The nervous excitement and eager anticipation is over. I can say that it was fun and this incubation certainly won't be my last! I had a few unexpected developments and with some fantastic guidance from some senior members I made it through with a pretty good hatch rate in the end.
Here is my first incubation story....
After deciding which incubator I wanted to buy, the Harris Farms Nurture Right 360, I drove out of state to get it because none of my local TSCs had any in stock. So off to Hendersonville I went. I was excited to pick it up and even more excited to get it home, open it up and set it up.
z
I chose 10 eggs from that day and the day prior from my hens and decided to head to a local chicken farm to buy a dozen fertilized eggs from them as well. While I was out picking up the eggs, I had the incubator heating up and waiting for me to get home.
So on the evening of Friday, April 27th, I inserted 22 eggs into the incubator and crossed my finger
in the egg count was 6 English BBS Orpington, 6 black Ameraucana, and 10 eggs from my hens and roos - red easter egger rooster and lavender ameraucana X brown leghorn, golden comet, splash orpington and sliver lace cochin hens.
4 days in I candled the eggs and found my very first unexpected development. Along with 3 clear eggs, it turned out that several of the eggs I bought had evidently been sat on by some broody hens and were 3 to 5 days ahead of my eggs. Well, that was going to complicate things just a bit.
So that is when I started asking around on here as to what I should do, expect or anticipate in order to make certain as many as possible made it through to the end.
As the days drew near, and many episodes of candling along the way and removing the 3 clears and the 1 that had some tiny seeping spots, it became obvious that I was in for a little rollercoaster in the last week. This past Monday, on what should have been day 16, I found an internal pip on one of the eggs.
Back to the trusty wisdom of the BYC seniors. I took there advice and turned off the automatic turner, reset the incubator timer to day 18, bumped the humidity up.
By noon on day 17 there was an external pip! And by 9 pm that night we had our first hatch!
A sweet little BBS Orpington came into the world. And so after that it was a wait and see game of when the next hatch would happen. Number two came 36 hours later (on Thursday morning) and it was another BBS Orpington. Late Friday evening, day 20, 2 more pips were noted and by midnight we had 2 more babies. By 5 am Saturday morning there were 3 chicks in the incubator with 2 more pipped. Then as the day went on, one by one more and more chicks would hatch. At one point in the early evening when there were only 5 eggs remaining, I had to go ahead and pull the hatched chicks out to the brooder because it was becoming a stampede inside of the incubator and there was so much humidity building up from all of the chicks hatching that it was starting to get condensation inside.
Once the babies were out I could look at the ones remaining. Three had external pips, one was just sloshy fluid when candled (out it went) and the last one had a great air sack and good veins, but I couldn't see any movement.
About an hour later I noticed that one of the remaining egg had been zipping for nearly 2 hours nut was zipping across the top of the egg instead of around it. Back to my sources of wisdom I went to seek some guidance. An hour later I decided to intervene and make a circular hole around the top where is was zipping. I gently peeled back shell until the shoulder and beak was free. Then covered the membrane with Bacitracin and placed the egg on a damp towel back in the incubator. At 1130 pm that chick forced it's way into the world. Followed by another at 130 am and another at 230 am.
The last and final egg never pipped, never peeped and I never saw movement so I floated it this morning and found it to be DIS. I did open the egg up to find a perfectly formed little black ameraucana that just died in the shell. I did notice that the membrane seemed to have shrunk upon it even without an internal or external pip.
So all in all, I feel like I had a really great first incubation.
I started with 22 eggs
3 were clears and came out at day 11
one had the seepage and was also removed on day 11
one found to be liquidy on day 21 during hatching of others
and the one that was DIS
that left me with 16 sweet and healthy chicks that made it into this world all because of some great assistance and guidance from people on here willing to help. I would like to thank @Pyxis @TexasSam and @granny hatchet for their assistance.
So now, without further delay (and bless you if you actually read all of my ramblings) are the 16 beautiful wee chicks
The 4 English BBS Orpingtons:
The 5 Ameraucanas:
From my hens and roos (red EE or lavender Ameraucana)
2 with brown leghorn mom (they couldn't look more different!)
2 from my splash orpington:
1 each from my 2 golden comets:
This is the one I had to intervene with
and then one from my silver lace cochin
If you ACUALLY stayed to the end of my story, thanks for reading!
Here is my first incubation story....
After deciding which incubator I wanted to buy, the Harris Farms Nurture Right 360, I drove out of state to get it because none of my local TSCs had any in stock. So off to Hendersonville I went. I was excited to pick it up and even more excited to get it home, open it up and set it up.
zI chose 10 eggs from that day and the day prior from my hens and decided to head to a local chicken farm to buy a dozen fertilized eggs from them as well. While I was out picking up the eggs, I had the incubator heating up and waiting for me to get home.
So on the evening of Friday, April 27th, I inserted 22 eggs into the incubator and crossed my finger
in the egg count was 6 English BBS Orpington, 6 black Ameraucana, and 10 eggs from my hens and roos - red easter egger rooster and lavender ameraucana X brown leghorn, golden comet, splash orpington and sliver lace cochin hens.
4 days in I candled the eggs and found my very first unexpected development. Along with 3 clear eggs, it turned out that several of the eggs I bought had evidently been sat on by some broody hens and were 3 to 5 days ahead of my eggs. Well, that was going to complicate things just a bit.
So that is when I started asking around on here as to what I should do, expect or anticipate in order to make certain as many as possible made it through to the end.
As the days drew near, and many episodes of candling along the way and removing the 3 clears and the 1 that had some tiny seeping spots, it became obvious that I was in for a little rollercoaster in the last week. This past Monday, on what should have been day 16, I found an internal pip on one of the eggs.
Back to the trusty wisdom of the BYC seniors. I took there advice and turned off the automatic turner, reset the incubator timer to day 18, bumped the humidity up. By noon on day 17 there was an external pip! And by 9 pm that night we had our first hatch!
A sweet little BBS Orpington came into the world. And so after that it was a wait and see game of when the next hatch would happen. Number two came 36 hours later (on Thursday morning) and it was another BBS Orpington. Late Friday evening, day 20, 2 more pips were noted and by midnight we had 2 more babies. By 5 am Saturday morning there were 3 chicks in the incubator with 2 more pipped. Then as the day went on, one by one more and more chicks would hatch. At one point in the early evening when there were only 5 eggs remaining, I had to go ahead and pull the hatched chicks out to the brooder because it was becoming a stampede inside of the incubator and there was so much humidity building up from all of the chicks hatching that it was starting to get condensation inside.
Once the babies were out I could look at the ones remaining. Three had external pips, one was just sloshy fluid when candled (out it went) and the last one had a great air sack and good veins, but I couldn't see any movement.
About an hour later I noticed that one of the remaining egg had been zipping for nearly 2 hours nut was zipping across the top of the egg instead of around it. Back to my sources of wisdom I went to seek some guidance. An hour later I decided to intervene and make a circular hole around the top where is was zipping. I gently peeled back shell until the shoulder and beak was free. Then covered the membrane with Bacitracin and placed the egg on a damp towel back in the incubator. At 1130 pm that chick forced it's way into the world. Followed by another at 130 am and another at 230 am.
The last and final egg never pipped, never peeped and I never saw movement so I floated it this morning and found it to be DIS. I did open the egg up to find a perfectly formed little black ameraucana that just died in the shell. I did notice that the membrane seemed to have shrunk upon it even without an internal or external pip.
So all in all, I feel like I had a really great first incubation.
I started with 22 eggs
3 were clears and came out at day 11
one had the seepage and was also removed on day 11
one found to be liquidy on day 21 during hatching of others
and the one that was DIS
that left me with 16 sweet and healthy chicks that made it into this world all because of some great assistance and guidance from people on here willing to help. I would like to thank @Pyxis @TexasSam and @granny hatchet for their assistance.
So now, without further delay (and bless you if you actually read all of my ramblings) are the 16 beautiful wee chicks
The 4 English BBS Orpingtons:
The 5 Ameraucanas:
From my hens and roos (red EE or lavender Ameraucana)
2 with brown leghorn mom (they couldn't look more different!)
2 from my splash orpington:
1 each from my 2 golden comets:
This is the one I had to intervene with
and then one from my silver lace cochin
If you ACUALLY stayed to the end of my story, thanks for reading!
Very cute!
