March Hatch-Along Thread- Come Hatch With Us!!!!!

[Cynthia12]

All the new babies!


And these in the bottom pic came out of the mysterious mystery eggs.


Woo hoo! First 100% hatch!

Aww, I love little chipmunk babies. I see dots on some heads! Barred Rock? Congratulations! 100%!

 

[Cynthia12]

Here's one of my little guys. BO/EE mix all fluffed up and headed to the brooder. The six of them are all snuggled and sleeping at the moment. Of the remaining ten eggs, four have pipped and are taking their sweet time.

Pretty darn cute..going to have some nice eggs coming your way in the future! And some friendly birds too I'll bet.

 

[Cynthia12]

Hello, I am new to this thread. I have a question for any one with experience. This is my first time incubating and I have 10 eggs that are due to hatch this coming week. 6 are due to hatch on Monday and the other 4 I added 2 days later. Can anyone tell me if it is best to stop turning them as well during lockdown or should I continue to turn them for 2 more days by opening the incubator while the other eggs should to be in lock down? I am thinking that maybe it would not be too bad to stop turning 2 days early as it might probably be worse to open the incubator during lockdown. Any ideas? I would appreciate any advise. Thanks in advance!

I am also looking to hatch on Mon, or Tues. I also have one little silkie egg in there that was brought to me, and I set it in with the others a day and a half later..I'm planning on just keeping it in there. My guess it will do fine. Think about it. Once you have a baby or two hatch, it will get turned anyway.

Or should I say, bowled around?

 

[annabell254]

Hi there. I don't have a lot of experience with incubators...just broody girls. I have read a lot however so I was prepared for using an incubator and several people have asked a similar question. A couple of experts actually recommended that turning be stopped even earlier than the typical three days and one swears his hatches are way better for it. (at 16 days if I remember correctly) If you don't have a separate incubator to use as a hatcher, I would just stop turning them all at once. The real issue is the humidity more than the turning though. You up the humidity at lockdown and that can drown chicks that aren't fully developed. I am not sure that two days is early enough to cause a problem or not. I have run into problems with broodys in the same pen fighting over eggs close to hatching so I went to Tractor Supply and purchased a base model styrofoam still air incubator for approx $40 and locked down in it. I filled all of the bottom water reservoirs with warm distilled water and added a warm wet (new) sponge too for the upped humidity and (both red plugs out for airflow) since it didn't have any kind of humidity gauge on it. I was winging it on the humidity, but it actually held the temp rock steady and I have hatched in it half a dozen times now perfectly. If you can afford the extra one time expense and plan on hatching in the future, it might be a good investment. I wish I could be of more help, but figured at least some input was better than none. Maybe try running a search about the humidity issue ( how early you can up it without drowning) and I wish you the best of luck!

Hello, I am new to this thread. I have a question for any one with experience. This is my first time incubating and I have 10 eggs that are due to hatch this coming week. 6 are due to hatch on Monday and the other 4 I added 2 days later. Can anyone tell me if it is best to stop turning them as well during lockdown or should I continue to turn them for 2 more days by opening the incubator while the other eggs should to be in lock down? I am thinking that maybe it would not be too bad to stop turning 2 days early as it might probably be worse to open the incubator during lockdown. Any ideas? I would appreciate any advise. Thanks in advance!

Ninaj.... I may be in the same boat as you depending on when my eggs arrive!!!! so I am VERY interested in what happens with your eggs! (Good idea with a 2nd cheaper incubator) but if you cant afford one here is my 2 cents.... I went on line and found that many people raise the humity to 65% or more four days before hatch and others do just the the day of hatch and others still seem to have sucess at 60% humitity for the entire time.... not that I think that is a good idea.... but What I am thinking is to keep it at about 45% until day 17 for the first set of chicks and then raise it a little each day... so for your first eggs the humidy would look like this
day 17-45%
day 18-50%
day 19-60%
day 20-65%
day 21-65% until the first eggs hatch then it will go up to about 70%

and your 2nd ste of eggs would look like this
day 15-45%
day 16-50%
day 17-60%
day 18-65%
day 19-65% until 1st set starts to hatch then 70%
day 20- you can probaby take the 1st chicks out now and set the humidity where ever you want it till hatch at this point (hopefully just opening the bator once will be fine for the humity with the other eggs)

Any one out there with more experence than me can chime in if they think that this will work or not!!!!

 

[inthesticks]

So far there are 7 out! 5 EE chicks 1jb & 1 quail - Lost 3jbs after they had pipped & began to zip just passed away - Looks like some sort of bacteria maybe was absorbed possibly??? yucky greenish looking yolk remnant & darker stomach

Again I must catch up again w/ posts!

 

[DURR]

[COLOR=EE82EE]So far there are 7 out! 5 EE chicks 1jb & 1 quail - Lost 3jbs after they had pipped & began to zip just passed away - Looks like some sort of bacteria maybe was absorbed possibly??? yucky greenish looking yolk remnant & darker stomach [/COLOR] [COLOR=EE82EE]Again I must catch up again w/ posts![/COLOR]

Woot! I got babies due by sat just put on lock down and everytime I check on them they have wiggled to a diffrent spot hopefully I'll have some action soon!

 

[LONDON HENS]

Day 20 for my broody hen, I could hear chick noises....so I opened the door and within a few seconds a tiny fluffy yellow chick with jet black eyes appeared!!
Mum quickly ushered it back under her, it's been quite cold here today.
Photos to follow tomorrow!!

 

[EthenNoah]

Not again!  Dirty bugger. 

So... there's got to be something going on & that's what we're here for!  Gonna help you get this sorted out so you can hatch some babies! 

Lets start with the basics. 

First check out your incubator.  Calibrate your thermometer/hygrometer and make sure your thermometer is reading correctly at the 99.5 or 101 whatever it needs for circulated air vs. still air.  Here is a thread on how to calibrate a thermometer (I have a digital thermometer & just placed it in a ziplock baggie, sucked out as much air as I could and put it in the ice water bath... left it in there for 10-15 min & it was right on): https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/110385/how-to-calibrate-a-thermometer  And here is a thread for calibrating a hygrometer: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/741034/calibrating-a-hygrometer

Next, try local hatching eggs, that aren't shipped.  Check out craigslist or go to your local farmer that has chickens and ask for FRESH fertile eggs.  Also ask them if they've checked their fertility rate and had any hatches.  Preferably get white eggs, or very light shelled eggs, because those will be the easiest to see into during incubation.  Plus you should know by day 7 if anything has started to develop.

Once you know your thermometer is correct and your incubator temp and humidity are holding steady.  Next I would crack open one of those eggs and check it for fertility.  Don't just take the person's word on it.

The way to check for fertility is to crack it open into a bowl... and check the small white dot on the yolk.  If the dot is a little bit larger and has a "bullseye" look to it = Fertile.  If it's still just a small pinhead dot... = Not Fertile.  Better to sacrifice 1 egg first thing, than to wait 2 weeks.  Here is a thread that shows great pictures to identify the difference: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/16008/how-to-tell-a-fertile-vs-infertile-egg-pictures

Lastly, Don't give up!! 

Some of these eggs are shipped the ones I picked up she said she checked fertility and they were fertile my temp stayed at 100 my humidity at 30

 

[chickydee64]

Woke this morning to the SFH's all over the yard! I lock them up @ night, let them free range during the day. Discovered the reason Dixie, my aussie was refusing to come in last night- she was ripping into the pen! She wasn't after the chickens, she was after the table scraps I had given them last night. **** dog! Now DH gets to repair the damage today.

Hi Pug Bug...........What is SFH'S..cannot figure it out.............

Thanks

 

[Maah]

Some of these eggs are shipped the ones I picked up she said she checked fertility and they were fertile my temp stayed at 100 my humidity at 30

Did you crack them open after candling at day 14? Had they started to develop at all?