November Hatch-A-Long (2014)

[Sustained]

I went and picked up my eggs today and I am thrilled! $8 for a dozen eggs! She has lots of colors so I am hoping for a good variety! I will put them in the incubator tonight!

What breed? Yay! EGGS!!

 

[darkbluespace]

What breed? Yay! EGGS!!

They are Ancona duck eggs! I have 6 ducks and a couple ducklings but when I saw a craigslist ad for this dozen I could not resist. I really want more girls and more colors.

 

[ChookyGirl]

Hi everyone!

We have 3 broody hens at the moment, 2 belgian Duccles (Anna and Snowflake) and a bantam wyandotte (Spikey) and we decided to get 12 fertile eggs for them all to share! They are all setting 4 eggs each. All bantam Australorps in black, blue and splash. Super excited!

We set them at 9:30 last night and they are due on November 10.

 

[Antiquity]

I've only read one post before on an aquarium incubator. I'm really curious how your hatch will go! Someone was discounting them for humidity difficulties if I remember right. What do you use for humidity? Just curious. I built my first bator and it was really an interesting experience. Mine was the cheap Styrofoam style though.

I made a false bottom out of hardware cloth and poured water underneath it. The eggs are on top of it, sitting in egg cartons on top of some felt. It seems pretty steady. Anything is better than the incubator I borrowed, which couldn't hold temp or humidity at all.

 

[Sustained]

I made a false bottom out of hardware cloth and poured water underneath it. The eggs are on top of it, sitting in egg cartons on top of some felt. It seems pretty steady. Anything is better than the incubator I borrowed, which couldn't hold temp or humidity at all.

Well you've peaked my curiosity and I'm going to have to read up on aquarium incubators. I happen to have a spare aquarium sitting in my workshop! I had to baby my Styrofoam cooler incubator constantly. I didn't mind that part but I was worried about the constant temp/humidity changes affecting the eggs so I didn't use it again.

 

[Antiquity]

I'm not making any promises about how well it will work, I just like it better than the other one for now.

The styrofoam incubator would occasionally shoot up to 103, 104, 105 sometimes for no reason. With no fiddling at all the aquarium will top out at 102 and settle around 98 at night. The top is just some fitted hardware cloth with a towel over it so, I solved that by adding a towel at night time to keep the temp from dropping and removing it at daytime to keep it from going up to 102. If it starts warming up, I just fold back a corner of the last towel for a half hour and it evens out just fine. I'm still having to baby it, but at least I know it won't shoot up to 105, the bulb just doesn't get that hot.

I believe that what killed my first set of eggs on day 19 was the temperature spiking over 104 while I was out for the day. At this point I'll take my chances with too low, as long as I don't have to worry about too hot.

 

[Sustained]

They are Ancona duck eggs! I have 6 ducks and a couple ducklings but when I saw a craigslist ad for this dozen I could not resist. I really want more girls and more colors.

Gotta love craigslist! I got my silkie eggs from my last hatch free off there. I make sure to check regularly for more egg deals! $8 for a dozen eggs is awesome! And you're saving money in the long run you know

I had to look up Anconas. Pretty, pretty, pretty! I've never had ducks so I'm not familiar with any of the breeds yet. Although one of these days I'm sure I will end up hatching a few ducklings

 

[darkbluespace]

I'm not making any promises about how well it will work, I just like it better than the other one for now.

The styrofoam incubator would occasionally shoot up to 103, 104, 105 sometimes for no reason. With no fiddling at all the aquarium will top out at 102 and settle around 98 at night. The top is just some fitted hardware cloth with a towel over it so, I solved that by adding a towel at night time to keep the temp from dropping and removing it at daytime to keep it from going up to 102. If it starts warming up, I just fold back a corner of the last towel for a half hour and it evens out just fine. I'm still having to baby it, but at least I know it won't shoot up to 105, the bulb just doesn't get that hot.

I believe that what killed my first set of eggs on day 19 was the temperature spiking over 104 while I was out for the day. At this point I'll take my chances with too low, as long as I don't have to worry about too hot.

I made a couple incubators and after my first couple hatches found a great thermostat on ebay for $15 that makes the whole thing SO much easier! I had a dimmer switch before that and I could hardly leave home!

 

[Antiquity]

I made a couple incubators and after my first couple hatches found a great thermostat on ebay for $15 that makes the whole thing SO much easier! I had a dimmer switch before that and I could hardly leave home!

I thermostat is something I have certainly considered. I kind of got thrown into this incubating thing, though. A month ago I didn't think I would be hatching eggs at all. I gave my friend some eggs after her neighbors dog killed her chickens and a week later she confessed that she didn't really have the time or patience to hatch right now, so the incubator went home with me. For now I'm just testing things out to see what works and forming ideas. We'll certainly be building a much nicer and bigger incubator before spring, though, with all the niceties included.

 

[darkbluespace]

Gotta love craigslist! I got my silkie eggs from my last hatch free off there. I make sure to check regularly for more egg deals! $8 for a dozen eggs is awesome! And you're saving money in the long run you know

I had to look up Anconas. Pretty, pretty, pretty! I've never had ducks so I'm not familiar with any of the breeds yet. Although one of these days I'm sure I will end up hatching a few ducklings

I couldn't believe it! They are normally about $40 a dozen and my last dozen were shipped and only 2 hatched, so I hope I will have better luck with these. With local eggs I often hatch them all!

Score on the Silkie eggs! Mine were given to me because they didn't have extra Serama eggs to give me and the last couple of Silkie eggs I got from them were clear. Now I am more excited about the Silkies than the Seramas!

Here are my latest two Anconas... the yellow one has faint spots coming in, I hope it's silver or lilac... it looks like a Pekin right now.