MAY 2016 "Land of the Free Because of the brave!" Hatch-a-Long Hosted by, Mike & Sally

[DwayneNLiz]

LOL. Nope!

well then, yes

Good Morning MC

 

[BullChick]

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Thank you @Sally Sunshine for the eggs.

thank you Chaos!

Quote: Thank you!! hope your off to a great start!

10 yellow golden pheasant eggs made it to lockdown 2 have hatched and at least 3 more have pips!!!!! Please wish me luck

Justin we wish you much luck!! yay!!!

2 silkies, 4 Cornish bantams and one half out (zipped, just hasn't kicked out and is just laying in his shell resting). Out of the remaining 11, almost all eggs are pipped externally and the rest are pipped internally. Go figure my styrobator yayagain with a delayed hatch. The first batch (technically second) of quails in done 26 out of 75...kind of abysmal. But round two (er...three) is incubating as we speak and I personally saw the parents and they're practically dinner plate sized, so excited for that. Welsummers went into lockdown today, but if the first chicks are any indication this may be a long wait. I will leave the four of them in there for a few days.

could it be fluxin down at night with temps? since warm days have come? not sure your location.

Ok I have a question. If in lockdown and your not supposed to open the incubator.... how do you know the chick has internally pipped without candling? If I hear cheeping I know but I never knew which egg it was.

When you lockdown you should leave them alone, and TRY VERY HARD to only open the bator if you see a cap of another egg over top of an unhatched egg or chick in distress. Otherwise you keep it closed. Many people dont keep hands out and keep candling to look for pips, I dont suggest this and its unnecessary until the majority is hatched.

Everytime you open that bator, think of it this way..... Opening your door on a cold day into a nice warm house, it almost takes your breath away, what that does to the egg SHELLS is sucks all that moisture that has accumulated in all those tiny pores. People think because humidity on the gauges goes up right away it has no effect but in turn it does. It takes much longer to begin to fill all those pores again. Keep this in mind when opening that thing in lockdown.

I have at least 2 internal pips in the mixed breed eggs!
They're a little ahead of schedule since they're not due till Sunday.
Also a few of the air cells seem to have gotten larger in some of the pure breed eggs, so here's to hoping!

Good Luck with lockdown!

We have two internal pips

CH let your eggs alone pleaase

 

[Sally Sunshine]

My lockdown eggs started hatching sometime early this morning!!!
I love seeing the above for so long and then BAM you got chicks!!

Giant Brahma are always a day late, DONT ask me why! ugh I should set them a day earlier I assume.

 

[jwlpoultry]

8 yellow golden pheasants out of the eggs 2 more to go and they are both pipped. Hoping for 100% hatch.

 

[mlm Mike]

10 yellow golden pheasant eggs made it to lockdown 2 have hatched and at least 3 more have pips!!!!! Please wish me luck

Good luck!

2 silkies, 4 Cornish bantams and one half out (zipped, just hasn't kicked out and is just laying in his shell resting). Out of the remaining 11, almost all eggs are pipped externally and the rest are pipped internally. Go figure my styrobator strikes again with a delayed hatch. The first batch (technically second) of quails in done 26 out of 75...kind of abysmal. But round two (er...three) is incubating as we speak and I personally saw the parents and they're practically dinner plate sized, so excited for that. Welsummers went into lockdown today, but if the first chicks are any indication this may be a long wait. I will leave the four of them in there for a few days.

Congratulations!

Ok I have a question. If in lockdown and your not supposed to open the incubator.... how do you know the chick has internally pipped without candling? If I hear cheeping I know but I never knew which egg it was.

Some people don't leave them alone. Other's are justing going by the cheeping they hear.

 

[Sally Sunshine]

My update:

Louise hatched her 7 eggs earlier this week. Four were hatched when I went out in the morning and the last three were out by the afternoon.

I found out that I couldn't add her to the others, even thought they were just a few days apart. The Silky moms would have killed the chicks and beat Louise up...lol.
I have a 4 foot rabbit cage top that fits in the brooder, so I put Louise in there with her chicks and the Silkies are on the outside.

Although none of their reactions are a surprise...I still had hope that I could work magic or something.

(Delusional...check!)

Two guinea eggs quit on the bottom broody. In her defense she does have 2-3 hens who lay eggs in her nest everyday. So now I'm trying to decide if I should put the viable guinea eggs back in the bator and just give them both eggs due on the 16th. They're both thin and then I'm done with broody hens taking up nest space. Yes, just decided...that's what I'm gonna do.

I'm due to hatch on the 16th from the incubator. I've had a few hens that laid eggs in the broody nests that were set on for more than 12+ hours when we've been gone...so I added those eggs to the incubator as they occurred.

One egg got missed and looked to be about 4 or so days under a broody when I found it. The egg has 12?? written on the end of it, so I was pleasantly surprised when I heard peeping out of the egg last night.

I've never hatched a single chick by itself...so I set the egg in one of my containers (no holes for air flow), I wet a portion of paper towel and hung it over the side of the container and I set a folded sandwich baggy on top to hold humidity in...but left about a 1/4 inch along two sides to let fresh air in. Humidity in the incubator is approx 44% (calibrated properly finally...lol)
The chick was already out this morning with zero issues. Super happy it worked!!

Here's pics of what I did in case any one needs this info.
The paper towel on the side was also dampened and the bag just placed loose on top. Super simple!



The chick came out of a smooth blue/green egg, very high chance it's from a pullet that was hatched last year from my original pair .
These pullets are backcrossed to their father to see if he has the blue egg gene or just the hen.
I was expecting chipmunk coloring.
Everyone's colored with green legs...and I got this yellow chick with light legs???

Exciting, surprising and totally unexpected!

The egg

Original hen that was paired with rooster below. She's the grandmother.

The rooster (they're molting, no tail) with the hen above makes the hen that's drinking water.

And the hen drinking water X the above rooster made THIS chick with NO colors...

Who just wanted to cuddle and sleep.

Awwwww. I gave him my toque to cuddle with. (Hurry other little chicks and hatch!!!)
And I just realized I haven't turned the eggs at all today. (crap!) Catch you guys later!!!

awwwww I see her!!! I had to open it up fully! I am half blind lol! Congrats!!

 

[BantyChooks]

My lockdown eggs started hatching sometime early this morning!!! I love seeing the above for so long and then BAM you got chicks!! Giant Brahma are always a day late, DONT ask me why! ugh I should set them a day earlier I assume.

Are the giant Brahma the ones you sent me? -Banti

 

[mlm Mike]

I have at least 2 internal pips in the mixed breed eggs!
They're a little ahead of schedule since they're not due till Sunday.
Also a few of the air cells seem to have gotten larger in some of the pure breed eggs, so here's to hoping!

My update:

Louise hatched her 7 eggs earlier this week. Four were hatched when I went out in the morning and the last three were out by the afternoon.

I found out that I couldn't add her to the others, even thought they were just a few days apart. The Silky moms would have killed the chicks and beat Louise up...lol.
I have a 4 foot rabbit cage top that fits in the brooder, so I put Louise in there with her chicks and the Silkies are on the outside.

Although none of their reactions are a surprise...I still had hope that I could work magic or something.

(Delusional...check!)

Two guinea eggs quit on the bottom broody. In her defense she does have 2-3 hens who lay eggs in her nest everyday. So now I'm trying to decide if I should put the viable guinea eggs back in the bator and just give them both eggs due on the 16th. They're both thin and then I'm done with broody hens taking up nest space. Yes, just decided...that's what I'm gonna do.

I'm due to hatch on the 16th from the incubator. I've had a few hens that laid eggs in the broody nests that were set on for more than 12+ hours when we've been gone...so I added those eggs to the incubator as they occurred.

One egg got missed and looked to be about 4 or so days under a broody when I found it. The egg has 12?? written on the end of it, so I was pleasantly surprised when I heard peeping out of the egg last night.

I've never hatched a single chick by itself...so I set the egg in one of my containers (no holes for air flow), I wet a portion of paper towel and hung it over the side of the container and I set a folded sandwich baggy on top to hold humidity in...but left about a 1/4 inch along two sides to let fresh air in. Humidity in the incubator is approx 44% (calibrated properly finally...lol)
The chick was already out this morning with zero issues. Super happy it worked!!

Here's pics of what I did in case any one needs this info.
The paper towel on the side was also dampened and the bag just placed loose on top. Super simple!



The chick came out of a smooth blue/green egg, very high chance it's from a pullet that was hatched last year from my original pair .
These pullets are backcrossed to their father to see if he has the blue egg gene or just the hen.
I was expecting chipmunk coloring.
Everyone's colored with green legs...and I got this yellow chick with light legs???

Exciting, surprising and totally unexpected!

The egg

Original hen that was paired with rooster below. She's the grandmother.

The rooster (they're molting, no tail) with the hen above makes the hen that's drinking water.

And the hen drinking water X the above rooster made THIS chick with NO colors...

Who just wanted to cuddle and sleep.

Awwwww. I gave him my toque to cuddle with. (Hurry other little chicks and hatch!!!)
And I just realized I haven't turned the eggs at all today. (crap!) Catch you guys later!!!

Great update!

We have two internal pips

These under broody hens?

No. No, no, no, no, no. Come back on power! Woke up to the last sputter of my fish tank filter and then silence and darkness and now the power is off with two incubators full of eggs D':

Edit: Got the generator going and everything is okay. Now the wait for the power to turn back on.

Oh no, glad you had a generator!

My lockdown eggs started hatching sometime early this morning!!!
I love seeing the above for so long and then BAM you got chicks!!

Giant Brahma are always a day late, DONT ask me why! ugh I should set them a day earlier I assume.

Congratulations Sally!

8 yellow golden pheasants out of the eggs 2 more to go and they are both pipped. Hoping for 100% hatch.

Congratulations and good luck with the last 2

 

[jwlpoultry]

10 yellow golden pheasant eggs made it to lockdown 2 have hatched and at least 3 more have pips!!!!! Please wish me luck

  Good luck! 

Thanks Mike!!