March 2023 hatch-a-long

[Bound to Sea]

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I seem to find the green-gray ones hard to see inside. Here are my eggs set. I like th rope, it tilts the egg up to the right position.

Pretty!

 

[CragbornCottage]

View attachment 3417605
I seem to find the green-gray ones hard to see inside. Here are my eggs set. I like th rope, it tilts the egg up to the right position.

Nice! I was going to ask what the rope was for as well so thanks for that

Random question for the group - my little incubator has little divits where the eggs sit pointy side down for the incubation (I hand turn them). Should I take them out of the divits and lay them on their side when they go into lockdown, or just leave them sitting up straight for hatching? Or doesn't matter?

 

[LhickenChicken]

I think the hardest part will be figuring out which one is which once hatch.

thats why I label the eggs like let's say "Mabel and Sam-- X-O".

 

[BobMcDuff]

thats why I label the eggs like let's say "Mabel and Sam-- X-O".

Yes but what happens if your away and several hatch, and you don't know who came from which egg?

 

[LhickenChicken]

The shells and the looks of the chicks

 

[itkn]

Yes but what happens if your away and several hatch, and you don't know who came from which egg?

I haven't done this myself, but you can use pedigree bags, or baskets to keep them separate in the hatcher.

 

[FBMcrazy8]

I went and got another incubator today. 3 in less than a month…yup I have to say my husband loves me. But instead of putting my eggs in it, I put eggs in for a friend. She had a weasel take out 3/4 of her Call duck breeding pen. Luckily I already had a start and even more luckily I ended up with a bunch of her rare/expensive breeds. I have 42 Call eggs in that will hatch in hopefully 26 days. Some before that but that is the latest for the March hatch.

 

[Tumbleweedlynn]

I went and got another incubator today. 3 in less than a month…yup I have to say my husband loves me. But instead of putting my eggs in it, I put eggs in for a friend. She had a weasel take out 3/4 of her Call duck breeding pen. Luckily I already had a start and even more luckily I ended up with a bunch of her rare/expensive breeds. I have 42 Call eggs in that will hatch in hopefully 26 days. Some before that but that is the latest for the March hatch.

Good luck!

 

[BarnyardChaos]

So I'm mostly worried about that #7. When I set the eggs, this one weighed 67g. Last nite, it was 54g. I reset the scale and weighed again - yes, 54g. That's 20% weight loss already, when it should be closer to 6-7% (as are all of the others). And the air cell is just massive. I don't know what might have caused this - too porous shell, crack or pinhole I can't see?

Marked my air cells after weighing the eggs. My notes must be off because from the day 0 to today's day eight weight I have one of the eggs as having lost 20% (all the rest are 5-6%). The air cell doesn't scream problems to my untrained eye though. The white egg in center.

I've got one like that, but the air cell is huge. It's Day 16 and that egg has lost about 28% weight. I'll candle tonight and see if it's still viable. Very strange.

Yeah.... I lost that chick in #7 egg with the humongous air cell and 28% weight loss. It was a quitter probably about Day 13 or 14. Candling tonight, I found it had a distinct large black blob on one side of the shell.... none of the other 35 eggs had that. And you can see how much the air cell had grown in the last five days. Sorry for the quality, it's the best I could get:

This is the other side of that egg, tilted slightly towards the small end:

I found another quitter in the batch, at about the same time. So I'm down from 39 eggs to 35. I'm pleased with the development on those 35, though! Fingers crossed. Lockdown is Wednesday morning. Hatch due Saturday, March 4.

 

[kurby22]

Random question (sorry if this is not the right place for it) - my el cheapo incubator has a smooth plastic bottom and I read in another post somewhere else about chickens getting spladdle leg while in the incubator. Should I try and put something down a bit more grippy for when they (hopefully) hatch?

For the hatch-a-long - candling tomorrow for 14 days (well, 14 days for the chicks, 17 for the guineas) so hopefully all is going smoothly! There were a couple I wasn't sure about at 7 days so I'm expecting some will have to come out.

Just make sure it has holes in it to keep the air flow moving around! I tried the non-holey liner and it trapped all the humidity! Was super annoying.