November Hatch-A-Long (2014)

[Sustained]

I have soo many nice pics to share with u guys!! Will post them tomorrow!!

 

[AmyLynn2374]

So, on the 16th we set 32 eggs (and 2 experimental eggs. I read someone saying they had hatched eggs that had been in the fridge and yielded a higher hen rate. I didn't think refrigerated eggs would be viable so I had to try for myself.) Tonight we hit day 8 and I decided to candle. (Not the first time.) I had already pulled two that had no development but was showing a profound blood ring. The eggs all came from my sister. Now she must have a couple chickens that she thinks that is getting loving that is not, because I have 13 or 14 that are clear. A couple I'm uncertain of. The rest seem to be growing pretty well. (Between 15-17). Now the two fridge eggs- both green shelled, both show signs of development. One though I think quit at 5 days ish. That one had an unusually large air cell from the very beginning. The other seems to be developing fine. I haven't tossed the clears yet. I separated them from the rest and will double check Sunday, on day 10 before discarding. Hopefully we can go into lockdown with a good 15.

 

[DesertChickens1]

Candled the eggs, looks like one is infertile and one looks like it quit on day 2, but I still got 22 going strong for now!

 

[Pyxis]

Got my eggs finally! Eight NN bantam eggs. Will be setting them tomorrow so the hatch date is the 15th!

 

[ochochicas]

Tonight I cheated and candled some of my eggs. My A.D.H.D. got the best of me. Some of the chicks are growing!!! I'm going to candle them all tomorrow and probably toss out a good portion of them that were never fertile or too old to incubate. At least now I know the Legbars are fertile and I didn't cook them the first day with too high of a temperature.

 

[darajosami]

So it looks like I am here for good this time as I definitely have fertile eggs but I am using a broody instead of an incubator.

Hi, I am new to hatching and all and I have a broody hen. She was sitting on 2 eggs and after some advice added the 9 I had in the incubator. Tried moving her from here to here to no avail and now it seems I have a second one.

The nesting box they are in is a communal one and they wont use any other so I will have to be sure I mark all eggs they are sitting on.

These two have been sitting for 2 days but I keep stealing there eggs LOL and they are still at it, although one ran off and then came back. They even sleep there with no eggs. I might add another 9 so they will both have 10 each and hopefully they don't cause too much fuss. Can anyone tell me if it is safe to do so during the day (it is now 3.15pm) or wait until it is dark?

The other thing I am not sure of is that the chicken coop isn't exactly baby friendly LOL may have to take them off her and put in brooder when they hatch as, as you can see here the coop has pallets for a base that they would fall through

 

[Junibutt]

Hello folks

Technically my chicks might come on Haloween but I think it's more likely it will be Nov 1 now.

I'm a first timer with a cheap *** Chinese incubator from eBay - it's automatic, but controlling the humidity is awkward. I'm aiming for too high rather than too low if it has to be imprecise, hope that inst a mistake.

I started with twelve eggs - four red anconas, four silver laced wyandottes, and four silkies.

Candling recently showed that three (two wyandottes and an ancona) were infertile - they cracked out perfectly clear too, and by now in the others I can see seriously developing chicks, so I guess those weren't meant to be.

Pretty excited despite my lack of experience, but amazingly worried about everything that can go wrong - I shouldn't have read all those disaster threads...but I always do.

. Should have seen my face when I flew to Africa and decided to read the human parasite documents on the plane.

I'll never learn.

Hopefully its not that "incubator from hell" that plays music as well. I believe that only tookd 6-8 eggs though and was styled after the Brinsea mini incubator but the music part was fun.
P.S. There were lots of postings and pictures about it in the Easter Hatch-A-Long

 

[Dcat]

I am so looking forward to seeing all the chicks!! I almost feel like I'm not doing anything with just five but, I still happy to be incubating again, LOL. I told hubby tonight I'm hatching out some more but he already knew. I thought I was hiding pretty well. He was pretty impressed that I built the incubator(made me feel all bubbly inside).

Everything seems to be right on schedule over here, just a waiting game now and hoping I don't have any quiters.

 

[Antiquity]

Temp spikes all over at my house today

UGH! First an expected rise after adding warm water to the bottom, it just lasted a bit longer than I wanted. I moved over some towel to vent some heat and when I came back it was low. @#$$% So I covered it back up only to come back an hour later with a CAT on top of it and temps way way up again! grrr cats! vented too much again. Finally got it stable this past couple hours. Oh well.

The eggs are looking a little iffy today after all of that. I'm almost positive that I have at least one loss from each batch. Maybe more. But some of the little critters are still looking great and moving around a lot. I'll have to keep a close eye for a couple of days as I have no idea how many viable eggs I've got at the moment. It's somewhere between 0 and 18.

• darajosami: Your little broodies are beautiful! I've always heard it's best to deal with broodies and their eggs at night time. Maybe they'll take to the new nest if you move them after dark. Lucky you, I wanted a broody so bad this year!

Grats to everyone who got eggs today, and good luck!

 

[Junibutt]

So it looks like I am here for good this time as I definitely have fertile eggs but I am using a broody instead of an incubator.

Hi, I am new to hatching and all and I have a broody hen. She was sitting on 2 eggs and after some advice added the 9 I had in the incubator. Tried moving her from here to here to no avail and now it seems I have a second one.

The nesting box they are in is a communal one and they wont use any other so I will have to be sure I mark all eggs they are sitting on.

These two have been sitting for 2 days but I keep stealing there eggs LOL and they are still at it, although one ran off and then came back. They even sleep there with no eggs. I might add another 9 so they will both have 10 each and hopefully they don't cause too much fuss. Can anyone tell me if it is safe to do so during the day (it is now 3.15pm) or wait until it is dark?

The other thing I am not sure of is that the chicken coop isn't exactly baby friendly LOL may have to take them off her and put in brooder when they hatch as, as you can see here the coop has pallets for a base that they would fall through

You should probably first force them to stay in the square box by placing eggs in there and enclosing the whole thing with chicken wire or something similar so they can't come out for 2-3 days. Needless to say you will need to make arrangements for their food and water. You can worry about the chicks around day 18. At that point you can move them to safer place.