November/December "Hatch-a-Long"

[Tsagirl]

OK I am now on day 22 and out of 20 eggs so far that were set 15 hatched!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have 4 chicks out of the 6 from the BC Marans

and...I have 11 chicks out of the 14 Heritage RIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh I am so happy and I was so worried for so long on these guys! They did not fail me! I will post a picture later when they are all in the brooder and dried off. It might be a while because I will be gone all day today.

Thank you to all who were supportive!!!

 

[jnjmanning]

she is in the air cell! how long should it be before she hatches? she is rolling a lot and hit the egg on the thermometer and cracked the egg by the air cell she is very load! and she is rolling all over! so I put her on her side in an egg carton. is that ok or should I just leave her alone? every time she pushes the crack loses a piece of shell. help please!

Just let it be.

 

[Tara Black]

I'm joing the hatch along! I'm setting 17 eggs from Buff Orps, Ameraucanas, OEGB Silver Duckwing, and a few Buckeye, as well as 3 Pekin Duck eggs! They are all local this time so I'm hoping for far better results!

 

[mollychick2013]

Hi all! I started 24 eggs on the 16th at 11:30am, we are into day Five now and the hatching is due November 6th!

WE HAVE A DOUBLE YOKER TOO! "Thor" as we call the very big egg, I candled today and there is definitely two yolks! The eggs are a mixture of RIR, Black sex link and not sure what else (we picked the eggs up from a person with fertilized eggs and they had lots of different types of chickens)

 

[Cheyen]

I wanna join! I've got six orpington/marans cross eggs in the incubator right now, plus some chukar eggs due to hatch today!

 

[familypendragon]

Hi all! I started 24 eggs on the 16th at 11:30am, we are into day Five now and the hatching is due November 6th! WE HAVE A DOUBLE YOKER TOO! "Thor" as we call the very big egg, I candled today and there is definitely two yolks! The eggs are a mixture of RIR, Black sex link and not sure what else (we picked the eggs up from a person with fertilized eggs and they had lots of different types of chickens)

Don't take this the wrong way as I am only trying to spare you heartache, but you do know that double yolkers almost never make it right? I accidentally set one and it was one of the worst hatching tragedies I have experienced. One chick grew and the other rotted. Made it to hatch day and the healthy chick drown and died in the yolk of the rotting chick. Most don't even make it that far, but if they do they nearly always need to be totally assisted in the hopes of one surviving the hatch. There is one youtube video of the only person I know of that had both survive but both had to be assisted. She was very lucky.

 

[familypendragon]

Here is my post from that double yolker hatch: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ll-detatched-shipped-eggs/21300#post_12025362

Oh wow, that was maybe the saddest and most disturbing chick hatching death I've ever dealt with

I candled the possible double yolker again trying to understand what i was seeing. It was like there was an air cell in both ends. I could see a beak in what looked like the extra air cell in the pointy end and the air cell was filling with what appeared to be blood while I watched. I didn't know what to do so I tried opening the right end in case there were 2 chicks and the one at the other end was ok. All I could see was yolk and a foot pushing on the membrane - there was already 2 tiny tears in the membrane - 1 leaking blood and one leaking yolk. I doubted anything was going to live through this but figured I'd try. I poked a tiny hole in the pointy end air cell and there was indeed an open chamber. I opened it some more to see what was going on and a chicks whole head had ripped through the membrane in that end and blood was trickling in filling the chamber. I didn't know what to do. I think the other twin had died because there was also rotting liquid yolk - like a dark gray green liquid leaking out of the membrane and the chick was swimming in it and gasping. There was nothing I could do except talk to her and pet her with the end of a q-tip trying to clear her nostrils and mouth of all the rotten fluid and blood. She just gasped a couple more times and died. Poor sweet baby. I will make double sure never to set an egg that big again just in case.

 

[jnkir7]

do you think its better to fill the incubator or just set my fifteen eggs

 

[chickydee64]

do you think its better to fill the incubator or just set my fifteen eggs

Fine either way....................

 

[mollychick2013]

Don't take this the wrong way as I am only trying to spare you heartache, but you do know that double yolkers almost never make it right? I accidentally set one and it was one of the worst hatching tragedies I have experienced. One chick grew and the other rotted. Made it to hatch day and the healthy chick drown and died in the yolk of the rotting chick. Most don't even make it that far, but if they do they nearly always need to be totally assisted in the hopes of one surviving the hatch. There is one youtube video of the only person I know of that had both survive but both had to be assisted. She was very lucky.

I'm well aware and plan on helping the chicks hatch when the time comes (if they make it, of course). Regardless, still excited to give it a try! We used an led flashlight for candling this time and there is veins and such in all the eggs we tried! (we only looked at about 6 of them) we also have ANOTHER double yoker -- named "Pretzel". Both the double yokers so far have great veining through all the yolks. The others are doing great as well that we checked. Only one egg did I not see veining on (well, unsure if I saw it, kinda bright in teh room) and its named "Farkle" which is just a little funny given the name.