May Hatch Thread--Fill up those bators n' broodies!

[oesdog]

CRiISIS IN COSTA RICA ,,,,,,, well the Broodys are moving along well we we have five for nine and a EE zipper under broody #1 BUT sometime yesterday one of the kids collecting eggs inadvertently took the clutch of my Silkie who was down from the hen house for food and water apparently ,,,,,at 7 am the wife went down to check on broody #1 and seen the traumatized behavior of the lil Silkie and immediately came in and said to me Houston we have problem lol so we took the carton into the bator room for emergency candling and quickly found here half developed clutch among the 18 eggs in the carton we set them in our second bator that is about half full for emergency warm up as I candle the now cool eggs I was surprised to see slow movement in a few I think they were reacting to the warmth of the light , I have not seen this before it was interesting to see movement as far as I can tell they were cooled for about 16 hours so we will see in a day or two what the out come will be with her lil clutch in the ER bator lol my wife was heartbroken to discover this but I can hardly blame the kids as I have over 40 hens laying daily so it's kinda a daily eggathon here I feel bad for the lil hen she is such a good lil mom and was due to hatch around the 16-17 th but there are two more Broodys and over 60 in the bators so we will still be able to give her a few to brood to make her happy ,,,,,, lol

Quote:

Oh how sad - you could put dummy eggs under the broody to help her stay broody while you try to save her babies. - Then put them back under her if and when they hatch - THey might need help to get out of their shells if this has weakened them. I do hope that you see more movement in the others as time goes on.
This thread moves so fast it is hard to keep up with. Some mornings I see over 100 posts I have not yet read. So I scan to see all the pics of new born chicks instead! lol

Well my incubator is being good! We have had stability for the last week with no temp issues at all. We are currently sitting at 35% humidity and 37.2 Temp which fluctuates to 38 so around 99.5-100 it may get to 102 but never stays that hot for long. Only when the Temp outside is up high which is rare these days in Ireland. So I am happy with the progress.
We are on day 9 right now. It seems an age to wait especially since we did all this for nothing last month. Still I am reminded when I look at the callender that this time next week we will be on Day 16 and preparing for Lockdown and chicks comming hopefully at the end of that week. So although Day 9 seems to have so long to go it isn;t that far really.
I am not sure if I should candle these or not. Last time we ended up with such hopes and only got scrambled egg! I candled and thought it looked like a "moving" chick - how gross!
So I am not sure what to do. - ? If I leave them and nothing is viable this time it will be heartbreaking but then am I just putting it off if I don;t candle??? I know it will be a miricle if anything survived the Temp spike I had on day 3. 110 ?????? I simply do not understand why or indeed how that happened when the temp has been sitting perfect all along unless the lid had not been put back right on the Bator? This might have caused the light to stay perminantly on. It is the only explination I can think of. I guess I am frightend to candle because if I do and there is nothing there it is the end of hope isn;t it. - Ummmmmmmm what to do ????

Oes

 

[el pollo rey]

Oh how sad - you could put dummy eggs under the broody to help her stay broody while you try to save her babies. - Then put them back under her if and when they hatch - THey might need help to get out of their shells if this has weakened them. I do hope that you see more movement in the others as time goes on.
This thread moves so fast it is hard to keep up with. Some mornings I see over 100 posts I have not yet read. So I scan to see all the pics of new born chicks instead! lol
Well my incubator is being good! We have had stability for the last week with no temp issues at all. We are currently sitting at 35% humidity and 37.2 Temp which fluctuates to 38 so around 99.5-100 it may get to 102 but never stays that hot for long. Only when the Temp outside is up high which is rare these days in Ireland. So I am happy with the progress.
We are on day 9 right now. It seems an age to wait especially since we did all this for nothing last month. Still I am reminded when I look at the callender that this time next week we will be on Day 16 and preparing for Lockdown and chicks comming hopefully at the end of that week. So although Day 9 seems to have so long to go it isn;t that far really.
I am not sure if I should candle these or not. Last time we ended up with such hopes and only got scrambled egg! I candled and thought it looked like a "moving" chick - how gross!
So I am not sure what to do. - ? If I leave them and nothing is viable this time it will be heartbreaking but then am I just putting it off if I don;t candle??? I know it will be a miricle if anything survived the Temp spike I had on day 3. 110 ?????? I simply do not understand why or indeed how that happened when the temp has been sitting perfect all along unless the lid had not been put back right on the Bator? This might have caused the light to stay perminantly on. It is the only explination I can think of. I guess I am frightend to candle because if I do and there is nothing there it is the end of hope isn;t it. - Ummmmmmmm what to do ????

Oes

well oes you are a lot like me in the sense that you don't want to candle because you want them all to be alive and well and can't stand to cull them but this hatching biz is a lil sticky when we take charge of natures duties we as humans have to accept the failures that come with the joy of success my grandmother used to say mother nature is crule when it comes to the natural balance of things any how go and candle them mystery eggs and if they did not survive the spike try again till ya get it right what ever the outcome remember we are here to help you and eachother that said I hope they are alive and kicking take care oes

 

[oesdog]

I might candle - I think I am more sad about if they are not alive then it will upset DH. But then he went all month last time talking to his babies! Only to find they were just scrambled eggs! I guess it is better to get it over with.

This time at least the eggs were all the right colour - even if I wanted blue ones and ended up the right ones were the wrong colour!

Oes

 

[melina90]

Well I have filled up the Genesis & now I have dragged out the LG to put the eggs ready for lockdown in to make room for the eggs I got in the mail yesterday. Good thing I didn't sell the LG when DH wanted me to. I'm not sure how this happened. I started out 6 months ago trying to hatch some good quality blrws to get chicks to sell from. I got some but I ended up with a light sussex chick by accident so of course I had to get some more to go with it. I then decided I still wanted some bantams (for the kids of course). I decided on olandsk dwarfs but had trouble getting some so ended up buying black & mille fleur oegbs eggs on ebay just for the mille fleurs. The next week the same seller had mille fleur & self blue eggs so I just had to have those. Self blues are so pretty. The next week the same seller offered 12+ self blue eggs. I was afraid I wouldn't end up with enough self blue chicks cause I don't have very good luck with shipped eggs so I had to get those too. We went to Little Rock so I contacted someone who was advertising mille fleur eggs for $5 a dozen. They had just filled up their incubator so they only had 6 eggs. They sold them to me for a $1 but I'm not sure what breed they are. I'm thinking they may be d'uccles. Meanwhile a fellow bycer heard of my plight to acquire olandsk dwarfs & was nice enough to offer me some for postage only. Well I couldn't turn that down. She also threw in 4 english orpingtons! So I have light sussex, english orpingtons, olandsk dwarf, & black, mille fleur, & self blue oegb, & possibly d'uccle eggs in 5 different batches. I think my DH would block ebay now if he could.

That's an awesome mix! I also have one of the swedish breeds in the bator - 13 hedemora eggs coming along nicely! Looking forward to see your olandsk dwarfs!

 

[melina90]

I might candle - I think I am more sad about if they are not alive then it will upset DH. But then he went all month last time talking to his babies! Only to find they were just scrambled eggs! I guess it is better to get it over with.

This time at least the eggs were all the right colour - even if I wanted blue ones and ended up the right ones were the wrong colour!

Oes

Let us know how it goes!

 

[el pollo rey]

I might candle - I think I am more sad about if they are not alive then it will upset DH. But then he went all month last time talking to his babies! Only to find they were just scrambled eggs! I guess it is better to get it over with.

This time at least the eggs were all the right colour - even if I wanted blue ones and ended up the right ones were the wrong colour!

Oes

 

. Don't give up oes if it don't work try another bator if you can't find a half way decent one in your are build one there are all sorts of instructions on how to with parts list and step by step instructions

 

[el pollo rey]

Morning Mel how are your chicks coming along ? Seen the post in the broody thread of lil Silkie mom takin care of business lol bators stable and all well I hope on that side

 

[el pollo rey]

We still have seven with one active pipper working hard on hammering out a hole the new ones are active eating and drinking and giving mom fits in the brooder nest the other remaining has a fully developed chick the best I can tell as only the air cell is visible and I can not see a internal pip yet so another day or two will tell , the external pip started around noon so he has been at it for quite a while poor guy that will have her at 95% if it zip,s fingers crossed

 

[starlingsbaby]

OK a update for those of you who have been reading my post and helping,,,,i have had 22 hatch out with 6 more external pips and 4 that have internally piped and i lost 3. And yes i have a humidity reader and it is reading temp at 99.9 and humidity at 77 . and there is condensation on glass,, i heard u can prop open for a minute to get some out? but fixing to post new pics of all the babies. and congrats to every one hatching. HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL THE MOM"S.

 

[5 Acre Rooster]

OES don't give up. Candle or not (most of us can't resist), I ride out a hatch nomatter how much goes against me and the eggs. I was gonna toss this bator full awhile back but....


Up to 21 Babies and still a few pipping and trying to get out. Looks like most of mine are BA babies with a couple whites. Will know when they all gett dried and fluffed. 50% of my fertiles hatched so far with a long low temp last week. Bator was in the 60's for like 4-6 hours from power outage. So knowing chciken math I set another batch in the DIY-bator I made trying keep occupied so I did NOT scrap the setting. And the 2nd set I have sorted to the 3 mini flocks I split from my 1 big flock.

This next bator which I set on the 9th consist of

BA Pures
BA x Barred (Black sexlinks)
BA x Production white (White chicks)
SLC x BO
SLC x RIR
SLC x Production Red.

All are seperated except the BA pures the white and a black sex link. But since the BSL ALWAYS laying in the garden shed, I know exactly what I am hatching, except the SLC crosses cuz they have all 3 hen types in the pen. Just want to see what might come from him and his girls.