March 21 or so hatching

I would recommend just taking them off the turner early and raise humidity. Day 19 would be a bit late and I would worry that they would shrink wrap if there isn't enough humidity..

Decisions, decisions!

Thanks for the input. It helps me make up my mind.

Just a few more days to go before I put them into lockdown.

CG
 
Managed to candle today. Found one more egg that had stopped developing - about 8-10 days ago. All the rest are dark and filled with veins. Started with 41 eggs, 2 were infertile, and 2 died early so far. Looks like I'm on track to possibly see up to 37 chicks next week. It would be nice to have a hatch be that successful, previous attempts have only resulted in half a dozen hatchlings.

CG
 
Hi, I know I'm joining a little late, but I set my eggs on the evening of the 26th...
I built an incubator with an ice chest, water heater thermostat, light bulb and computer fan. I let it run for a week as I collected eggs for hatching to make sure it was stable. I set 15 eggs on feb 26th. The temp has been a steady 100 and humidity around 55-ish, turning the eggs three times a day. I candled them on day 7 and all but 1 were developing. (it was porous) I couldn't see into the blue ones at all, so I'm just hoping....
I'm so excited and so anxious at the same time! This is my first attempt at incubating eggs EVER. I candle the white ones every few days just to make sure they're still growing, and as of today they still are.

Dad is an "Ameracauna". Moms are an "Ameracauna" (blue eggs), Silver Laced Wyandotte (light brown eggs), Silver Grey Dorking (white eggs), and Cuckoo Marans (dark brown eggs).

I can't wait till they hatch!!
wee.gif


Now I'm worried about the air cell. I'm on day 17. Tomorrow is day 18 and they're going into lock down. How big are the air cells supposed to be? I don't think mine are big enough? My humidity has been around 55-ish pretty much the whole time. I couldn't get a good pic of them being candled, so I traced the air sac with a pencil.



 
Some of those do look a little small. I'm looking at the brown eggs mostly. At this point in time however, there's not much you can do except watch and see that everyone hatches OK if they pip.

Good Luck.

CG
 
I am in the midst of candling as I type. I am seeing much better rates with my own eggs. Less time from chicken to incubator, the better it gets. My first batch sat for at least a week before going in the incubator. Out of the thirty six eggs I set, only four are kicking around at my feet. I would say more than half were not fertile, had a few embryo deaths, seven of the fifteen I put into lockdown hatched or pipped, one did not make it out of the shell, and two chicks died at a few days old. That was my first hatch! Just wretched, but now my own hens are laying and I have candled a good bit of them.

Here's how it's looking. March 6th, 7th, and 9th I set forty-two eggs. As of today's candling there are nine that I tossed that were either not fertile, and a couple with obvious blood rings. Now that I have green and brown eggs, there are eight that I cannot even see into with two lights. But that leaves me with twenty-five that are most definitely developing up to this point. Perhaps it still will not work out in my favor, but at this point it seems to be going well. I have a whole other incubator full of eggs that need candling, but hopefully that one bears good news. My first eggs should start on the twenty-third, and I have a staggered hatch from then on. We'll see how it goes! I have a whole week off to admire the darlings, so hopefully I will get some darlings to admire. The first eggs due to hatch are purebreds, but all of my eggs have little mutts cultivating inside them, so it will be a very interesting event.
 

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