March Hatch-A-Long

[SA Farm]

I was more concerned about the age of the egg. It could be as old as 1.5-2 weeks old.

They say 7-10 days old is the most ideal, but I’ve hatched out 2 week old eggs before. Chances just go down the older the egg gets.
Hopefully it’s fertile and hatches for you!

 

[BlueBaby]

22 go into lockdown today for a Thursday hatch. A bunch of these chicks already spoken for. Then I will have to unplug my incubator until the end of the month for the Easter Hatch-a-long, which will be hard as I'm getting lots of pretty eggs from my workin' girls out back. Being a restricted hatchaholic is HARD. I want to set all the eggs!

What are you hatching?

 

[cppeace]

Yep, The air cell indicates both health of the egg (condition if shipped for sure) and the humidity of incubation. My now 4-day eggs air cells were a tad big to me so I'm trying to up the humidity just a bit. I didn't check them all but the few were not in a concentrated spot.
I'm spot checking now and keeping the breese as close to 101-102 as possible, adjusting the thermostat as needed. It generally keeps it there with no trouble so not much adjustment is needed. Was so happy to see that little heart beating. Sure hope I get at least 3 of them to hatch and at least one male and one female. The rest are all basically for fun at this point.

 

[Merrymouse]

@cppeace Just for the sake of my own education why are you upping your temp to 101-102?

Also, now that I am learning about hatching my mind is totally blown that broody chickens actually manage to hatch out any chicks at all....proper humidity, temp, TURNING!!! then NOT turning..its amazing!!

 

[cppeace]

@cppeace Just for the sake of my own education why are you upping your temp to 101-102?

Also, now that I am learning about hatching my mind is totally blown that broody chickens actually manage to hatch out any chicks at all....proper humidity, temp, TURNING!!! then NOT turning..its amazing!!

I have a still air incubator. With those, the temp is more pocketed as it gets hotter the higher in the incubator it is. So for most people, they aim for 101-102 at the top of the eggs to hopefully be around 99-100 in the center of the egg.
Yeah, chickens know what they're doing lol. We just imitate them as best we can.

 

[Peep_Show]

What are you hatching?

13 French Black Copper Marans, 5 blue-feathered olive eggers, and 4 eggs from the blue-feathered olive eggers bred back to a French Black Copper Marans (so those will have a 50/50 chance of being blue-feathered and a 50/50 chance of laying either a dark olive or a dark brown egg.)

 

[HeiHeisMom]

Set a dozen Gin-Hen eggs 18 days ago.
Not sure if we have any fertile just yet as Guinea eggs are so dense shelled and my eye sight isn't what it used to be...but two more weeks should tell

No fertile eggs...
Set 8 large Cornish eggs in place today.

 

[SA Farm]

No fertile eggs...
Set 8 large Cornish eggs in place today.

Aw, sorry the guineas didn’t work out! Hope the Cornish do

 

[MontainBourbons]

Just a quick question for you all. I'm just wondering how much air sac size affects your hatch rates. Currently, my eggs' air sacs are a bit smaller than normal. I think they'll still be fine, and I'll make sure not to turn up humidity till the first internal pip.
Just curious how much the air sac size makes a difference in a hatch.

 

[two j farm]

Just a quick question for you all. I'm just wondering how much air sac size affects your hatch rates. Currently, my eggs' air sacs are a bit smaller than normal. I think they'll still be fine, and I'll make sure not to turn up humidity till the first internal pip.
Just curious how much the air sac size makes a difference in a hatch.

I turn my humidity up on day 19 and I have never had a problem with air cells size. I have had a few detached air cells but I just sit them air cell up and most of the time they hatch.