May 2023 Hatch-a-long

[Dinoroar]

Thanks! She actually just came out now but that's great to know for the future. It's always hard to know what to expect the first time with anything.

That was the quickest, most frantic dust bath I've ever seen. She was on a mission!

She still has all 7 of her eggs so the one that got eaten yesterday was obviously one that was laid that day. I got 4 more from her nest just now so hopefully the eaten one was a one off.

I'm only taking away the spare eggs when she gets up so I don't know how long they've been there other than that. Do you think it's safe to eat eggs that have been sat on for a day or more?

It’s personal preference if you want to eat them or not after they’ve been sat for a few days but it is safe. Partially incubated eggs are a delicacy in some parts of the world

 

[Canadian Wind]

It’s personal preference if you want to eat them or not after they’ve been sat for a few days but it is safe. Partially incubated eggs are a delicacy in some parts of the world

I give mine to the dog, lol.

 

[Canadian Wind]

Candled my May eggs, and pulled 4/23. 2 from my Cochin, and 2 from my OEGB. The others seem to have very nice veining, with a few that seem behind.

 

[Kikilu]

Set 12 local bbs marans on the 16th since I only have 2 viable from my April shipped eggs. They are all in my little kebbbnix together
Hatch date of May 14th for these 12

 

[FeatherProfessor]

did the February hatch along and had so much fun, it’s time to do it again! Going for tiny tinies this time. Bantam silkies and seramas ordered. Should go in the incubator this weekend on Saturday if all goes well with shipping.

Also running an experiment inspired by a doctoral student on tik tok hatching eggs in bras! Supposedly wearing a sports bra and following some very specific instructions, you can do it too. Since I ordered too many for the incubator, One of the silkie eggs will be volunteered as tribute to try it.

 

[HeidiGetsChicks]

New to hatch alongs, hi! I just started my second ever incubation.

Doing 16 eggs: marans, barnavelders, moss eggers, fibro blue, and australorps.

I spent a few hours panicking over temperature and trying to calibrate it between 5 different thermometers but finally realized I can take an infrared medical thermometer intended for forehead use, but since it works by distance I can measure the surface temp of the eggs themselves. I finally have confidence in the temperature now! It got a little too hot briefly (101, I think one egg was 102) so that worries me but it was very brief and it's the exterior of the egg that gets measured so I hope it was okay.

I'm sooooo relieved to have an incubator that turns eggs automatically this time around.

 

[Dinoroar]

New to hatch alongs, hi! I just started my second ever incubation.

Doing 16 eggs: marans, barnavelders, moss eggers, fibro blue, and australorps.

I spent a few hours panicking over temperature and trying to calibrate it between 5 different thermometers but finally realized I can take an infrared medical thermometer intended for forehead use, but since it works by distance I can measure the surface temp of the eggs themselves. I finally have confidence in the temperature now! It got a little too hot briefly (101, I think one egg was 102) so that worries me but it was very brief and it's the exterior of the egg that gets measured so I hope it was okay.

I'm sooooo relieved to have an incubator that turns eggs automatically this time around.

Such pretty eggs!

My duck eggs are all still looking good! The serama eggs were all infertile so those are out and I had a bad smell and tracked it down to a quail egg with a crack

 

[HeidiGetsChicks]

Such pretty eggs!

My duck eggs are all still looking good! The serama eggs were all infertile so those are out and I had a bad smell and tracked it down to a quail egg with a crack

Thank you! I am a sucker for pretty things so when I saw these eggs I couldn't resist. A part of me says I should practice on less fancy/expensive eggs until I get the hang of incubating but apparently that's just not how I roll.

I'm watching quail egg hatches with interest! Before joining i never saw myself hatching quail and now I'm super curious.

 

[Waterfaery]

I managed to quickly candle a couple of eggs this morning with a dark blanket over me when Moonsparkle was off her nest. It was a battle with the bright sun shining through the blanket and two Australorps trying to lay in there!

I didn't know what to expect but I was excited to see development in one egg. The other one looked clear but it was too bright out so it was hard to tell for sure.

I have marked her eggs but I stupidly didn't number them or anything so I don't know which egg is which, which means next time I won't know which eggs were the ones I already candled. A silly mistake! Next time she's off the nest I will number all of them and then I'll be able to track which ones I've managed to candle and hopefully get a count of how many are actually developing out of the seven. And I'm going to try a black out curtain instead of a blanket next time!

 

[Canadian Wind]

I managed to quickly candle a couple of eggs this morning with a dark blanket over me when Moonsparkle was off her nest. It was a battle with the bright sun shining through the blanket and two Australorps trying to lay in there!

I didn't know what to expect but I was excited to see development in one egg. The other one looked clear but it was too bright out so it was hard to tell for sure.

I have marked her eggs but I stupidly didn't number them or anything so I don't know which egg is which, which means next time I won't know which eggs were the ones I already candled. A silly mistake! Next time she's off the nest I will number all of them and then I'll be able to track which ones I've managed to candle and hopefully get a count of how many are actually developing out of the seven. And I'm going to try a black out curtain instead of a blanket next time!

That reminds me, I really need to do this with my broody duck... I *think?* the eggs are due early May? If they were fertile...

I make sure she has food and water every day, even bringing her some in the coop. And she did a fantastic job last year with her first brood, really good mom. Even if she did let one of her ducklings drown... Still can't figure out how it got into that tall container.