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

[java girl 2]

Quote:

They do good up till the last week both times and then they die with no pip!!

I did the cheat sheet and nothing both times!!!

 

[dsqard]

The first chick that hatched yesterday seem to have trouble with a leg. It looks fine, but sticks out to her side a bit and she cant seem to getit under her. Any suggestions as to what I can do for her?
Do a search on splay leg. You can use a bandaid to splint the legs the right distance apart. There should be pictures on how to do it on threads that discuss it. I have one in a "splint" right now. Doing well. If you catch it early enough, everything should be fine.

Our second one hatched about 1am this morning and really hasnt moved much since. She's almost all dry, but doesnt seem to be up and moving at all. Is that normal behavior for a chick that has been hatched almost 5 hours or should I be worried? Do you think there is something wrong with what I am doing with the incubator? Its an LG still air, and I havent had any trouble the entire 3 weeks maintaining temps etc.
I would keep an eye on the chick but it is probably fine. Give it time to rest. I would leave it in the incubator until it gets more active so it doesn't get trampled in the brooder.

 

[buckabucka]

So sorry to Wisher and java girl about this hatch. My first hatch, I got one out of 30, and then the chick died, so my advice is to try, try again.

Thank you all for your advice and well-wishes for my semi-comatose chick. I was afraid to look this morning, but DH says he is fluffed up and moving around! I'm planning to check and see if I can move him into the brooder before work, as long as he can move around adequately. Perhaps he can hang around with my hummingbird Marans!

I will report my final hatch this afternoon, which is looking like 20 out of 49. It would have been an abysmal hatch rate if I hadn't thrown a bunch of my own eggs in there.

Off to work....

 

[Arielle]

While the term dry hatch can be misleading, I have found this method of incubation to be effective at helping the air cells develop correctly. IMO moisture loss from the egg is affected by a number of factors: ventilation, number of eggs set, fan, leakiness of incubator, temperature and humidity of the room. My styrofoam LG absorbs water when I wash it. Another factor.

Maybe with a little investigation and experimentation you can find the recipe that works for you.

Quote:

They do good up till the last week both times and then they die with no pip!!

I did the cheat sheet and nothing both times!!!

 

[Arielle]

Checked incubator this morning--no pip. Maybe I was just hearing things.

 

[Spangled]

Set 36 in Brinsea, stacked on Sunday, March 18. According to the instructions for this Hatch-a-Long, we were told if we set on Saturday the 17th that they would hatch on Saturday the 7th of April. Well, I set on Sunday and they hatched on Saturday. I cleared my Sunday so I would be free. Silly me.

First pip on Friday afternoon around 4pm. A few hatched that night and the next day. I had lots of pips.

I ran off to do some stuff and got back later than expected and rushed to the incubator and saw this:



So after I moved them all to the brooder, I had around 12 left to hatch. I was afraid that the lower chicks had all suffocated under all those chicks (see photo above). I had to readjust the temp after all those chicks came out because the temp was down to 97.5. Plus I threw in another hot wet paper towel to get the humidity back up.

However, a few more hatched Saturday night. When I got up on Sunday morning I had 4 more that had hatched. That left 4 to hatch. Only one of the last four had pipped and it
took until around 3 in the afternoon for that one to hatch. But all did come out on their own. I had to trim the umbilical cord on one.

What did I do wrong with this hatch? Well, the timing. Chicks always hatch in an incubator on a Saturday if you set them in a hot incubator on a Sunday. I should have been paying attention. 2. I didn't pay any attention to the temperature in the incubator the first 3 days. You see, the temp was set perfectly the last hatch, so I figured the temp would be perfectly set for the following hatch. However, it wasn't. So the first three days the egg incubated at 97.5 degrees. 3. I didn't ever monitor the humidity. I've hatched enough in this incubator that I sort of know when to fill it with water and how to get it up to 70% humidity at the end. I also didn't start working on getting the humidity up until the first pip appears. That's what works here, but your mileage will vary. 4. I stacked and then wasn't available to get the chicks out when they hatched due to scheduling mishap. 5. I probably did a few other things wrong, but those above are what come to mind.

For the big errors I made (low temps for first 3 days, etc.), I don't think the hatch rate was all that bad. 32 out of 36 set is a good effort in my book. I guess I'll attribute it to dumb luck, well-fed breeders, and a Brinsea.

Earlier in the thread I mentioned that one egg looked like mush upon candling ... well, it hatched just fine. Another that I marked quitter, did in fact, quit.

Anyway. I guess that's it. Here's the photo of my lil' darlings. The photo of full incubator of eggs is linked in my signature.




It was way more difficult to get this photo than I expected. I kept having to move chicks back toward me. Before I could get even two photos clicked, most of them had run down to the other end and gotten all cuddled up again. I took out the water so that it didn't impair our view for counting.

 

[moetrout]

Well I have 14 chicks out of 24 eggs set. I don't think that is all that bad for a first timer! We helped 3 out of the egg. ! of those probably did not need the help, the other 2 would have died without our help. They had pipped and zipped but could not kick out of the egg. Upon picking up the egg I found out they were stuck to the paper towel from the goo that had leaked out and dried. One of them had to be washed with warm water because it had the membrane stuck to it's entire back side. All chicks that hatched are doing great! I had 2 that pipped and my guess is they drown in their own fluids. I think what happened was they were set with the wrong end up. Those eggs were from my largest and oldest Americauna. Her eggs are extra large and oval shaped such that you can't tell which is the pointed end. The chicks in those eggs were fully developed and had pipped right in the very center of the egg. I am also disapointed that out of 8 BCMs only 2 hatched. Tonight will mark day 23 for me. I wonder if there is any hope for those eggs? I am planning on leaving them in the incubator until day 25. At that point I am shutting it down and doing an eggtopsy on them to see what happened. Now for the next set of problems......my wife wants to keep every one of theose chicks! I only have room to keep 5 more in my main coup. I have a secondary breeding/grow out coup, but it was never meant to keep chickens during the winter and would only hold 4 anyway. To compound that porblem even further I want to incubate at least one more batch. How do I curb my wifes yearning to keep every little fuzzy butt???

 

[Spangled]

Well I have 14 chicks out of 24 eggs set. I don't think that is all that bad for a first timer!

How do I curb my wifes yearning to keep every little fuzzy butt???

That is great for a first timer! I've no idea about the wife. Maybe a bigger coop?

 

[NotAFarm]

Congratulations to all those with good hatches and lots of chicks and condolences to those who had poor or no hatches. Be sure to take a pic of your cutest hatchee and post it here for that contest. Don't forget to submit the number of eggs hatched so we have an accurate count!
PLEASE REPORT THE NUMBER OF CHICKS YOU HATCHED ---->HERE
THIS NUMBER NEEDS TO BE REPORTED BY APRIL 11TH, 2012 AT 11:59:59 "Mahonri time" MST.

A big THANK YOU goes out to everyone that participated in the Hatchalong!! Don't forget to nominate someone for the Best Overall Hatch Participant.

Click HERE to see all the CONTESTS and PRIZES

 

[ChestnutRidge]

Two of my hatchlings died overnight - have never had a hatchling die, so new to me. =(

Me, too.

This is the first time I've woken up to a chick dead in the brooder. I had a good cry about it, and now I need to figure out what to do with my very crippled little chick. I may have to lose them both.

well it look like my eggs for the hatch-a-long are gone!!!

I AM NEVER DOING A DRY HATCH AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SOMEBODY SLAP ME FOR TRYING AGAIN AFTER THE FIRST FAILED HATCH!

Do you keep an incubation log? I find it helpful to write down the temperature and humidity a few times a day, when I added water, when I candled, etc. Then, when something goes wrong - or right - I can look back and theorize what caused it.

Have you had better luck in the past incubating with higher humidity?

Thank you all for your advice and well-wishes for my semi-comatose chick. I was afraid to look this morning, but DH says he is fluffed up and moving around! I'm planning to check and see if I can move him into the brooder before work, as long as he can move around adequately. Perhaps he can hang around with my hummingbird Marans!

Very glad to hear it. One more Euskal Oiloa in the world!

I am going to sit around for a bit and then go clean out my incubators. I'll get my eggs today if tracking info is right. I wish it was later in the week, but no way I am saying no to German New Hampshires!

Now that I may have the opportunity to have both Euskal Oiloak / Basque Hens and German New Hampshires,

I need to sell pretty much everybody else late this summer. Unfortunately, despite MONTHS of adjustments to try and quelch this, someone in my coop - or several someones - is feather-picking. They have a huge amount of space, free range 4+ hours a day, and eat a ton of high-protein and fiber stuff, but the habit remains. So, 4 girls are missing beards and my rooster is missing neck feathers. They look terrible and it is very embarrassing. I trimmed the very tip of one guilty hen's beak, tried separations, and so on. I don't want to use pinless peepers. Has anyone made a foul-tasting goo to smear on the picked parts? Any other ideas?