JANUARY HATCH-A-LONG come join in

[nhnanna]

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[kk454]

Final tallies are in for my wife's and my first hatch.

10 Black Copper Marans eggs hatched (50%)
1 Blue Laced Red Wyandotte hatched (16%)
3 Blue Ameracaunas hatched (27%)
2 Mutt eggs hatched (50%)

Adjusted hatch percentage for infertile eggs: 41% (I know we can do better.)

The Blue Ameraucanas were mostly dead in shell without having broken into the air pocket. We are thinking our humidity after lockdown was not quite high enough. The BCM's had very thick shells which we think helped conserve humidity in the egg allowing them easier movement. Of the Wyandottes we set, 2 never started cell division (no bulls eye indicating not fertile) and the others were early quitters. We put the mutt eggs in to see if shipping had a drastic effect on our hatching rate, but feel that most of our problems weren't due to egg quality but humidity control. Even with four sponges in the incubator after lockdown, we struggled to maintain 60% humidity on a calibrated hygrometer until we pulled the egg cartons, and then the humidity jumped to over 70%. Next hatch will be without using the egg cartons to hold the eggs (increase airflow over sponges).

Any ideas or suggestions to make our next hatch more successful are greatly appreciated. My wife and I thank everyone for all their help and all the constructive advice we have received from the people who frequent this website.

 

[Sasquatch]

I candled for a second time last night. Tomorrow will be day 14. Out of 21 total that i started with I have discarded 5. So it looks like it will be a good hatch.

 

[pbjmaker]

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Shoot - my yard has looked like that since the beginning of December!

Very nice looking layout though - even covered in snow.

I love the paper towel tubes - gonna go retrieve some for my bakers dozen chicks out of the recycle bin!

 

[77horses]

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Ivory likes your quail pictures!

I put her up to the screen and she kept looking and pecking at them. LOL

 

[silkiechicken]

Well my lampshade is here! The one egg I stole from back home over x mas popped out this morning. It was the only egg that my birds laid in the 2 weeks I was home.

 

[pbjmaker]

Ahh - she is cute. Good photo! What breed?

 

[Madcap621]

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H-m-m-m someone is WAY more math-oriented than I am!

2 silkie chicks [both died - for sure because of temp/humidity problems!] out of 12 fertile eggs out of 27 set.

Have NO idea how that translates! Only know I spent 21 days biting my nails and have nothing to show for it!

BUT, I learned a lot from my first solo hatch and am on day 8 of my next one and can use & share that knowledge.

I DO have a couple of questions. Foam or cardboard egg cartons? What kind of bator? "Dry" or regular method?

I started the "saturated egg carton" experiments. I will be posting the results as I get them in this index topic under "egg carton humidity control". I noticed that RH had dropped to 30 tonight.

NO water in the Hova-Bator, so popped in a single saturated egg cup from a cardboard carton. 10 minutes later RH @ 50%

so snatched it out!

This is the first time I have gone into bator since setting the eggs [today is day 8 - aren't I GOOD!

]. Now have set-up ready so that next time I must add water, will pop egg cup into turner and be able to add 1 ml at a time as needed. Hopefully will not need to open again until Monday when I candle & transfer the eggs to the Suro-20.

 

[Karrie13]

It doesn't look like a very good hatch for me. I have 5 chicks out but that is it, out of 26 that went into lockdown. I had one that zipped halfway but didn't move so I pulled it out when I got the chicks out and put them in the brooder. The chick inside was fully developed, yolk was absorbed but it died.

I candled and checked a couple other eggs and saw some with internal pips but no movement. I carefully opened one and saw that the chick was also dead. The yolk was absorbed and everything. What can cause chicks to die after they have internally pipped and after their yolk is absorbed? I opened several with the same issue. Some had partially absorbed yolks but didn't make it. This is very disappointing.

 

[kathyinmo]

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Here is an excellent read ... Hatchability Problem Analysis
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/aa204