JUNE HATCH-A-LONG come join in

[chickenmeadow]

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Congrats on your broody & the "two little heads." Yes, pics will be great to see.

Don't mess with the eggs, Goldie Lox knows what to do. Ha!

 

[nyice]

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You did good! They look great. Congrats!

Very nice pics. I see you're using that waffle-like no-slip shelf liner stuff on the floor of the brooder, it sure does work for good footing.

We used the shelf liner for our hatch in April and it worked well. It also make for a very eay cleanup in a few days when we move them to the big brooder.

 

[outback hatcher]

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Woke up this morning had 9 little chicks running around out of the 1 zipping 2 more more pipping out of 20 eggs.
So far this is looking like a great hatch!!!!

 

[buffbeauty]

Thanks Save the Faves! All I can do is hope for the best! I'll keep ya updated.

 

[FluffyColor]

They look like they are ready to pip!!!!!!

 

[SweetMotherOfMars]

I expect every hatch to have some complication, but this was a little more than I'd expected. Candled a couple of the eggs Thursday night with the DDs so they could see the little dancers. Seemed to be movement in all 32. (This is the biggest hatch we've attempted.)

Last night Little informed me I'd forgotten to plug the lamp/thermostat back in!

"Great," I'm thinking, but I know they can take a little cooling.

"Did you plug it back in?" She said yes, but I'm glad I checked myself... the eggs were hot to the touch.
Apparently she thought changing the thermostat would get them warm again quicker.

So temps are back down to normal, but I know the spike was over 112°

I'll wait and candle again tonight, but the 3 I looked at last night showed no movement at all.

Wednesday was supposed to be lockdown... I'm not so hopeful now. Anyone have any "I heard of eggs surviving a temp spike" stories?

 

[PandoraTaylor]

I looked into the incubator this morning to find 2 pipped eggs, only one still moving. the other one completely still, and one egg had done nothing. I opened the incubator, assisted the still breathing chick, seems alittle tired and sticky, but ok. the other egg had a small zip and no movement, so I attempted to help it as well.... but it had already passed, the yolk was not fully absorbed, but there was no blood, so I think it just gave up. so from the 3 shipped eggs that went into lockdown, I have one chick.......

next batch lockdown in 2 days.....
my own backyard eggs....

 

[Kedreeva]

Guess I will join in for my very first post! This site helped a lot with questions I had during my first hatching run.

My May hatch was my very first hatch ever- 2 sets of 4 eggs from 2 pairs of polish chickens on two different dates. One blue pair, one buff pair, and the hens picked right up laying the day they were brought home from the swap where we purchased them. I expected the first set of four to be clears because the seller had the males and females separated, but one little 'silver' cheep beat the odds and hatched out on May 21st. Of the second set, all four eggs were fertile, but due to a horrible mistake on my part which induced an incubator temp spike, the two dark cheeps died in the egg. Fortunately I didn't manage to kill them all, and ended up with two little buff cheeps. I've since moved the incubator to a stable, temp controlled area and I swear that I won't place the temporary brooder box's heating pad against one side of the incubator ever again.

So now I am on my second batch of cheeps (I'm actually hatching them for a friend to house, since I can't keep them in the city). I started with 9 eggs (there'd be 10 if little kids didn't collect the eggs) that should be half and half, buff or blue/black/splash (but not mixed, the pairs are separated). I started them in my little Hovabator on the 1st, so they SHOULD hatch on the 21st or 22nd. I candled on the 10th and there were three clears, so I'm down to six. I was given another batch of 8 eggs that I set on the 3rd, so I'm looking at the 24th-ish I think. I'll candle on the 13th and see how many are actually going.

A second friend of mine was having major trouble hatching out any of her ducks' eggs. I offered to give it a try (as she'd begun to lose hope and get rid of them when she found them) in my incubator, so I've now got 23 duck eggs in there too. I don't know if they'll be able to hatch on the conditions I've got, but it's worth a shot. I set them on the.... 6th and I candled some of them on the 10th- about half looked like they were going to be clears, but I could see veins on some. And last but not least... I received 5 more polish eggs that I set today and should hatch in July, but they may have mixed parents as the two ladies are in with the blue male, since the buff male has gone insane pecking at skulls and had to be separated. I know those batches won't hatch till July, but they're in there keeping my June hatch company!

@ SweetMotherOfMars: While two of my cheeps died to the temp spike I had (around 106-107 for about half a day), two of them did make it. I have absolutely no science to back it up, but as it was only the dark chicks who died and the nearly-white buff chicks that lived, (and a dark chick had previously hatched, so I don't think it was genetics) their color may have something to do with how hot the chicks get. The dark ones may have absorbed more heat and been quicker to die off than the light ones. Of course, my experience may also be a meaningless fluke, but perhaps it can give you a some hope. Good luck!

~Ked

 

[SweetMotherOfMars]

Ked, if any of them make it, I'll let you know the statistics (if they were far enough along to tell the color.) Thanks for the hope.

 

[Kedreeva]

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I'm rooting for you! Maybe I will ask around and see if anyone else has experienced anything similar! Couldn't hurt to track a statistic like that for curiosity's sake.