january hatch-a-long

[BlueBaby]

I have 1 dozen Brahma and 18 mixed some white leghorn some silver laced wyandotte and some ameraucana and I'm not sure what else I just told the person i bought them off of a mix will be fine but i know for sure the one dozen Brahma

So, you will have to wait and see what your 18 pack turns out to be when they hatch.

 

[Matieus27]

Well all the brown ones yes the white eggs should be white leghorns and then green eggs should be americaunas but they are green /olive so they may be a mixed breed so we will see

 

[Tatuana]

Did massive research today. Not as sick, so I can focus on the little eggs. My humidity has been running high even though the temp is fine. From lots of looking up things it looks like my surface space is too much. So instead of putting the water in the actual bottom of the incubator I'm going to put it in a shallow dish. That should help control things a bit, I hope.
It's a bit tricky, I live in a dry state - Utah - and we're in the middle of winter/an inversion. That means the air is very, very dry. However the eggs are in my basement, which is damp. And the dampness isn't the same during the day/hour/minute depending on what I've done. (Laundry? It goes up. Shower? Up it goes. Opened a door to the storage room? Down it goes.) I'm thinking of a place to possibly set it upstairs instead. Problem is... kids. And cats. And humans.

Let's assume that the humidity issue has been going on the entire time (It hasn't, it's only been the last few days it's been a fairly big issue.) I take it that would lower my hatch rate, right? I'm not sure if the eggs are old enough to trace the bubble level. (Put in on the 5th at 6pm local time). What should I watch out for/how should I correct if there's a problem?

I've ordered another proper egg candler since the one I ordered two weeks ago got lost in the mail. I can't get a bright enough light in there with my cellphone or lamps. With half the eggs I can't even FIND the air bubble.

 

[BlueBaby]

Well all the brown ones yes the white eggs should be white leghorns and then green eggs should be americaunas but they are green /olive so they may be a mixed breed so we will see

I just put my last few egg's in lock-down for hatching (more naked necks). After this, I'll put the incubator away for at least a couple of months until I can get a hold of some shipped egg's that I want (another breed).

 

[WVduckchick]

Did massive research today. Not as sick, so I can focus on the little eggs. My humidity has been running high even though the temp is fine. From lots of looking up things it looks like my surface space is too much. So instead of putting the water in the actual bottom of the incubator I'm going to put it in a shallow dish. That should help control things a bit, I hope.
It's a bit tricky, I live in a dry state - Utah - and we're in the middle of winter/an inversion. That means the air is very, very dry. However the eggs are in my basement, which is damp. And the dampness isn't the same during the day/hour/minute depending on what I've done. (Laundry? It goes up. Shower? Up it goes. Opened a door to the storage room? Down it goes.) I'm thinking of a place to possibly set it upstairs instead. Problem is... kids. And cats. And humans.

Let's assume that the humidity issue has been going on the entire time (It hasn't, it's only been the last few days it's been a fairly big issue.) I take it that would lower my hatch rate, right? I'm not sure if the eggs are old enough to trace the bubble level. (Put in on the 5th at 6pm local time). What should I watch out for/how should I correct if there's a problem?

I've ordered another proper egg candler since the one I ordered two weeks ago got lost in the mail. I can't get a bright enough light in there with my cellphone or lamps. With half the eggs I can't even FIND the air bubble.

A few days of inconsistency won’t lower your hatch rate. Get it stable and leave it alone. Give it several days and check the air cells again. If they have gotten too big, add more bowls/sponges. If they are too small, decrease the size of your bowl.
Check out the article in the Red link in my signature block. (If mobile, turn phone sideways)

 

[BReeder!]

I have been playing in a quail hatch along thread. He are some updates on my quail eggs:
60+ eggs in lockdown out of 103.
Lockdown started last night.
I called before lockdown. Here's some pics of the candler I DIY'd. It worked really well. I couldn't get a good pic in the dark while candling though.

I whistled at the eggs today and hot some shakes in response. It was really cool so I caught a quick video.

Hatching should happen Wednesday night.

 

[henaynei]

I'll join
Set 27 eggs late Sat night... so today official day 1 as of late last night
Mostly BC Marans and several Ameraucanas
Day 21 Feb 2

 

[Tatuana]

I'm going gray, everyone.

First these chicks survived being shipped across the US twice, being in travel for eight days. They were shaken hard enough to separate one of the air bubble thingies. And this was in freezing temps.

Then they survived with the lid off for several hours.

Now they've got two more challenges to overcome. I went out and bought a new set of humidity/temp checkers from my local farm store. My neighbor works there, and was nice enough to properly test them for me before I brought them home (I left them for a few hours). She showed me them in the process phase before she let me have them so I knew they were right.

I've screwed up. Badly. I put the new ones in, the ones that I had verified were right. My humidity testers (TWO!) were saying the humidity was running at about 55 percent, sometimes 60 percent. (I'm still learning how to keep it even) The new one was saying it was a solid 80 percent. I thought that could NOT be right, so I called the store back. The lady I was talking to happens to live in my neighborhood. She came by and checked with her own personal humidity testers to be sure. Yeah, hers are right. They've apparently been hovering in the 80s THIS ENTIRE TIME. Maybe! She took mine out, took them home to do some testing. Hers went from 60 to 88 in her tests. Mine stayed within normal ranges.

I then put in my heat checker. Guess what? Despite writing down the numbers it was off, I've been running it LOW this entire time. It's been about 94F inside the entire time. At least that one has been running a stable temp and seems that it's been a true 94F.

And now? I just found out that one of the kids lost interest in the eggs a while back. They were fake writing down their name and claiming they turned the eggs when they didn't. So the eggs were being turned 3-4 times a day, sometimes with HUGE gaps between the turning times.

I honestly don't know if I'll get chicks at this point, ugh. I spent $40 on these little guys. And nothing has gone right. I knew the first time through would only yield one or two due to a learning curve. I just didn't realize how horrible that learning curve would be.

Despite this, I'm pretty sure I have at least five eggs in there somehow. They're at day 9. I'm not sure what I can do at this point to give them the best chance. Low temps, high humidity, lack of turning, and one very stressed human. I'm getting it all set in order tonight so it's back on track, at least.

If these babies make it I'm going to hoard them for life. I've become very attached to the things! My cat is also excited. I'm pretty sure her mothering side has kicked in and she thinks they're her babies.

Edit: Bonus points. Apparently some of the eggs got flipped *over* because they're so alike you can't tell which end is which. I wrote on them to tell, and somehow did it on both sides of a few of them! oof.

Venting over, now I'm on a mission to save these guys if I can. They've made it through everything that can possibly go wrong. I'm not sure when/if I should candle them again at this point, so I'll have to figure that out. If the troopers made it this far I'm going to do my darnest to give them the best chance possible.

 

[mitziworm]

I'm going gray, everyone.

First these chicks survived being shipped across the US twice, being in travel for eight days. They were shaken hard enough to separate one of the air bubble thingies. And this was in freezing temps.

Then they survived with the lid off for several hours.

Now they've got two more challenges to overcome. I went out and bought a new set of humidity/temp checkers from my local farm store. My neighbor works there, and was nice enough to properly test them for me before I brought them home (I left them for a few hours). She showed me them in the process phase before she let me have them so I knew they were right.

I've screwed up. Badly. I put the new ones in, the ones that I had verified were right. My humidity testers (TWO!) were saying the humidity was running at about 55 percent, sometimes 60 percent. (I'm still learning how to keep it even) The new one was saying it was a solid 80 percent. I thought that could NOT be right, so I called the store back. The lady I was talking to happens to live in my neighborhood. She came by and checked with her own personal humidity testers to be sure. Yeah, hers are right. They've apparently been hovering in the 80s THIS ENTIRE TIME. Maybe! She took mine out, took them home to do some testing. Hers went from 60 to 88 in her tests. Mine stayed within normal ranges.

I then put in my heat checker. Guess what? Despite writing down the numbers it was off, I've been running it LOW this entire time. It's been about 94F inside the entire time. At least that one has been running a stable temp and seems that it's been a true 94F.

And now? I just found out that one of the kids lost interest in the eggs a while back. They were fake writing down their name and claiming they turned the eggs when they didn't. So the eggs were being turned 3-4 times a day, sometimes with HUGE gaps between the turning times.

I honestly don't know if I'll get chicks at this point, ugh. I spent $40 on these little guys. And nothing has gone right. I knew the first time through would only yield one or two due to a learning curve. I just didn't realize how horrible that learning curve would be.

Despite this, I'm pretty sure I have at least five eggs in there somehow. They're at day 9. I'm not sure what I can do at this point to give them the best chance. Low temps, high humidity, lack of turning, and one very stressed human. I'm getting it all set in order tonight so it's back on track, at least.

If these babies make it I'm going to hoard them for life. I've become very attached to the things! My cat is also excited. I'm pretty sure her mothering side has kicked in and she thinks they're her babies.

Edit: Bonus points. Apparently some of the eggs got flipped *over* because they're so alike you can't tell which end is which. I wrote on them to tell, and somehow did it on both sides of a few of them! oof.

Venting over, now I'm on a mission to save these guys if I can. They've made it through everything that can possibly go wrong. I'm not sure when/if I should candle them again at this point, so I'll have to figure that out. If the troopers made it this far I'm going to do my darnest to give them the best chance possible.

It's become like an addiction for me, any live chick hatched is the high, even when I got 2 from 44 eggs! I've bought 3 new incubators, bought 2 lots of shipped eggs, some eggs I was given and every egg my old chooks and guinea fowl laid in the last 3 months and have 8 survive so far. Probably over 150 eggs over about 150 days of incubating. I even went and bought new chooks when I realised my old rooster either isn't fertile or is lazy haha. Their first egg was in my trial run in the new janoel 12 and was the only egg in it showing development and today the temp spiked to 40° while I was out. I think you have the same incubator and most people swear by them so I'm doing heaps of searching now to see if I can find any tricks on how to stabilize it, ran great for the first 10 days then I think the water dried out and the temperature went mad.
Hang in there because even 1 fluffy butt baby is worth all the stress and bother.

 

[CacklingRanch]

So my NYE hatch was 100%. 40/40. Two of which I culled due to wry neck. They both hatched later than everyone else. One I culled because it got stuck in its egg, shrink wrapped. Everyone else popped right out so I’m not sure why the little guy did.

I reset my incubator on the 4th with another batch of 40. I forget exact numbers but I’ve got Dutch bantams, Dominique, SS Hamburg, and some Cochins in there.

I also had two hens go broody around the 8th and they both got a menagerie of eggs as well.

We’re currently growing 50+ Black Australorps from our December hatches. Two Serama, two Dutch, and some yard birds.

I’ll post some pictures when I get home. Currently down visiting my dad. I should candle when I get home too.