My first shipped eggs! An incubation adventure

[PrairieChickens]

Yeah, I've got my fingers crossed! I usually lose at least a couple to late quitters, but maybe I'll be lucky this time! lol

 

[PrairieChickens]

Alas, disappointment. Two more early quitters. I'm anxious about the remaining eggs. I don't think it's anything I've done that's causing the casualties, since the eggs I've handled (such as the one in the photo) are still healthy. I have also identified several clears among my own eggs and removed them. I'm down to 6 leghorn eggs, but I don't have a final count on the home-grown eggs since some are too dark to candle at this stage.

One way or another, I'm going to get some chicks out of this hatch--I just don't know if it will be the shipped eggs or not.

 

[PrairieChickens]

Argh! We had a power outage today for no apparent reason, and the temperature in my incubator dropped pretty low before the power came back on. To make matters worse, I bumped the incubator in my rush to get the incubator wrapped and insulated, and ended up knocking one of the shipped eggs out of its slot. I'm hoping I didn't scramble the poor thing, but I won't know until hatch day if any harm was done by this whole fiasco.

I've never had such an ill-fated hatch as this one! Ugh!

 

[jcbrownacu]

Ive got 7/20 as of last night. Pretty bummed but hoping most of those hang in there.

 

[PrairieChickens]

I candled last night, and the remaining 6 are holding on. Fingers crossed for both of us.

 

[PrairieChickens]

As I feared, the egg I knocked out of its cradle quit on me, but the remaining five are looking good. I have high hopes for them.


It won't be long now... That remaining space will vanish quickly over the next few days as the hatch date approaches.

Since I had the room after culling empty eggs and quitters, I went ahead and added seventeen more eggs. I've done staggered hatches before, so I don't foresee any complications. The new eggs already show signs of development.

 

[onaquest55]

following your thread! hoping for no more losses! please post pics of the chicks when they hatch

 

[PrairieChickens]

Oh, there will be so many pics!
Only 3 more days to lockdown!

 

[PrairieChickens]

Did I say three days? Ok, more like two! I took out the turner and prepared the eggs for hatching. Erring on the side of caution, I prepped a "hatch tray" from an old egg carton for my five remaining shipped eggs to keep them upright while they hatch. As I was transferring the eggs back into the incubator, I heard a cheep come from one of my home-grown eggs, but candling did not reveal the early pipper. I guess I'll just have to wait a little longer!


The eggs in the bottom row are the late additions. They of course will have to be hand-turned over the next few days until the hatch is over, but I was prepared for that when I put them in there. The late eggs come from just three hens. The darker brown bantam eggs are from my super-broody--a buff bantam cochin named Anna who has gone broody three times, but has yet to hatch a single one of her own eggs because by the time we realized she was broody, her last egg had already been stuck in the fridge or eaten. Not this time! As soon as Anna started laying again, I started saving every egg she laid--as good a broody mama as she is, I want to pass that on to the next generation.

The lightest broody eggs in the bottom row come from an un-named lavender bantam d'uccle. I collected her eggs just because she and Anna nest in the same spot, and I didn't want to risk throwing out an Anna egg by mistake. I really want to make sure Anna gets some offspring in the mix--her inferior twin, O'Brien has so far produced several offspring, and her mothering skills are no comparison!

All of the green eggs in the bottom two rows came from a single EE pullet from this year's hatch. For some reason, she decided the place to lay was on the bare concrete floor of my dad's garage, and we never would have known if he hadn't been tidying up his workspace and noticed a trail of light-green eggs leading off into his piles of boxes. (oo! A piece of candy!) Since we couldn't know how fresh the eggs were, we didn't want to sell them, and we already had enough eggs set aside for our own use. Can't eat and can't sell? The obvious answer: Incubate! EE babies are the cutest babies, anyway.

I will keep you posted as the hatch progresses.

 

[PrairieChickens]

UPDATE!
Candling revealed two eggs had already pipped internally when they were transferred into lockdown. The two eggs circled below were both cheeping within the shell when I closed them up for the night. A middle-of-the-night checkup revealed that the white egg (circled in blue) has already pipped externally! The green egg likely isn't far behind.

The brooder is all set up and ready to go for the new arrivals when they do emerge, but it could be another 24 hours or more before the pippers move on the next step. I must strive to be patient as they make their arduous journey into the world!