November Hatch-A-Long (2014)

[ochochicas]

I weigh all my eggs since a lot of them are dark shelled and it is too hard see air cells. The eggs can be weighed at day 7 and 14 to make sure they are on track for losing 13% The eggs my broody hatched over the summer only lost 7 - 11%, so if it is a little low I'm not going to worry. We also sell eggs to people, so I weigh them before packaging and remove the smaller ones to feed back to the chickens. There are still two pullets that are consistently laying eggs less than 50 grams.

With my broody there was one egg that had a good sized crack in it. I covered it with fingernail polish. It hatched just fine on day 20. Beautiful pullet that I sold to my neighbor.

 

[Junibutt]

Because I don't have any egg pics to share yet, I thought I'd show y'all what we were working on yesterday ( my day off). Building a coop. This is the built-in brooder/solitary confinement pen inside. We had 18 -5 week old chicks in 3 huge dog crates in our bathroom until last night. Really glad to get them out of there.. but really sad too. I kinda enjoyed talking to them as I was getting ready in the am... just didn't like the dust and the smell!! I got up twice last night to go check on them. Is cool here (low 50's) but they are feathered and had two Brinsea heaters in there with them last night. I think they enjoy the extra space! (This one is 3 feet wide by 8 feet long)

In other news.. got tracking numbers on my eggs! They are coming from Oregon, New York and Georgia to me here in Mississippi. This ought to be interesting!

ae

Wow. thats one fancy coop you got going.

 

[ChickyChickens]

WOW!!! Ihad so much reading catch up, lol!! How are you all, how are the eggs gojng??LOL!!

 

[Sustained]

Sustained, I usually can't get good pics either, LOL. The coolest thing is you can see the heartbeat if you look!

Ochochicas, you are a better chicken mom than me, I don't take the time to weigh them but I do mark the air pockets. I should havae done it the first day but I will be doing it soon. My temp showed that it spiked to 102 overnight but didn't go below 99.

I didn't know what to expect really the first time I candled and was startled to see an eye inside LOL I will look for the heartbeat this time around. I was too fascinated by the eye to notice much else

Candled day 7 on batch 1 today and threw out the two non-developers. Batch two is still 11/12 but one of those is a little iffy. I also discovered an egg from batch one has a very small crack, but is still looking good so far. I wish i could take good candling pics, but they all just photograph as big round smudges with some dark spots. Oh well. Here's a picture of my aquarium set up instead.




Oh Sustained,

just keep adding those eggs. I wouldn't have been able to pass them up either: I am officially hooked. If I had a larger aquarium, I'd be adding more as well. Every lost egg makes me want to put in a dozen more.

Wow! You did a great job on your aquaribator! Going to use this pic as a reference for the one I'm very slowly putting together. So I bought those duck eggs and came home to find a dozen eggs on my kitchen counter with a note from my grandmother asking me to put them under my broody for her. She originally was going to bring me eggs and a few days later told me that her hens were on strike for the winter, which I took to mean they had completely quit laying. So I decided to break my broody and let her hatch next time. A few texts later and I find out that her hens were only giving an egg or two a day so she had been slowly collecting them. I guess I just gained a dozen more eggs for my incubators LOL now I need another one for lockdown cuz the one that I was originally going to use is filling up at an amazing rate

Hi fellow hatch-a-holics

Good to hear how everyone's eggs are coming along. I candled mine for the first time last night and the prognosis is as follows:

Under the broody: 6/10 with good veins and lots of movement. 3 x clears and 1 x not sure (will give a little more time and check again).

In incubator: 6/12 with good veins and lots of movement. 1 x blood-ring and 4 x clears. 1 x not sure (will also give more time).

The kids helped me with candling last night and they were thrilled to see movement.

I'm impressed with my cheap Chinese incubator, it's holding temp and humidity really well. This is my 2nd hatch with it and I think I've finally got it worked out correctly.

Can I ask what you had to work out with your incubator? I saw them all over the place but saw such mixed reviews that I was leery of them and eventually decided not to go that route

I am setting 25 eggs in total all my own. ( I can't get anyone to post to Europe from fancy America) :-(
5 Japanese was thrown out of the nest
10 Italian
10 mix large fl barma, bold neck, kendermagos.

Something new to learn. One of my favorite things about this site. I've never heard of those. Heading to Google

Good luck on your hatch!

Because I don't have any egg pics to share yet, I thought I'd show y'all what we were working on yesterday ( my day off). Building a coop. This is the built-in brooder/solitary confinement pen inside. We had 18 -5 week old chicks in 3 huge dog crates in our bathroom until last night. Really glad to get them out of there.. but really sad too. I kinda enjoyed talking to them as I was getting ready in the am... just didn't like the dust and the smell!! I got up twice last night to go check on them. Is cool here (low 50's) but they are feathered and had two Brinsea heaters in there with them last night. I think they enjoy the extra space! (This one is 3 feet wide by 8 feet long)

In other news.. got tracking numbers on my eggs! They are coming from Oregon, New York and Georgia to me here in Mississippi. This ought to be interesting!

ae

WOW

I love your coop! Next spring I plan to expand/rebuild mine. I love the idea of the brooder built right into the coop. Can't wait to see it finished!

With my broody there was one egg that had a good sized crack in it. I covered it with fingernail polish. It hatched just fine on day 20. Beautiful pullet that I sold to my neighbor.

I'm going to try this if I have another cracked egg. I used wax on my last one but it didn't hatch. I don't know if it had to do with the crack or the temp/humidity being so far off though.

either way, fingernail polish is easier to apply

 

[rachelpotter]

I think this is a safe place for me to admit this...


I'm refreshing the tracking info on my three boxes of eggs like every 5 minutes... Its insanity....


So far I just have departure info. If I'm this bad now.. how in the heck am I going to make it through 21 days...

 

[Sustained]

By staring into your incubator for long periods of time and obsessively waking up in the middle of the night to stare some more!

I'm constantly checking my tracking numbers too so you're in the right place for sure

 

[ochochicas]

I even catch DH staring at the incubator sometimes. I just ask "What are they doing?" He shrugs his shoulders and walks away. When I put the eggs under the broody this summer I didn't tell him they were fertile. He seemed disappointed that he didn't get to see them hatch. haha

 

[Mulberry]

Very fancy if I may say so, I bet you worked hard I was thinking to have a brooder in my coop as well but I just love them in the barn they up lift my spirit.

 

[rachelpotter]

By staring into your incubator for long periods of time and obsessively waking up in the middle of the night to stare some more!

I'm constantly checking my tracking numbers too so you're in the right place for sure

I just called the post office to put them on a heads up that they would be receiving three HOLD FOR PICKUP packages with my phone number on it. They acted like I was speaking Chinese. Then when I asked if they would call me or if I needed to call and check... they said... um.. "Well you can. I'm sure someone will probably call you. Are we delivering it to your house?" OMG... if these eggs don't get lost in the shuffle it will be a miracle.


I tried to explain that I needed to pick up as soon as they arrived. I have no idea if I "got through" I should have known better. This post office is notorious for screwing things up and being clueless about procedures... THEIR OWN procedures!


Breathing in a bag... A lot of $ tied up in those eggs.

 

[Sustained]

I just called the post office to put them on a heads up that they would be receiving three HOLD FOR PICKUP packages with my phone number on it. They acted like I was speaking Chinese. Then when I asked if they would call me or if I needed to call and check... they said... um.. "Well you can. I'm sure someone will probably call you. Are we delivering it to your house?" OMG... if these eggs don't get lost in the shuffle it will be a miracle.


I tried to explain that I needed to pick up as soon as they arrived. I have no idea if I "got through" I should have known better. This post office is notorious for screwing things up and being clueless about procedures... THEIR OWN procedures!


Breathing in a bag... A lot of $ tied up in those eggs.

Breathing in a bag...

Oh boy does all that sounds familiar! Not just with PO employees though. I'm starting to think there's something in the water around here LOL I sent a note to my sons teacher today asking how he's supposed to know words are misspelled on the homework he was given if he can't spell them in the first place. He just started 1st grade and these were not basic 'just learning to read' words. Just amazing.

How many more days do you have before arrival? I have one batch out for delivery today. One in Pennsylvania and one still in Florida. I'm in Oregon lol so they've got a little ways to come still. I think almost all my eggs came from Florida. Floridians must be silkie fanatics