March 2017! Hatch with us!

[Ella2017]

You sound like you could be my long lost twin! I hope they all hatch and that you have a blast. From my experience, especially very recently, each hatched chick deserves it's own birthday party!

Thank you! Oh we will definitely be celebrating any hatch we get!.. I'm seriously checking on these eggs every hour.. they are my third child lol.

 

[orrpeople]

/SPOILER]

I had the same issue.  I had a broody Orpington.  We don't have a rooster, so any egg she was sitting on, wasn't ever going to hatch.  Other hens would climb in with her and lay eggs, and she'd collect them.  We'd take them away.  I decided to give her a few fertile eggs I had.  I set up a nice secluded area, and put the eggs in a bin, and moved her and she wanted NOTHING to do with it.  So, I let her out and I gave these eggs to the broody silky pile I posted earlier.  Thankfully they were in an area I was able to easily close off.  So, I didn't have to touch these very irritable hens.  They are now sitting on a dozen eggs between the 7 of them.  

Good luck with your hatch!  

Every time you say "silky pile" I can't help laughing and my family is like, "What is so funny?"

 

[orrpeople]

I'll join the hatch-along! I'm already at day 18. Just put my eggs into lockdown. It is a small hatch, just 6 Olive Eggers from my own flock.

I really prefer to hatch with a broody hen. All last fall I had to constantly break my hens of broodiness, but since the New Year, not one broody hen. I finally got impatient, and set eggs in the incubator. Then yesterday, a broody Cuckoo Marans! We were out of town over the weekend, and this overly ambitious girl was trying to sit on 24 eggs!

 I gave her 24 hours, and then decided this evening to attempt an egg switch-a-roo. I put the incubator eggs in the broody pen on the floor, and moved the hen in the dark. She did not like it...not one bit! But I locked the pen and decided to give her some time to adjust. An hour later I could still hear her freaking out from the house. So I freed the hen, and gathered the eggs, and back into the incubator they went, now in lockdown. On the plus side, I'll be able to watch them hatch.

Hurrah! Glad you joined us! I would love to someday have a hen go broody... watch, after Iget all the new stock I want, I'll have 5 of them at the same time!!

 

[orrpeople]

Well crud.
I'm sitting here in the middle of a power outage. I have seven 1 day old chicks screaming their heads off, four 3 weeks old chicks, nine 5 week old chicks (outside in the coop), a hatcher with two piped eggs at 76 degrees, and an incubator with 30 some eggs on day 10 at 81 degrees. Sometimes I hate living on the coast. 70 mile per hour wind! Yuck!

Oh no! Keep us updated!

 

[dannyelle123]

Ugh!!! (Day 2) My kids unplugged my bator accidentally for just over 3 hours! When I went to turn them the temp was registering 73! So irritating, hoping no harm was done!

I found this information regarding power outage: http://www.brinsea.com/Articles/Advice/PowerOff.aspx

 

[Lamancha]

Lol. We all seem to be having a heck of a time with our eggs. I hope these March chicks are tough as nails.

 

[floridachickhatcher]

Chicken and its gonna be mixed breed chicks ^_^

 

[dannyelle123]

What do y'all think about the advice "put them in the fridge" if they will be chilled for more than 2 hours, in order to suspend development? The article claims that if they are to chill during the first 7 days of incubation they are better off being cold rather than cooled, it makes no mention of how long you would leave them in the fridge?

I don't know, my broody was off her eggs and sitting on the wrong nest a couple of months ago for a few hours and it was probably 60 degrees out and they all survived, I think they were in the 2nd week, so hmm...

Too late now though, as soon as I found them I turned them and plugged it right back in.

 

[Lamancha]

What do y'all think about the advice "put them in the fridge" if they will be chilled for more than 2 hours, in order to suspend development? The article claims that if they are to chill during the first 7 days of incubation they are better off being cold rather than cooled, it makes no mention of how long you would leave them in the fridge?

I don't know, my broody was off her eggs and sitting on the wrong nest a couple of months ago for a few hours and it was probably 60 degrees out and they all survived, I think they were in the 2nd week, so hmm...

Too late now though, as soon as I found them I turned them and plugged it right back in.

thats really interesting. I think I will try it after I'm done with this batch.

 

[Mylied]

What do y'all think about the advice "put them in the fridge" if they will be chilled for more than 2 hours, in order to suspend development? The article claims that if they are to chill during the first 7 days of incubation they are better off being cold rather than cooled, it makes no mention of how long you would leave them in the fridge?

I don't know, my broody was off her eggs and sitting on the wrong nest a couple of months ago for a few hours and it was probably 60 degrees out and they all survived, I think they were in the 2nd week, so hmm...

Too late now though, as soon as I found them I turned them and plugged it right back in.

I think they will die quickly if you put them in a fridge after you start incubating them.