Little Giant Incubation Experiment - Day 21 - Hatch Day!

[AmyLynn2374]

Wow that just seems so wrong of mother nature! I've been studying a little about duck genes and sex-links and some of that stuff. So interesting!
I hope you got all 50%ers. Lol

Knowing us humans it's probably something we bred into them. :-( Anyhow. One of them is active the other I haven't seen anything from so.... But I am up to 4 pips, no progress. I feel like it's my first time hatching!! This is torture!! lol Why do we do this to ourselves??? lol

So I candled the eggs and I think that my Isbars might be quitters. I have a couple of infertile BCM eggs and the rest look great! I got to see movements and everything. The top photo is the Isbar egg and the bottom is the BCM egg. The little black dot in the middle is the embryo and it was moving around.

Cool!!

 

[mswendeu]

@rossfam06 That's awesome. Too cool. Hope the others aren't quitters on you.

In other news first this still air bator oy vey! it's temp is now up to 100.4 making me nutty. Tomorrow is candling day for the rest of the eggs and I will sneak and do them all because I feel it's necessary for some strange reason. Don't need another stinky egg thing going on. Pee eeww

Everyone pray my dog makes it through to at least friday evening before these puppies come. I have too much stuff going on with work, eggs, chicks and ducks to handle that too. I must sleep in between somehow lol. Shes been panting for two days now. But, no real labor signs except that. She's eating, drinking good. Just uncomfortable sleeping and overly hot I guess. I feel for her though. I remember those last few days 4 times... Glad she doesn't have to wait 9 months to whelp. That would be terrible.


Hey Silkie how are the chicks doing?

 

[Lynn Manes]

Feel free to skip the background info if needed:
For the past 10 years, I have been using a Little Giant 9200 incubator from TSC. I used incubating as a hobby then, as I do now. When I first began, I made mistakes without even knowing. From depending on the stock glass thermometer to keeping the Incubator full of water (with all plugs closed) the entire incubation, if you can think of a way to devastate a hatch I've had it happen. From my 25% hatch rates, I began to search the Internet and found this site full of wonderful and wise chicken experts. With time and learning the basics, my hatch rate got into the 70% range; I couldn't have been more pleased. However, the past few years I've been stuck around a 80% hatch rate, attempting each time to get a 100% hatch as others have achieved.
Recently, I made the conclusion that my practices were solid, yet the wide temperature swings of my now 10 year old stryo-bater were to blame. This spring, in the midst of a strange chicken fever, I managed to gather too many eggs for my old LG to handle. Unable to bare eating the extra eggs, I went on the prowl for another incubator. I discovered little giant has made improvements, and bought the LG 9300 with turner. The digital temperature control appeared to be the cure for my current hassle of maintaining temperature. Once I got home, I saw all of the rancid reviews for this incubator. I set it up despite the reviews, and it holds a perfect, true temperature.

The Experiment
My goal is to not only test the accuracy of the reviews, yet determine if the 9300 produces better hatches. I gathered 72 eggs, (kinda overboard ) 24 of the eggs are Rhode Island Red while the rest are Gold/Silver Laced Wyandotte. both incubators had been running for a week, each holding a steady temperature of 101.5. During this week, I was surprised by the performance of the LG 9300. Although there were slight temperature fluctuations in the room, the 9300 never altered more than +- .2 of a degree; while the LG 9200 dropped to 97 one night. Both incubators are using a turner, and in the same room. I am using a dry incubation, until the egg cells appear too large and then I will add humidity to both. I set the eggs on March 7th, and the eggs are due to hatch March 28th. I put 12 Rhode Island Red eggs in each incubator and filled each incubator with the rest.

Side Notes
The 9300 really helps with my temperature paranoia, I'm not even worried that it will experience temperature swings as it adjust itself accordingly.
Day 6- I removed 10 infertile eggs - 7 from the 9300 and 3 from the 9200. I candled the eggs tonight, and they appear to be on track both in development and egg cell size, any feedback?
Day 7- I can easily see movement in eggs in both incubators. Haven't had any temperature swings in either incubator and both are still incubating dry.


Pictures

LG 9300

LG 9200

Both images are a day 6 egg which has a very thin shell. This egg will be my candler due to it's thin shell.

Normal shelled egg and development. (Day 6)

Day 7, thin shelled egg. Difficult to see anything in normal eggs.




I will update as the experiment progresses, feel free to ask any questions not covered and offer any advice you have!

We just recently purchased a Little Giant incubator and ha e quail eggs in it now. Yesterday was the day to candle our eggs. Just one problem--it's impossible to see through the shells. These are Cortunix quail eggs. This is our first time doing this. So now what? Do we just have to wait out to see if any hatch?

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Two out. Another 8 at least pipped and taking their sweet time. I am one tired chicky myself....lol Only one of the Spitzhauben eggs have pipped and that was early this morning. All the eggs that have pipped/hatched are brown or green eggs...lol I can see a clique already.

Still on day 19 though so I need to practice what I preach: patience! lol

 

[fiset94]

@rossfam06 That's awesome. Too cool. Hope the others aren't quitters on you.

In other news first this still air bator oy vey! it's temp is now up to 100.4 making me nutty. Tomorrow is candling day for the rest of the eggs and I will sneak and do them all because I feel it's necessary for some strange reason. Don't need another stinky egg thing going on. Pee eeww

Everyone pray my dog makes it through to at least friday evening before these puppies come. I have too much stuff going on with work, eggs, chicks and ducks to handle that too. I must sleep in between somehow lol. Shes been panting for two days now. But, no real labor signs except that. She's eating, drinking good. Just uncomfortable sleeping and overly hot I guess. I feel for her though. I remember those last few days 4 times... Glad she doesn't have to wait 9 months to whelp. That would be terrible.


Hey Silkie how are the chicks doing?

Puppy Breath! I love it!!! Hope that you have a successful candeling and your dog has a great litter of pups!!

 

[fiset94]

Two out. Another 8 at least pipped and taking their sweet time. I am one tired chicky myself....lol Only one of the Spitzhauben eggs have pipped and that was early this morning. All the eggs that have pipped/hatched are brown or green eggs...lol I can see a clique already.

Still on day 19 though so I need to practice what I preach: patience! lol

Day 19 and SO much action!! Wow! can't wait to see pics!! Green eggs are from what chicken? What color will these chickens that just hatched lay- Blue-Green? I just ordered some favaucana... and can't wait for them... I lost my first batch of Olive Eggers to Shrinkwrapping last time and was looking forward to those green eggs!

I hope my eggs are okay... I woke up this morning to find the house a freezing 62 degrees... yes.. that is freezing to me... We usually have it set on 73 Someone tripped the emergency switch on the heater and it shut off sometime last night..

When I checked the incubators they were sitting at 94 degrees... don't know if that will delay the hatch or not??

 

[WVduckchick]

We just recently purchased a Little Giant incubator and ha e quail eggs in it now. Yesterday was the day to candle our eggs. Just one problem--it's impossible to see through the shells. These are Cortunix quail eggs. This is our first time doing this. So now what? Do we just have to wait out to see if any hatch?

I haven't tried quail yet. Hmmm... I never thought about the difficulty candling them. Luckily they only take 16-18 days! Let us know how it goes!

 

[WVduckchick]

Two out. Another 8 at least pipped and taking their sweet time. I am one tired chicky myself....lol Only one of the Spitzhauben eggs have pipped and that was early this morning. All the eggs that have pipped/hatched are brown or green eggs...lol I can see a clique already.

Still on day 19 though so I need to practice what I preach: patience! lol

heehee practice what you preach! Easier said than done? lol My sister-in-law is on day 21 and popping out like crazy too. I feel like a proud aunt!

 

[WVduckchick]

So I candled the eggs and I think that my Isbars might be quitters. I have a couple of infertile BCM eggs and the rest look great! I got to see movements and everything. The top photo is the Isbar egg and the bottom is the BCM egg. The little black dot in the middle is the embryo and it was moving around.

Is the Isbar egg speckled? I haven't seen them before. And this is day 7? Maybe a quitter, but I'd leave it for a few more days anyway.

 

[AmyLynn2374]

Day 19 and SO much action!! Wow! can't wait to see pics!! Green eggs are from what chicken? What color will these chickens that just hatched lay- Blue-Green? I just ordered some favaucana... and can't wait for them... I lost my first batch of Olive Eggers to Shrinkwrapping last time and was looking forward to those green eggs!

I hope my eggs are okay... I woke up this morning to find the house a freezing 62 degrees... yes.. that is freezing to me... We usually have it set on 73 Someone tripped the emergency switch on the heater and it shut off sometime last night..

When I checked the incubators they were sitting at 94 degrees... don't know if that will delay the hatch or not??

I have no idea what any of them are except the white ones, because they are all Spitzhaubens...lol I am assuming the two smallest are the Black Japanese Bantams that she said she "threw in for me" the rest I'm clueless. I believe she said she had Aracaunas, so it's possible that's what they are. I know a couple are suposed to be brown leghorn. Benevelders and Chanteleclers (too lazy to go see how to spell these...lol) she also named. I know 3 of the eggs are supposed to be from the silky pen...lol She said she has over 140 chickens in different pens so it's a box of chocolates...lol

heehee practice what you preach! Easier said than done? lol My sister-in-law is on day 21 and popping out like crazy too. I feel like a proud aunt!

Much easier said than done. Congrats and the nieces and nephews....lol