Mahonri's 3rd Annual, BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[Arielle]

I have hatched thousands of chicks, and I learned alot by opening up the unhatched eggs after the hatch. I also learned alot by reading this: Hatchability Problem Analysis. I am also still learning.

Gee, Kathy, now I don't feel bad that I don't have a set ritual yet. Still experimenting and trying to tweak variables.

It's reassuring that it is not just me, but they look so pathetic, I think people will think they are unhealthy. My birds are spoiled rotten (cabbage, mealworms, UltraKibble, organic soy-free feed, scratch, range....

They are shiny, robust, lay well - but I am sure people would think they have parasites or are overcroweded or something. This picture is even a bit old - the Silver Am girls are now picked down clear to their chest.



ETA: But these two make cute babies!

I tried everything as you have. They just ate any goo I put on like it was frosting. What finally worked was feeder of free choice oats with the hulls still on plus one or two other grains all together in an additional feeder. They will self regulate how much they eat and egg production went back to normal after a week or two. PLUS I put aprons on them. For us aprons are a must at first sign of trouble.

I'll try the oats! It's worth a shot.

Have you looked them over for external parasites, like mites and lice??

That was the first thing I looked for, but, nope, they don't have anything I can see in their feathers, under the roosts, or in the nest boxes.

In other news, my German New Hampshire eggs arrived!

Is this how the girls behave or is it boys too?? I haven't seen this in the boys, the three roosters that live together.

So, the eggs in my hovabator is chirping and rocking like crazy. The 4 or 5 heatspikes to 107-110 and the dips to 91-96 didn't kill them after all! Waiting on a pip though because they were chirping and rocking like crazy last night and nothing so far. Soooo...any advice for my serama singleton? Brood with polish or try to raise it hands on by itself?

I don't know seramas; my thought is being a chicken it is better to live with other birds if possible. Perhaps someone with more experience will chime in.

good day! The chicks were a big hit yesterday with my sil. She almost took some home with her! Wouldn't be surprised if they claim a few soon, after they set up an in town chicken pen. It is almost legal there.

We need a chicken or two in every household!!

 

[Arielle]

Final count. 25 hatched out of 31 total set. All doing well. The last chick dried like it was smeared with school glue, gave it a bath in warm water and it's managing among the older siblings.

I will wait another day for the last two.

 

[wolftracks]

help

Two chicks out this morning. Looks like they came from my own eggs. MY humidity is reading 58. Should I bump that up a bit? I'm doing a dry hatch and it's usually around 60 that I try to run it, but after this feastco I'll take some opinions to help get things going in there. I don't see any other pips, but with all of these and not being able to see the other sides who knows? But I'd like to do better than 2 out of 104!


Figures these guys are WAY in the back of the Sportsman and since I had so many I just kept pushing cartons in. I can't reach them without climbing over eggs. I take that back. I did have to help one since it was trapped between the wall and a carton, but now it's towards the back with the other.

 

[countrygirl911]

hi everyone i have a question what do i do about reporting how many i hatch if i still ahve some hatching on the 11th 73 eggs went to lock down all alive and moving an hr before lockdown 1 piped and died in egg i have 36 as of this morning that is out of eggs with 36 more eggs to go and about half still has pips with chicks moving in the eggs 8 that are due today and tomorrow and the rest are wiggling.

 

[dsqard]

Kim can you see the two that came out at all? If they look normal and not sticky, I would leave your humidity alone. As more hatch the humidity is going to go up anyway. Good Luck!!!!!!

So glad to hear that you are getting some chicks out of this hatch.

 

[Spangled]

Quote: Have you looked them over for external parasites, like mites and lice??



Um ... if you're asking me, yes, I checked. No lice. No mites. But that was a while ago, and I took the aprons off a while back. The hens look great right now without a recurrence. It was three out of about 22 hens. I throw DE around the coop and nests, and they also dust bathe whenever they like. I do have a tendency to think that mites are more prevalent than a few of us realize, though, so I agree with you that picking can be a sign of mites.

Soooo...any advice for my serama singleton? Brood with polish or try to raise it hands on by itself?

Could pick out one calm Polish chick and raise the Serama wth it? A least that way the Serama wouldn't be alone.

 

[PortoProud]

Came back to post our results-

41 eggs set (originally was going to be 42)

Total of 27 hatched
- 6 of the 7 white rock eggs hatched (mine)- this was a good set for mine, but I only have 2 hens and 1 roo
- 21 of 34 eggs were my aunt's black amar. & other mixed breeds- she has 28 hens to 2 roos- which can account for her lesser hatch rate. She has some barred rocks, leghorns, but nothing fancy.

Overall hatch = 65.85%.
Mine= 85.71% (Very happy with that!)


The only other issue was that they hatched early- started pipping on Thursday, and finished up completely on Saturday night. Most hatched on Friday.

Thanks for having this- I will be back next year!!

 

[ambrosia]

Final count. 25 hatched out of 31 total set. All doing well. The last chick dried like it was smeared with school glue, gave it a bath in warm water and it's managing among the older siblings.

I will wait another day for the last two.

I got 8 from the 10 that went in to lock down... they are just too cute!

 

[mbleily]

I had good results in the Genesis at 35% humidity for the first 18 days. The new Genesis runs low for Humidity readings. If you have the digital type and the display says 50%, It might be as high as 70%. It read 65% at lockdown but may have been too low. It actually went down to 59% on the display before the last two hatched at 24 hours after the first one hatched. They were not too wet
So I need to find out what the humidity really is in mine. I really don't have room in there for the thing to read it. It is big and the turner is an old LG turner. My sister in laws. I will try to see what I can do with that.

With all that said, the best way to tell if things are going well is to watch the air cell. If it is not getting to the correct size for the day of incubation you need to adjust humidity up or down. Another way is to weigh the eggs and match the percent of weight loss again at the days of hatch. My Brinsea high intensity candler came with a picture of an egg with the size and days. The first day was day 7, then 14 and then 18.
I have a cheapo candler that doesn't go through a lot of the eggs. Although I can usually see the air sacks. I will check them too.

With the uneven hatch from one side to the other I would suspect temperature un evenness in the incubator. You won't have problems with this with the Genesis.
I am sure glad of that. That is one of the reasons I got it. My son was a little bummed because he help build it and though it was soo neat that we could build one.

And in all fairness it could be because of the roo not liking the hens we gave him. He is very selective. He has over 30 to pick from when he is with them all. I got two roos from him in my hatch before this one and I think I will keep them too. Too many hens for one roo.

Tip: remove the plug and leave it out. Let the temperature go down at lock down. It can go as low as 97.5 then. I am keeping mine at 98.5. Important: I am not talking about the digital display. I am getting the temp from a Brinsea spot check at egg level. The new style Genesis is set at 101.8 to maintain that temp at egg level.
It dawned on me two days ago that the plug was still in and took it out of the genesis. My Genesis says it is set at 100.0 and internally runs 100.3. I just checked a lot of the air sacks And they look pretty much on for day 9. I put the thermometer and humidity checker in there for a while to see what it says.

I hope this helps,

Ron
It does help a lot Thanks so much. Micki in Idaho

 

[wolftracks]

Kim can you see the two that came out at all? If they look normal and not sticky, I would leave your humidity alone. As more hatch the humidity is going to go up anyway. Good Luck!!!!!!

So glad to hear that you are getting some chicks out of this hatch.

They're dry already but I don't know if the humidity was up when they hatched. It was at 63% at about midnight.