May Hatch-a-Long!

[RCraven]

My wet bulb in the low 80's means the humidity is in the 40's on the high end so I'm right there with you. The hatch 101 article is awesome and I continue to re-read it. I have been marking the air cells and I'll know tomorrow night if I need to adjust for the last week. I agree that the hatch 101 article is completely empowering. This is only my second incubation and I feel completely in control this time, not only because of that article but because I can come here for emergency advice. I'm perpetually in awe of the Internet and how it has democratized information.

 

[livhatcher]

My wet bulb in the low 80's means the humidity is in the 40's on the high end so I'm right there with you. The hatch 101 article is awesome and I continue to re-read it. I have been marking the air cells and I'll know tomorrow night if I need to adjust for the last week. I agree that the hatch 101 article is completely empowering. This is only my second incubation and I feel completely in control this time, not only because of that article but because I can come here for emergency advice. I'm perpetually in awe of the Internet and how it has democratized information.

Could not have said it better. I'm sure we'll all be here waiting on pips & zips with you!

 

[SatNavSays]

I'm new here. this is actually my first posting.

I have my first batch in an incubator right now, though not my first chicks - normally I hatch under broodies. It was totally unplanned after a fox attack decimated my flock taking 10 hens and leaving me with 4 layers, 3 pullets, 1 injured hen who may never lay again and is currently terrorising me as a house chicken (something she is not very good at being, but excellent on the first point!) 1 rooster and 4 cockerels. But I suspected one of my (now deceased) hens was going broody so had been saving the best eggs from my layers as it was.

A friend leant me her spare incubator that wasn't in use. After I approached her, she said she had been going to suggest it. Some are the dead girls eggs, so are not.

It was day 10 was yesterday I think. The first time I had candled the eggs. Out of the 20 I put into the incubator, only 2 were infertile (seems my roo is good, the 2 concerned are from a girl who has only just joined the ranks of hens and at the end of the season as well - I'm in the southern hemisphere). The rest all qualified in my husband's words as moving black blobs.... some we could see the blood vessels in as well. several of my eggs you can't see into because of the very dark colour of the shells from one of my commercial rescue ISA Brown hens and my black Araucana who has very thick shelled eggs - 1 of my cockerels is hers. I know that those 2 eggs of hers (she is now sadly deceased as well) may need some assistance with getting out of the shell, something I understand is common with Araucana chicks.

So lock down is a week tomorrow - Thursday 4th May and hatch date is Sunday 7th May.

Doesn't 3 weeks take such a long time. It was hard enough through summer waiting for a chook to hatch my eggs, its worse now all my broodies are gone and I am having to do it myself!

PS - my injured chook is in for a surprise tonight - she's getting a chicken nappy so I can continue to keep her in the house. Oh boy is that going to be fun! Perhaps she will take an interest in the chicks - I am going to have to raise them in the house because the nights are dropping below zero now and we only have a wood burning stove and their heating lamp (borrowed) to keep anyone warm including an injured chook who has been half plucked by a fox...

 

[drumstick diva]

SatNavSays


Sending super hatching vibes your way

 

[RCraven]

How devastating. I'm so sorry. I live in a rural area in Southern California with foxes, bobcats, and coyotes as regular visitors and was always told they hunt at night. I lost my first hen at 2 in the afternoon because I was stupid and thought I could free range them with supervision. I was standing only ten feet away when the bobcat came out of the bushes and snatched her. It is hard to recover from that and I can only imagine your heartache.

But I had to laugh yesterday when we were out in a fenced pen that didn't have aviary netting. I was chilling and my dog was sitting on the ground behind me when a hawk flew by. The chickens came screaming over to us and piled under, around, and on top of my dog to his surprise. He was such a good boy and just looked at me not knowing what to do. I'm glad the chickens feel he can protect them. It was sweet.

I spent some time in NSW about thirty years ago. You live in a wonderful part of the world. My folks had a place in Neutral Bay overlooking the bridge and opera house. We toured up and down the coast from the Snowy Mountains to Great Keppel Island at the Great Barrier Reef. Fed wild roos, watched in amazement at the flocks of cockatoos, and I'll never forget the swarms of flies in the outback. Lordy those flies! I'll be looking forward to hearing some good news about your hatch. How lucky that you were saving eggs.

 

[kupi99]

.

 

[kupi99]

Hey! The few porous eggs I had in the last ones I bought never developed so I didn't have a chance to discover what could or couldn't be. I have heard that holding the humidity at slightly higher levels can be helpful. My Brinsea Maxi II Advanced holds (based on my calibrated hygrometer) about 40-45% just with filling one internal side of the well to start and keeping the external well topped to the hash mark inside it. I have had success with even badly saddled air cell eggs simply by increasing the humidity by 3-5% over a normal hatch. What are you seeing on day 5?

I have 7 eggs in the bator. 4 for sure showed signs of development, with a maybe on 5th one. Two are definitely clear.
Air sacs looked a little wonky. They were kinda skewd over to one side a little, but not super bad. They didn't look saddled at all (which makes sense because I picked them up locally).

Thinking I should candle more than usual and keep an eye on those air cells now.....

 

[livhatcher]

I have 7 eggs in the bator. 4 for sure showed signs of development, with a maybe on 5th one. Two are definitely clear.
Air sacs looked a little wonky. They were kinda skewd over to one side a little, but not super bad. They didn't look saddled at all (which makes sense because I picked them up locally).

Thinking I should candle more than usual and keep an eye on those air cells now.....

I would probably remove the clears by day 14. I would draw the outline of the air cell on the egg. Also, I would not candle more often. If porosity is an issue then they will lose humidity every time you open to candle. You don't want them losing too much weight, imho. It's nerve-wracking, but I'm trying to do the same. Most of my air cells had healed/resolved by lockdown last hatch. I candled too often. The handling also risks bacteria breach into the bator.

 

[Clucksworth12]

I'm so thrilled! 16 days till my latham chicks hatch!

 

[crsch1888]

So this is probably a dumb question, but it's my first time doing this incubating stuff & still learning, but anyway, I have some eggs that I put in in cartons, they were shipped eggs so figured it would be best with those, how do you go about turning them in the cartons? I won't start until tomorrow I think, from what I've read, you should wait 2 days after putting them in? I put them in last night at 9:00.