New to Incubating and Hatching and, well, everything! Anyone want to hatch with me? *with PICS**

[Featherfarmer]

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You know, it is actually funny but I have found that I am a whole lot more calm than I thought I would be about this incubation.

Ah well, you know that they say about old habits.

I was wondering if maybe those Orpingtons just produced eggs that tended to either be more porous or just appear more porous as they are the lightest colored eggs I received. If any of these beauties hatch and I get some Orpington eggs of my own, you can bet I will be candling them regularly to see what the normal is for my chickens.

Thank you for the input about my candling pictures. In all, there are only a few I have found that have what appears to be extreme porosity (real word?) at the large end of the egg and one or two that have it at the large and small ends of the eggs. The Orpington eggs have the largest air cells of the whole set of eggs, so I think my real challenge will be figuring out a way to keep these well hydrated while not over saturating the eggs from the other breeds.

Good luck with your first hatch and please stop by to post updates for us on how everything goes for you!

The easiest way to check and see if one breed of chicken egg is more porous then another is to watch the air cells in two or more breeds at a time. If the air cells are growing at a similar rate then you should be fine. But don't get too worried if you see some slight differences between the eggs. They won't look perfectly even. I've been hatching multiple batches every spring and summer for four years and I've never seen that much of a difference between the Call duck eggs, Faverelles, Silkies, BCMarans, Buff Orpingtons, Cochins and eggs from the Hybrids we rescued. Try keeping humidity around 40% and then shift it to 60 or 65% during the last 3 day lock down. I used to lose some after they pipped. But that's when I had humidity at 65% the last week of incubation. Found out moisture builds up inside the air cell and when the chick pipped through the membrane (& sometimes the shell too) she actually drowned from the moisture built up inside the shell. So I tried keeping the humidity down for 18 days on my last hatch. On March 27th I had 23 out of 24 eggs hatch out and fluffed up pretty quickly. Only one egg infertile. Now the 2nd batch of 16 are due next Tues. All were fertile and all growing fine. I now have 3 different types of incubators so I'm experimenting!!!

 

[mebberry4]

UPDATE: Day 18.5 and lock down has begun. I noticed a pip in one of my orpington eggs this morning when I got up to check the incubator at 5:30 am!!!! I do not hear any peeping and the egg isn't rolling around. Should I be concerned? Humidity is currently 66%, inc. temp is 100.6 and egg o meter is reading 100.2. Any advice??

I did think I saw one of my NHR eggs roll a little though.
My incubator temperature has been a little on the high side of normal (100-100.5 F) for most of the incubation, so maybe they will all hatch early!

 

[Featherfarmer]

I've had eggs hatch within 30 minutes of the first pip. And other eggs have hatched almost 30 hours after the first pip. So I wouldn't worry. If it's the first egg to pip and it's only the 19th day (now) you should see other eggs pipping soon. With my first batch the majority hatched on the 20th day with the last 2 (out of a total of 23) hatched on the 21st day. With the second batch of 14 they all hatched on the 20th day also. So things should be picking up for you now. Have any hatched yet????

 

[mebberry4]

It hatched!!!!

The first to pip (#4) is also the first to hatch! I woke up early this morning to find a little buff orpington chick making its way around the incubator to step on all of its egg mates! It is peeping up a storm and seeming very lively with periods of intense resting. I had to leave the room and turn off the light so SHE would stop running around and pushing all the other eggs over haha.
We also have pip #2 on egg #1 which is also a buff orpington egg.
I think now that one is out I will feel better about waiting longer for the others to hatch.

I will post lots of pictures, but for now I have to go set up my brooder and make some chick food! I was leaving everything in the packages and saving all of my receipts just in case... lol

Thanks for all of the help and advice so far. I will post pics and more updates tonight!