Multi breeder hatching thread.... Hatch-Along

[Derrick]

You now have mystery eggs.... Cool... That should be fun to see what hatches. I have been micro managing my temps as well. I will candle this coming Friday. I have more eggs coming this week with the thought that I can replace the bad eggs with the new ones. I hope I have room...

 

[Sazbaby]

Sounds like you've got it well planned out! Hope you're able to create enough space for your new eggs, sounds pretty clever! Do you have an additional incubator that you use for hatching, or how do you manage it when you have some eggs that need to go on lockdown and others that still have a week to go?

So far I've been able to resist the temptation to fiddle with the thermostat, and I have one thermometer in the bator that I like far more than the others, I like the number it seems to show at least 90% of the time, and the 10% of the time when it shows a different number, it's only by a tenth of a degree different... yes, I like that thermometer best...

So here I sit sort of in the middle of "day 4" I suppose, and I'm anxiously awaiting my first candling day. I plan to do it Thursday night after the kids are in bed. I'm hoping to candle, trace air sacs, and weigh the eggs. I have a question- how do you handle the incubator when you candle? Do you take out one egg at a time and open/close the incubator each time? Or do you take them all out at once, leaving the incubator closed and running? Or do you open the bator, turn it off, and do what you need to with the eggs, then close it back up and get it running again? Just wondering on the logistics of it all, which would be best to do.

I can't help but look in that darn box a million times a day, as if there will be something exciting to see in there! lol Can't wait to find out if I've incubated silkie crosses... I can't even imagine what they would look like or what use they would be!!! lol (doh!)

 

[Sazbaby]

Soooooooooo..... now starting officially into "day 5" and as luck would have it, I have a silkie hen who has decided to go broody!!!!!! Now I have to make the decision on what to do... Do I leave her on her false eggs and graft my incubator chicks onto her after hatching (we've had 100% success doing this in the past with shipped chicks, but guess you never know...), do I wait until day 7 candling and put the viable eggs underneath her, assuming she can cover all the good eggs, or do I put some hatching eggs under her and resign myself to brooding my bator chicks (or risk grafting my bator chicks onto her as soon as hers are starting to hatch, they'd be several days apart, I've heard not to graft after 3 days old...)


ADVICE PLEASE!!! I wish she had decided to go broody when I set the incubator up! lol I have 17 eggs in the bator so I know she can only cover a portion of the eggs... and after a bit of a fire-hazard in my brooder at some point last night, I'm not too eager to have a brooder running for months and months... much rather let a hen do it and not burn down my barn! (Don't know what happened, the heat lamp must have gotten knocked off of the post it was clamped onto and landed right onto a piece of plywood that was covering the wire mesh top of the brooder... glad we didn't have little roasted chicks!! whew...)

 

[Sazbaby]

Eh, disregard... She was on the nest from about 9am till at least 3pm, making the pteradactyl noise when I went in to check at 3... then all of a sudden off the nest and acting normal, and had laid an egg in the nest! lol maybe she's working up to it for a few days... which would be fine, I'm collecting the eggs from the 2 silkies in hopes that she will go broody in a few days...

 

[Sazbaby]

Ha ha! The silkie was back on the nest again this evening and is spending the night there!!!

Going to give her a couple days to decide if she's going to commit or not then might find some eggs to put under her... although maybe I'll still wait till I candle... If I have a miraculous hatch and end up with 17 chicks, I am not so sure one silkie hen will be able to handle all of them! lol I'm just so excited to have my first broody of the year!!

 

[Derrick]

Sorry for the delay in response. Work has been crazy the last couple of days. I think that may help the eggs since I don't spend time micro managing the temps. I only have the two bators at this time. I'm hopping I get enough non starting eggs on friday to fit all the new eggs in. I'll then candle on day 14 and get rid of more. I was planning on putting the older eggs int he larger bator and the younger ones in the smaller one. That way no problem for lock down.

When I candled three years ago, I left the bator on and just pulled out one egg at a time to candle. I did just set the lid over to the side and didn't put it back on. I think that is what I did. It has been three years since I did it. As long as it does not take longer then 20-30 minutes to do them all, you should be fine. You could just tilt the lid and pull them out one at a time to candle then replace them as you get the next one. That would leave the minimal amount of time out of the bator. I would not turn the bator off.

As far as the broody hen, the choice is yours. I would probably try and hatch them myself since you started them that way. I like the idea of letting the hen brood them though......

 

[Derrick]

I got my second clutch of eggs delivered. Welsummers, a couple of BCM's and Wheaten Americaunas with a few Olive Eggers thrown in. Here are a couple of pics of the new eggs.





I plan on resting them for about 36-48hrs then I will candle the eggs in the bators and try and get rid of all the bad eggs. I will replace them with the new eggs. That is the plan. I got a lot of extras in the first shipments and this did throw a wrench in the plan but I still may have room for the new eggs.....

 

[Sazbaby]

Great pictures!! I love that your kids are so into it... I'm hoping to involve my girls (2 1/2 and 4 1/2 years old) closer to the end when the fun part starts... for now I've got my bator on top of my piano so it's out of reach from little hands!!! lol They LOVE the chicks we've got out in the brooder though, at least that provides them with some hands-on satisfaction for now... lol

So, everything is looking good on my bator for the time being, the one digital thermometer I like (as well as the meat thermometer) has been nice and stable for the temp, although the humidity has definitely dropped, now one reads in the upper 30s and the other in the low 40s. I did add more water to the one trough yesterday afternoon as it was getting low, but wasn't so low that the surface area would have been decreased, so of course I didn't really see any change in the humidity when I added more water. I've been able to leave it completely closed and untouched thus far and am DYING to candle the eggs tomorrow night!!!

The one silkie hen is DEFINITELY broody today, must have decided to go ahead and commit! lol My other silkie hen was showing some brief signs of broodiness yesterday, was a little bit more determined this morning and afternoon, and as of this evening, I think she's definitely committing too!!! Soooooo that just opens the door to more possibilities!!! lol I sort of wish one of them had held off a few weeks, I have a big chick order coming in mid-May and I would have loved to stash some of the chicks under a hen and open some space in the brooder!!! Oh well... I think if both of these hens are going to commit to being broody, I am going to put eggs under one and try grafting some chicks onto the other... Just wondering though, with two broodies in such close proximity, would you think putting chicks under one when they hatch from the incubator would at all affect the other hen who would have about another week to go sitting on eggs?? I'm a little worried that the one on eggs would hear/see the chicks with the other hen and leave her nest to steal chicks or something... guess you never know, right??

Anyway, can't wait to hear how the candling goes, what's your plan for the first set of eggs when they go into lockdown and you still have another week of turning on your newer eggs? Do you have an additional incubator for lockdown/hatching??

 

[Derrick]

You have a nice problem to have with the two hens. I'm sure no matter what you decide, things will be all right.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the eggs at the moment. I hope I have room for most of them after I candle the others. I am running two bators. I was going to brood in the larger nor when the time came.

 

[Sazbaby]

Well, first off, that second "broody" hen is going to give me gray hair... she wasn't on the nest at all today but has decided to sleep there again tonight. She did growl at me when I touched her and she puffed up ever so slightly, but I'm not convinced. Neither one of the silkies laid eggs today, which is not totally uncommon, but I'm wondering... Hopefully she will make up her mind and make it clear to me soon, because I've decided to buy a few dorking eggs from a somewhat local breeder on Saturday... not a ton of money into it, but don't want to waste the eggs if I don't have enough space under the broodies!!! Oh well, will have to just keep watch for now... :/

Soooo, tonight I finally got to play with my eggs!!! lol I weighed them all again and candled, and out of the 17, there's only one that is very slightly questionable, everything else is definitely viable!!!!! That one egg had a very mottled appearance all over the shell (several of the others did too), and I could not see distinct blood vessels. There was a slightly dark region inside, which makes me think that it's growing, but I was able to see clear vessels on all the others, and just not as obvious a call on this one. So I put it back in and will look again next week. All of them have lost weight, going for 13-15% loss over 21 days if I remember right, and there was quite a span- about 2/3 of the eggs were in the 5.5-6% range, the rest were around 2.5-3.3%, and then there's one that's lost 9.3% already!!! (holy cow!) I'm a little worried because that one and one other (which was in a more normal loss range) appear to have some cracks in the shell, visible when I candle them tonight but would be imperceptible just looking at the egg if you didn't know there were indeed cracks to see, if that makes any sense. I'm worried that maybe the cracks are allowing more moisture loss? Anyhow, I'm pretty happy with the overall numbers and am going to stick with my one trough for humidity despite my one meter reading in the mid 30's now (the other one reads in the low to mid 40's) I suppose... And I'll keep an eye on that one questionable egg, I suppose it will be easier to determine viability with another week's growth on the eggs. I tried to trace air sacs for monitoring over time too, but several of the eggs I couldn't even see the outline of the air sac!!

So, all good on this end it seems!! Now to watch and see how long till it's back up to temp. Got down to about 86 degrees in the bator while I was checking things out. I WILL NOT TOUCH IT AGAIN UNTIL NEXT THURSDAY EVENING.... I SWEAR....