Mid December Hatch-A-Long!

[diamondsilkies]

Wow. I'll definitely keep that in mind for next time! This one was only on day 2 or 3, and a bunch of the white spilled out, so I had to toss it out and give the incubator a quick but thorough cleaning.

Anyways, I candled last night! I didn't get the greatest results, but that's expected for shipping eggs. 6/13 silkie eggs were developing, most were clear but there were a couple blood rings. I added three more seramas since I had the room (I really need to stop ) so that makes for a total of 8 seramas and 6 silkies, and I probably won't add any more. I also checked on the oldest serama egg and it looks great! It's developing super fast. It's on day 7 but looks like it could be 8 or 9! They tend to hatch earlier, though...all the other seramas are too young to tell, so far.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Yeah, if albumen comes out, I think it is kaput.
I only try to save them if the membrane seems to be intact.
I candled a couple days ago. My eggs are extremely dark so I can only tell if something is growing or they are clear. I pulled a clear from the eggs due the 5th (now 10 eggs). I pulled 3 clears from a different flock due on the 8th (now 12 in that batch).
I wasn't going to hatch again till January 20th but I've collected some pretty dark eggs for this time of year from 2 different flocks that I'm thinking about tossing in the incubator. Somebody stop me.

 

[diamondsilkies]

I need to be stopped too!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I have 10 eggs due in 2 days, 2 hours. They may be early because I hear cheeping. Then 12 more due on the 8th.
I'll probably set a few Christmas HAL eggs when I pull the first 10 out.

 

[diamondsilkies]

Awesome! I've been candling mine and they're all doing pretty well. I haven't lost any more. I love seeing them move around in the shell. Mine have all different hatch dates, so I have another incubator that I'm going to use for lockdown.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

6 out of 10 of the Dec. 5 eggs hatched and 12 out of 12 for the Dec. 8 hatch. That's the first 100% I've gotten in a long time. I didn't pull the second batch out till this morning.

 

[diamondsilkies]

Congrats! That's so great to hear! I've still got 11 (6 silkie, 5 serama) that are hatching all different times this coming week. Hopefully I'll get as good of a hatch rate as you did!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Do you have a separate hatcher or juggling staggered hatches in one unit?

 

[diamondsilkies]

I have a separate incubator for lockdown, so that I don't have to keep opening the incubator to turn during hatches.

 

[ChickenCanoe]