January 2016 Hatch-Come Join Me

[feathersaloft]

What breed or mix? The one with the white head looks super adorable!

Barnyard mix. Now my RIR are separated so the ones I start later will be RIR.
Next batch will be silkies, a friend is collecting eggs for me til Saturday.

 

[MediGirl1987]

UPDATE!! Two eggs have pipped!

 

[NTBugtraq]

UPDATE!! Two eggs have pipped!

Woot!! So you have 2 that have started to hatch early, and 7 others which are on track to hatch on Day 21...perfect, you must have done a great job with the temperature and humidity

 

[NTBugtraq]

So I am a geek and love to play with data and spreadsheets, and have been tracking my hatch with daily weigh ins. I only weigh each tray of 48 eggs, so its a 2 minute process. I'm on Day 14, so some observations.

• The two trays started out 3g different in weight. They are now 14g different. I suspect this is due to egg shell porosity as the difference has gradually risen over the hatch. Now considering the difference is 14g out of 3.3Kg, its a tiny amount, but it suggests a reason why some eggs do great and others don't in a single hatch.
• I am wondering if part of that difference in trays could be because of infertile eggs. My thinking is that infertile are not going to lose as much weight as fertile eggs...since they don't develop...but that's just a guess.
• On Day 1 (after the first 24 hours), the eggs had lost 26.9% more weight than desired. I started the hatch with an RH of 35%, clearly too low. By Day 4, my weight loss became less than desired and continued like that to today. I am gradually increasing the daily weight loss so as not to "shock" the eggs. If weight loss continues as I have observed, I should be nearly spot on by Day 21.
• Using the same RH for several days in a row, I noticed different weight loss values. I know that one day, the humidity pump simply stopped pumping water to the bator. There is an alarm I could set to tell me the humidity is off, but I had turned it off. I don't think the room temperature or room RH has had any effect...its been as low as 55F and as high as 74F...but all temperature swings have been gradual. I've boiled stuff in the room, which would obviously increase the RH of the intake air, but that should only make the pump work less hard.

So all in all, my weight loss graph versus "ideal weight loss" has been pretty darn close, far better than any setting I did last year. I'm currently running at 42%; I've been as high as 52%.

Remember, you are trying to lose ~14% of your egg weight over the entire 21 day period. Not 14% per day, more like 0.67% per day, so it is really hard to monitor such things on a per egg basis. I'm losing between 30-50g per day, so it can be measured, but weighing 3Kg at a time means I cannot get less than +/- 1g accuracy. I have had a day where they lost 0.73%, and 0.47%, kinda all over the place. I will not be surprised if such variations affect my hatch rate, but it has certainly taught me a lot about how to use the bator for my next hatch.

I started collecting eggs for my next setting on 1/29. We are having such cold weather that I am finding eggs in the nest boxes that have been cracked due to freezing...so I am out now every hour collecting. I am tempted to put obstacles in some of the nest boxes to force all eggs to be laid in just a few...hopefully keeping a layer on the nests with eggs. Now if I can just figure out how to stop the couple of layers who lay on the ground, to use nest boxes...

Thanks for the pics folks, they are awesome, so cute. Is anyone else setting more? If so, do we keep this thread going or will you join a February hatch thread??

 

[MediGirl1987]

Yeah. The two that have pipped are right in the middle of the bator so I wonder if that has something to do with it. None of the others along the edge have pipped. It is a circulated bator but maybe the middle is just a little warmer? But thank you! I am super excited. They are chirping louder now and rocking pretty good. It is just so neat to watch!

 

[feathersaloft]

I have the 9 from earlier, 2 more out of the shell and several more pipped.
Today is day 21, so they are right on time.

Out of 41 eggs, 38 were fertile. So hoping for a bunch more

 

[Mc620]

had eight hatch total one lost after hatching few hrs later and the past hatched today started on sunday was getting couple a day lol hopefully last one in incubator does well but these are the ones all dried up

 

[NTBugtraq]

had eight hatch total one lost after hatching few hrs later and the past hatched today started on sunday was getting couple a day lol hopefully last one in incubator does well but these are the ones all dried up

Wow, what a nice mix. All my hatches last year were with Red Sexlink hens, so there was an explosion of color and markings. I have to say, I love that, getting unique birds. I hope yours were from a barn-yard mix too...;-]

 

[WthrLady]

My blue and yellows

 

[melnjerm]

CONGRATS EVERYBODY!!! I still have 8 days.