JANUARY HATCH-A-LONG come join in

[Madcap621]

And I grew up in Benton Co. AR - went to school at Gentry, about 45 mi south of Joplin! Small World

 

[Madcap621]

Quote:
FANtastic!

I also had several spikes mid incubation, but have 2 working on making their way into the world! Today is #21 [OOPs, make that yesterday!] and I had seen/heard NOTHING, then checked about 6:30 pm and saw a pip & a zip. They are being VERY slow and taking lots of naps but they are making progress

 

[chickenmeadow]

Wow, lots happening now! Even after all of those temp spikes & power outages. Good job everyone, on hanging in there! Man, this is hard, exhausting work. You'd think we were the ones that layed the eggs!

petrilline & madcap621: Having pips yesterday! It's finally starting for you!

newchickens2009: Has 8 chicks! You lucky one!

Cornychick: Hey quail pips already! I'm jealous "hatch buddy for Jan 27th." Nothin' yet here, just the calm before the storm. Good for you! Want to see pics when their hatched please.

kathyinmo: Adorable group of silkies & more! Really, really adorable & good group of colors! I forgot, are those from your stock?

 

[PandoraTaylor]

wow what a small world we live in.

I was born in Alaska,
I have lived in Springfield MO, Jacksonville Florida, Tonopah Nevada,Tacoma Washington, 3 towns in Arizona
and finally home to Alaska again..

 

[Madcap621]

Bless my little silkie chix heart

She is working SOOO hard, has zipped nearly 3/4 of the way around that egg and is STILL IN THERE!

I really, REALLY wanted to post her picture, but just poured the last cup of coffee

[don't remember how many pots!]

but this is how I feel

. My DD will be getting up in a couple of ours to go to work! BTW, the piper is now a zipper

What is a 'vaulted head'

 

[Madcap621]

LOOK WHO'S HERE!!

 

[thechickonthehill]

Yay for everyone.

The hatch is just so exciting after all the looooong wait of incubation. I can't wait to do it again!

Madcap621 & kathyinmo: Great pics!

Madcap621, please post more when you have more babies.

 

[pbjmaker]

Today is my lockdown day, decided to do one more candleing - all my banty eggs and a couple of my "big girl" eggs have pipped the internal aircell. I quit candleing and am trying to get the humidity up. The winter has sucked all signs of moisture out of the air here. Filled all the troughs in the bottom and added some sponge peices. I guess the brooder has to get done tonight...

 

[abooth]

Hey all, well yesterday was lockdown at noon. Well let me tell you I had a pip at 4pm and a chick at 7 pm. Woo hoo!!!! Now I have three pips and it's only day 19 this has never happened to me. I guess my temps were a little high. Oh well less waiting for me and the one that is out looks great. I have 13 buff orps from hinkjc and some backyard mixes. The one that has hatched is an orp and the three pips are from my backyard!!!! Can't wait to see thosse babies.

 

[walkswithdog]

I'm no expert incubator person. But I have hatched over a hundred now, I will totally lose count as I hit 200 and more this year. And I confess, the "RULES" are probably the best odds you'll ever have toward 100% hatch rates. Not staggering - not using old, cold, frozen or cracked eggs, not using pullet eggs and muddy ones or all t he things they tell you not to. Do it that way and yes your odds are better. But. But nature is an amazing thing, even in an incubator, I stagger, I dry hatch, I don't lock down - since I stagger, and I'll set any egg that takes my fancy or has my concern. I've had chicks survive a spike to 134 degrees, yes that's correct.

I've had them survive mothers that didn't turn them and then left them in the mud. I've had eggs cracked the first week make it to full term, and chicks crushed out of eggs survive because of a bator. I've hatched near frozen eggs, and pullet eggs and I've gotten pretty good at helping chicks out. It's all a matter of patience, luck and timing and practice. Broodies are not perfect, they mess up sometimes worse than I do. And unless the eggs are real disaster my hatch rates for even odd eggs runs around 80% average. Frozen less than half but I don't mind salvaging a few.

The Rules work best for the most part and sticking to them increases your odds but they're not written in stone, and you get a feel for what you can handle and what you are comfortable with over time. I started with an LG, hated it and then MADE a series of home bators, finally getting one so right, I still use it, my mini-fridge one, DarthBator. Then I found an early 1900's redwood cabinet incubator LOL for 75.00. Fixed it up and it rocks, and holds 600+ eggs, but will do small batches as easily. Really nice. I fully expect to double or triple chick production this year.

I kept hearing "that won't work", and that won't hatch and you know what some of the time - they're right but nature is built to survive stresses and pressures that will kill some or most, but stronger ones hatch anyway some of the time.

Until you get a feel for it - do it by the rules, understanding the further you go from the rules, the more likely you are to decrease hatch rates, or blow a hatch. But those things are guidelines. Learn about ventilation, humidity and what happens IN your house, in your bator, with the way you do it. Keep notes. When in doubt build a bator or two out of spare parts and figure out what works and why. Sure you can hatch forever in a preset prebuild commercial bator, and probably never need to actually understand the how and why, in a good one you can just follow the rules, use perfect eggs and be happy.

Or you can TINKER. Both things are okay. I am deeply attached to some of my disaster poultry from ruined broody hatches, and sadly neglected eggs, from the rescues, and from the cracked eggs. I like that here and there I have wee ones from near frozen eggs, and Temp Spike chickens. My lap tom turkey Brit is from a total disaster hatch, unturned muddy and abandoned, so are his girls, Trace and Marin. All of them momma's birds, and only here because I not only worked with cruddy, cold, wet muck covered eggs but assisted each of them, since unturned eggs have babies stuck to the sides. And they've already produced one generation of young, normal healthy busy free range birds.

What you decide to set into an incubator is yours to choose, rules or not. If you decide to stagger, you'll make mistakes but you'll learn to succeed. You'll blow whole hatches due to disaster now and then. Happens in nature too. Keep trying. Persist and you learn. You'll have good shipped egg hatches and bad ones. And middle ground ones where you get 50-60% to hatch. The more you do, the more you practice, the more you learn, the better you do.

Don't take the unhatched egg as a personal failure. But don't blow through six bad hatches, thinking "I'm following the rules and it's not working." Two back to back Zeroes, means something isn't right, and you don't know yet what is missing in your equation. Repeated empty sets tells you something in your "parameters" is not correct. Either your thermometers are broken or uncalibrated or your ventilation is wrong. More people suffocate eggs due to that whole lock down thing, where they plug holes and try to force up humidity, than you can possibly imagine.

Anyone can do this if they persist and they learn and a bad hatch or failed chick is not always YOUR fault. Nature produces failures as well. Hang in there, and you'll have loads of fuzzies in no time. Too many, then you'll be building pens and adding fences.