March 2017! Hatch with us!

[coloradowildflower]

Here's an old video of one of our first chicks.

BEAUTIFUL! I love that moment when she just pops her head right out!

 

[tinakevin]

All 5 of my babies hatched. The last one was born this morning sometime. It's funny cuz 4 of them resemble each other and the last one is totally black. The only black hens I have r silkies and none of the eggs were from them. The rooster is a partridge silkie and I'm not sure about the hens. Either barnvelder. Barredrock or rir. He's in with all large hens.

The yellow on her is just shavings

 

[tinakevin]

These r my other ones

 

[tinakevin]

 

[tinakevin]

I have 2 silkies hatching the eggs and 1 Cochin as well

 

[orrpeople]

It's close to 90 degrees and I'm putting together the chicken coop I bought and the nesting boxes have me stumped. The directions are horrible.

When it's hot and sticky and the directions piss you off, it makes it hard to continue without saying bad words....

IF I ever get this finished, my NY chicks will upgrade their living quarters, and I can use their old pen for my bathroom chicks. I want my bathroom back!!

My pile of broody silkies are now 4, and they are sitting on at least a dozen fertile eggs, plus any infertile ones their friends have left behind. I have a full bator on day 5, a half full bator on day 2, and I just bid on more eggs...

And you won them, you auction champ!! High 80's for us here - chicken panting in the nesting boxes - I guess the 50 degree to 88 degree jump might throw their little cooling systems off a bit!

 

[orrpeople]

Love the video!

Hi all....been reading through the complete thread, started Friday. LOL And trying to decide as I read whether to join in and admit what a dork I am. I am doing my first incubation and I believe I have made about a million mistakes. I'll try to make this as quick and short as possible because I have a question at the end.

I finally decided I wanted to incubate some of my Welsh Harlequin ducks...bought a Farm Innovators incubator on the recommendation of a friend. For 3 days I could not get the humidity to not fluctuate so I got aggravated and from somewhere read people had had better luck with ducks with a Genesis Hovabator, convinced hubby it would be an early BD present and got it. Within 24 hours it was maintaining heat AND humidity well. Yay! Set 21 eggs that were from 1-4 days fresh (and diligently turned as they waited) on the 25th of February. When I ordered the Hovabator on the 21, I said, "what the hey, I'll just set a bunch of my mixed flock chicken". So I set 27 not so carefully gathered and saved as the diligence I used with the duck eggs. Candled yesterday and pulled 7, a couple empty, one blood ring and the rest blobs with no blood vessels discernible. I hope I didn't screw that up. Anyway, the FI 'bator with chicks flipped to day 4 this afternoon so I am assuming tomorrow afternoon I need to start lockdown? And I need to get that thing to stay at 70%...am I right?

Oops...another question. The Hovabator has no countdown for days. Is it 25 days for ducks? I read that I thought and then read 28. I'm confused. Candled them yesterday also, removed 2 that were clearly empty and one with a blob and no discernible blood vessels. So I have 18 that had really good blood vessels and small blobs. I was so freaked at possibly messing up the humidity I was moving quick and didn't examine really, really carefully but all 18 had really great blood vessels and this was day 15? I have been maintaining them at 50% humidity per the Metzers site...I think was where I read it. I read their directions for cool down and spraying but decided I would not do this first time around.

Have loved reading this thread and have learned SO MUCH. Thank you everyone for sharing.

I love my Genesis so much I asked for - and received- a second one for Valentine's Day (how romantic can you possibly get!!!).
As for your duck questions, I am hoping @WVduckchick will chime in since it is definitely not my field of expertise. With chicken eggs on lockdown, the first day I spend dinking with raising the humidity and usually get it to somewhere in the high 60s. As long as there are no pips you can open it to make adjustments. Oncechicks begin to hatch, their little bodies send the humidity way up, so you usually don't have to do any more water adding after that (although occasionally there's a gap in hatching and humidity drops a bit. I keep some small, clean sponges to load up with water and toss in really quickly).

 

[orrpeople]

All 5 of my babies hatched. The last one was born this morning sometime. It's funny cuz 4 of them resemble each other and the last one is totally black. The only black hens I have r silkies and none of the eggs were from them. The rooster is a partridge silkie and I'm not sure about the hens. Either barnvelder. Barredrock or rir. He's in with all large hens.

The yellow on her is just shavings

It'd be cool if it was the barred rock because then you would know it's a girl, since the boys inherit the barring and the girls just tend to be black.

 

[orrpeople]

Do these look like ok air cells for day 15? Chicks.

My humidity is being affected more by house humidity than during my first hatch. Its between 16 and 27%. A little lower than first hatch, didnt have as much of a problem keeping it above 20 that time. I only found two that appeared underdeveloped tonight, but did not candle all 47.

Im having a hardtime discerning from the pic, but here is a diagram

 

[Jim121898]

Well I finally have some external piping going on. Day 21 was yesterday, and with the power outage, and a tad low temperature I figured they'd be a little late. Like I said in an earlier post this is my fourth and final hatch. I have 9 eggs that made it to lockdown and four have external pips. One of them has a pip on the wrong end of the egg.

The last three hatches have produced one each of wrong end pips. I'm curious as to if there is a reason, or something I'm doing wrong that causes this? Like I said it always seems as if there is one that has things backwards. I look forward to any and all advice in regards to this issue. Thanks Jim