MARCH Hatch-A-Long 2015: Please Read the First Post to JOIN the H-A-L

[favlove]

I live in an old temperamental house with lots of charm, but it flunks in the energy efficiency department. It got me thinking about fluctuating ambient room temps yesterday. Could I perhaps just find a cooler big enough to rest the incubator in to keep a steady ambient temp? If air flow is a problem add a few vent holes. Even having vent holes the cooler should, in theory, help keep thing more even. No?

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

I don't see why you couldn't put the bator in a cooler to stabilize it (as long as its well ventilated). Lots of people on here put them in styrofoam boxes. Sometimes I cover mine over with a blanket when the temp is going crazy in my house.
@Lamancha- you sound just like me! I've got 3 separate hatches of chicken eggs going in my incubator right now and the duck eggs will be here this weekend


I candled my first batch of eggs again tonight, they've been in the bator 6 days. It was SUPER disappointing. I have 8/25 eggs developing :/ I pulled the clears and fed them to the pigs. I checked the second batch while I was at it (3 days old) and only 1 has veins starting. So, I put the 3rd batch in. If I don't have better fertility with this 3rd batch, I'll have to wait to collect eggs again closer to spring. I'll candle again before my duck eggs get here this weekend and pull the rest of the clears. I'm sure there will be plenty of space for the Khaki eggs after I candle.

 

[poult]

My Little Giants are really hard to keep stable too. I have one digital and one with the little knob.

Mine is with the knob & it can be a hassle setting the temperature as well.:/

Good luck with your Khakis Lamancha! I've never done duck eggs before, so this is gonna be a new experience for me. I think I'll give a few of them to my broody and see how she does with them. I'm hoping my eggs will arrive in good shape since my DH is driving them home.

As for the LGs, I have an older model and the newer, digital model. I don't really have any problems out of either of them. The trick for me this time of the year was finding a good spot for them. We use wood to heat, so the temp in my house is never steady. But, the LGs do a good job staying pretty stable. They don't usually fluctuate more than a half of a degree. I've had my older bator for at least 5 years now, and I got it second hand. Maybe I'm just lucky? The older one is a pain to dial in though, with that little knob!

How exciting new eggs! Nah I could just have a bad model

 

[kbarnes]

Ok day 4 and I candled..... Couldn't wait 10 of the 11 CCL have veins,7 of the 8 EOrps do and 3 of the 4 EEs. I still can't see into my marans egg. I'm going to wait till Sunday before I throw out any. But all in all if those ones keep developing I should have excellent hatch rates.

 

[Lamancha]

Ok day 4 and I candled..... Couldn't wait 10 of the 11 CCL have veins,7 of the 8 EOrps do and 3 of the 4 EEs. I still can't see into my marans egg. I'm going to wait till Sunday before I throw out any. But all in all if those ones keep developing I should have excellent hatch rates.

Thats a pretty good start. I'm pretty bad about over-candling too. This is the first time I've done shipped eggs though so I'm not messing with them much. Fragile little babies. My backyard chickens eggs are tough though. I candle those daily, sometimes more and get good hatch rates still.

 

[rmcclure]

I just set our eggs this morning and I cannot wait til March 11th when they are due, never mind candling them in a few days to see if any are really working out!.... this is my FIRST hatch we got 18 eggs from a local lady who is so nice! she gave us free eggs all nice and labeled for us so we know when they were laid and who they came from! all of them are mixes, Then we also bought a dozen eggs from a local breeder 6 were standard barnyard mix and 6 were bantams (also who knows mix) but I dropped 4 of them, one hopelessly cracked and the others I hope will be okay despite the jar T.T so we have 29 eggs cooking I am SO excited ahhhhh good luck everyone!

 

[kbarnes]

I just set our eggs this morning and I cannot wait til March 11th when they are due, never mind candling them in a few days to see if any are really working out!.... this is my FIRST hatch we got 18 eggs from a local lady who is so nice! she gave us free eggs all nice and labeled for us so we know when they were laid and who they came from! all of them are mixes, Then we also bought a dozen eggs from a local breeder 6 were standard barnyard mix and 6 were bantams (also who knows mix) but I dropped 4 of them, one hopelessly cracked and the others I hope will be okay despite the jar T.T so we have 29 eggs cooking I am SO excited ahhhhh good luck everyone!

Good luck to you to. This is my first time as well. So exciting

 

[poult]

Everyone's clutches sound like their doing great! glad to hear!

 

[Studio Chick]

I just set our eggs this morning and I cannot wait til March 11th when they are due, never mind candling them in a few days to see if any are really working out!.... this is my FIRST hatch we got 18 eggs from a local lady who is so nice! she gave us free eggs all nice and labeled for us so we know when they were laid and who they came from! all of them are mixes, Then we also bought a dozen eggs from a local breeder 6 were standard barnyard mix and 6 were bantams (also who knows mix) but I dropped 4 of them, one hopelessly cracked and the others I hope will be okay despite the jar T.T so we have 29 eggs cooking I am SO excited ahhhhh good luck everyone!

Good luck! It's also my first time, I hope to set mine Friday

I just set our eggs this morning and I cannot wait til March 11th when they are due, never mind candling them in a few days to see if any are really working out!.... this is my FIRST hatch we got 18 eggs from a local lady who is so nice! she gave us free eggs all nice and labeled for us so we know when they were laid and who they came from! all of them are mixes, Then we also bought a dozen eggs from a local breeder 6 were standard barnyard mix and 6 were bantams (also who knows mix) but I dropped 4 of them, one hopelessly cracked and the others I hope will be okay despite the jar T.T so we have 29 eggs cooking I am SO excited ahhhhh good luck everyone!

 

[jennianne]

Hi everybody,

Been subscribed so I have been keeping up with your posts, but I wasn't sure if I was setting eggs until now. This is my 2nd hatch, I just hatched 11 chickies in the Feb/VDay HAL. This time I will be setting between 20 and 30 depending. They are shipped eggs, but since I cannot have a rooster and it is freeeeeezing around here, finding fertile eggs locally is tough! I am in upstate NY and it is very very cold and has been snowing a lot this month. My girls are laying great, though, swimming in eggs...just not fertile ones Anyway, I am excited to be setting again and best of luck to everyone!

Jennie