two big bowls of water (one with the stacked sponge thingy) and still couldn't get humidity above 65% so I put a humidifier in the room and got it to around 68-70%. I LEFT THE BATOR ALONE AND DID NOT OPEN IT FOR 17 hours after the first chick hatched. Even though this was my first real hatch, I think it was about as close to text book perfect that I could have gotten.

Next time:
1) working on a better way to raise humidity at lockdown
2) will hatch in cartons

I wouldn't do anything else differently! Oh, and I snuck and ordered another "test" batch of eggs last night for the Feb HAL....Danish Brown Leghorns!

Purpletie3 · Jan 25, 2015

@ gentry... Don't beat yourself up too much. 50% hatch rate for shipped eggs is about as best as you can hope for. As far as the malformation...it could be the stock, feed, temp, uneven rolling, or just genetics. It sucks. We had to put down a severly dis formed chick last hatch...hang in there!

Peep_Show · Jan 25, 2015

@Gentry1350
Interesting about the Orps and the various hardships. Sounds like perhaps poor genetics or poor nutrition on the flock end. Do you know much about the birds? I might suspect the roo and hens may be siblings vs. non-related.

blackgoat · Jan 25, 2015

carcar80 said:
Thanks. I finally learned it's not hard if you just listen.. "DON'T open the bator.. And DON'T touch the eggs!!"

It took me a while

Unless you are hand turning, in which case you have to do both, lol!

Peep_Show · Jan 25, 2015

Here's this morning's pictures of Oops and Solo, hatched 1/3 and 1/1 respectively.

I think we should have a "Homely Chick" contest... Solo has the worst feather grow-in ever. Hopefully it's just a phase.....