MARCH 2021 HATCH-A-LONG 🌷🌸🌼

[gimmie birdies]

If I could only follow my own advice and not candle till day 7...

 

[gimmie birdies]

Too many factors with shipped eggs to guess if you do it all right, you do what you can do. If in HI I say set sooner than the 24 hrs. I would lay on sides as soon as day 7 if you think the air cells are set.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Too many factors with shipped eggs to guess if you do it all right, you do what you can do. If in HI I say set sooner than the 24 hrs. I would lay on sides as soon as day 7 if you think the air cells are set.

Thanks!
I usually set at 12 or even 6 hours depending on how old the eggs appear to be. Older they are, sooner they go in the incubator.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

I'm contacting the breeder to see if I can get some more paint silkie eggs sent out. I only have one left of these here at day 10. Really wanted some of these birds.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Lockdown 18 Barnevelder eggs and 7 call duck eggs today!

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

Lockdown! 3 leghorn, 6 mixed breeds.

View attachment 2549267

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

Question for you lovely people here:
I have incubated and hatched shipped eggs on their sides and upright. Mixed results with both. I just had a 1 out of 10 hatch this week-end on the February hatch-along, also shipped eggs. All incubated upright.
Now with the current batch of 5 on day 10, all are viable. 2 now have stable aircells after incubating upright, the other 3 are still saddled and loose.
So the question is, should I go ahead and set the 2 that have good aircells now on their sides and back in the auto turner? Keep the other 3 upright? I just want to ensure the best possible conditions. I have two incubators now empty except for these 5, so I can do both. Any thoughts?

Oh man. You're asking some fantastic and extremely difficult questions. This is the line where incubation splits from science and becomes instinct or feel. Only you can decide what's best for this hatch.

I felt for a long time I got slightly better results incubating upright. Like an extra chick out of a dozen eggs every other hatch. That usually how I hatch. This round, with a new incubator, I thought I'd try side incubating again. For no other reason than it's been awhile some I've given it a go and it works so well for others. I just locked down exactly at 50%. Didn't seem to make a bit of difference this round.

My really terrible hatches, 0/24 or 1/12, I can usually track down something big that happen in transit or the incubator (heat spike). Fortunately those hatches are few and far between with minimal user error involved. It's natural to second guess yourself but also cut yourself some slack. You're doing the best you can. That's all any of us can do.

 

[WallyG74]

This is my 3rd attempt in as many months. I set 10 EE from my own flock and 12 BO from a local breeder. 1st failed attempt was just noob errors. 2nd failed attempt was 2 days without power in freezing temps. I have faith this one will happen. This will be the start of a very large chicken expansion on my little farm. Hatch day is March 21. Let’s hatch some chicks!

 

[Derangedplanet]

We are hopefully pickung up eggs in Tuesday. Provided all symptoms stay gone. Really hoping the hatch goes well. I always start my incubator up a day before I get eggs. But maybe I should do 48 hours? What's everyone's pre egg tradition? I also just moved to a much much dryer area. They incubator is going in my reptile room which has a humidifier running almost always. But it rarely gets over 40% in there.(without humidifier it's ~10% which is far too low for my reptiles). Anyways. Any changes I should make in your opinions?

 

[wolfwalker]

I set in the incubator today, a total of 41 eggs.

15 Welsummer
13 Lavender Orpington
13 Cream Legbar

for a projected hatch date of 3/21