November Hatch-a-long...

[jolenesdad]

Thanks. I have 13 tattoos. I'm thinking about doing a sleeve with my own chickens and farm animals.

I can't wait until they feather out! I was told that I was supposed to just have straight black chicks. I have no solid black ones, it's weird.

EPIC. AMAZING. DO IT.

 

[LittleAussies]

I ordered 12 eggs from a lady online (6 x Olive eggers and 6 x Araucanas) but they took a very long time in the post and probably could have been packaged better so....3 were broken on arrival and on the 18th day only 3 looked viable to me, but I left a fourth in as I wasn’t sure about it. They are due to hatch tomorrow but I woke up to a baby lavender Araucana, and one of the olive eggers has pipped! I was honestly not expecting anything to hatch from this batch so very happy!

 

[FortCluck]

I put in 14 eggs tonight. 5 are from another farm and the rest are from my flock. Cannot wait to see what hatches this time.

 

[BlueBaby]

Good luck with your hatches @LittleAussies and @FortCluck !

 

[Cerenity]

Nope, it's definitely pipping! Now I just have to hope that I can keep the humidity in that incubator high enough - just found out the hard way that the Farm Innovations models have little holes in the bottom, and it's stubbornly refusing to go higher than 55%....

Keep us posted! Also, I saw your signature with your horses! I have Arabians, so, we see lots of ASB and Hackney crosses at the shows.

 

[Cerenity]

So, my first set of eggs I'm incubating went in on November 1, 2019. There are eight barred rock bantam eggs. They were shipped (a long way), so, I wanted to try candling them to look for any of the saddle shaped air sacs, but, I really didn't have much of an idea what I was looking for, so, I didn't find the candling tremendously helpful, but a fun exercise.

I'm in Central/Northern California, so, I don't anticipate having any issues keeping the humidity up. Actually, after filling up the first tray in the HovaBator with water, my humidity was around 55%, which I've read is a touch high. But, since last Friday, it's been going down 1-2% per day, so, I figured I was trending in the right direction. I checked last night before I went to sleep and it was at 52%.

THEN! This morning, I woke up and it had plummeted to 15%! I have no idea what happened. The incubator is in a room by itself and, while we do have indoor pets, the door to that room is closed, so, it couldn't have been disturbed. Since it's my first hatch ever, I was terrified about opening the incubator, but, figured I had to open it to get the humidity back up. My poor husband was tasked with holding the lid open without letting too much heat out so I could get water added. The humidity almost immediately went up to 45%, then 52%. Since it was climbing back up, I read some suggestions here and tried laying a paper towel down to try to help with some of the moisture. It looked like it had leveled off at 55% again. Next time I fill it, I might try the second tray instead of the first, because it's a bit smaller.

Hope my little guys are doing ok in there after all the excitement this morning! Only a few more hours until I can go check on them again!

I was planning on candling at Day 5, since it looks like that's a day where one can tell which of the eggs are developing. Is that generally accurate?

 

[FortCluck]

So, my first set of eggs I'm incubating went in on November 1, 2019. There are eight barred rock bantam eggs. They were shipped (a long way), so, I wanted to try candling them to look for any of the saddle shaped air sacs, but, I really didn't have much of an idea what I was looking for, so, I didn't find the candling tremendously helpful, but a fun exercise.

I'm in Central/Northern California, so, I don't anticipate having any issues keeping the humidity up. Actually, after filling up the first tray in the HovaBator with water, my humidity was around 55%, which I've read is a touch high. But, since last Friday, it's been going down 1-2% per day, so, I figured I was trending in the right direction. I checked last night before I went to sleep and it was at 52%.

THEN! This morning, I woke up and it had plummeted to 15%! I have no idea what happened. The incubator is in a room by itself and, while we do have indoor pets, the door to that room is closed, so, it couldn't have been disturbed. Since it's my first hatch ever, I was terrified about opening the incubator, but, figured I had to open it to get the humidity back up. My poor husband was tasked with holding the lid open without letting too much heat out so I could get water added. The humidity almost immediately went up to 45%, then 52%. Since it was climbing back up, I read some suggestions here and tried laying a paper towel down to try to help with some of the moisture. It looked like it had leveled off at 55% again. Next time I fill it, I might try the second tray instead of the first, because it's a bit smaller.

Hope my little guys are doing ok in there after all the excitement this morning! Only a few more hours until I can go check on them again!

I was planning on candling at Day 5, since it looks like that's a day where one can tell which of the eggs are developing. Is that generally accurate?

I waited until 7 days with my first hatch. I had 21 chicks hatch out of 30 eggs. I did Day 7, 14, 16, and 18. When I did it on day 5 I saw nothing, it depends what color your eggs are.

I'm running my incubator dry because where I live it's humid and adding water makes it skyrocket and I think that might be why some of my chicks didn't hatch.

 

[shayann]

I am new to hatching. I could not wait until the spring so I ordered six assorted from Meyer's Hatchery. They are coming in this week. I didn't want to get too many but wanted the grand kids to experience this little part of life. Since you are not sure what you get when they hatch, I figured I would start with a few. If they most or all hatch great, but if not, also ok. I currently have 9 pullets. Two RI, Three EE, 2 SLW & 2 GLW. I am excited to get a different variety but cannot wait to see what they send.
Any help you guys can offer is greatly appreciated. I purchased a small incubator from Amazon and plan on setting up this week. The eggs are supposed to arrive between Wednesday & Friday but so super excited.

 

[FortCluck]

One of my eggs from the local farm is bad so I pulled it. I'm putting in 3 more of my own eggs later on tonight. These will hatch a day later, but I'm good with that.

 

[FortCluck]

I am new to hatching. I could not wait until the spring so I ordered six assorted from Meyer's Hatchery. They are coming in this week. I didn't want to get too many but wanted the grand kids to experience this little part of life. Since you are not sure what you get when they hatch, I figured I would start with a few. If they most or all hatch great, but if not, also ok. I currently have 9 pullets. Two RI, Three EE, 2 SLW & 2 GLW. I am excited to get a different variety but cannot wait to see what they send.
Any help you guys can offer is greatly appreciated. I purchased a small incubator from Amazon and plan on setting up this week. The eggs are supposed to arrive between Wednesday & Friday but so super excited.

Do you have your incubator set up yet? I would set it up a couple days beforehand so you know that the humidity and temp is good.

Do you have a thermometer to put in the incubator and hygrometer? I'd get them if you don't already have them. Many incubator readers are incorrect. My humidity reads 10% less on the incubator, but my hygrometer makes it so I have the correct humidity. I was told to run my incubator dry and add no water for a day to see what the reading says to see if I needed water or not. I had issues with humidity on my first hatch.