right now in my possesion i have 3 incubators lol i got the lg basic the hovabator basic and the hovabator 1588 or which ever one is is that is auto dialed on temp and has a big almost whole top window but is made from styrofoam, well anyways that one is not mine but my egg provider is letting me borrow it, lucky mee it got a egg temp thermometer and a fan so i am good to go, but for me i use my basic hovabator, and the lg i bought used but i never used it myself i think it is in storage some where, wanna borrow it lol
I set 6 Maran eggs from BishopsChickens on EggBid (not sure if he's on BYC?) on January 1st.
I set 20 eggs from uglyducky on January 6th. Bantam Salmons, Buff Brahmas, Porceline's and 5 LF Welsummer eggs.
I started the Marans in my old Hova Bator and transferred them to my brand new Brinsea 20 Eco with the new eggs last night!
Mine were put in the bator today and hatch date is January 27th!! It's my first hatch ever and I am more than eager. As my siggie says, 12 EE and 7 mutts are in there. Glad to have a place to see other peeps ready to peep in January! hehe.
I set 16 Lav Split Orpingtons from Tony on New Year's Day; they arrived 12/31 at 11AM (wow 42 hours from Connecticut to Northern Calif! Go USPS!), I let them rest for 30 hours, started incubator with turner off to let air cells settle even more for 3 days, then started turner. Of the air cells I could see, only a few still looked loose.
These are for someone in the city who wants a few Lavender hens; the rest will be available (shhh, don't tell DH I hope to keep a few too).
I have 22 set to hatch on the 28th! I havent set them yet, but will tomorrow morning. theyre resting; they had a long day....
here's the breakdown: 11 Black Australorps, 6 Barred Rocks, and 5 Easter Eggers. One EE and one BA broke in shipping. I shoulda got more EEs.... :'C
i got them from MPC. it's my first hatch. i hope to get maybe 8 or 9 to hatch.
Laurieks: I only let my eggs settle for 7 1/2 hrs. after they arrived by mail. They went in the bator on 1/6/09 (evening) & I candled tonight to check out the air cells out of curiosity. A few don't look normal, they seem to have 2 bubbles floating around that wide end of the egg. I don't know what I'm seeing, have never seen this before in shipped eggs. Could this be the loose air cells that you refer to?
Do you or anyone else have any comments on this & if anything can be done to correct or will it settle by it's self?
January seems to be a very popular month for hatching & setting. I've seen so many different breeds mentioned too. Good luck to you all!
Here's my set-up for this batch using the "dry incubation" method.
I set 18 chickensicle eggs on the third and fourth, and they're developing so I'M IN
They may or may not go since there's no way to tell if they were just ice cold, or frozen. I tossed all the ones that had frozen solid enough to crack open. That's how cold they were... But today, day 5 for some and 4 for others, showed development so here I am. Maybe some will make it. They're serama, sizzle and rock eggs. All of them cold enough to feel like they were burning my hands when I found them. Ugh. Most of them were trashed as totally frozen and cracked. Ought to be interesting at least...