November hatch along

[TheLittleFarm18]

I can’t wait for the first fluffy pics! Broody 1’s eggs are due to hatch Tuesday, broody 2 is due Thursday. We have no idea how many if any chicks we will get from the 20 eggs in total, as we haven’t candled them. I guess we just have to wait and see.

Oh wow good for you not candling! I can not help myself lol

 

[OneMountainAcres]

Setting 7 silkie/show girl eggs tonight. Hopefully USPS was gentle on them.

 

[TheLittleFarm18]

Setting 7 silkie/show girl eggs tonight. Hopefully USPS was gentle on them.

Good luck

 

[TheLittleFarm18]

I'm officially on lock down. And great news all 5 had movement, still not sure what those black spots are in 3 eggs but we see what happens

Also candling them before lock down there was one egg I swear was trying to break through the air sack...neat to see, I've never seen that before

 

[L1sa]

I can’t wait for the first fluffy pics! Broody 1’s eggs are due to hatch Tuesday, broody 2 is due Thursday. We have no idea how many if any chicks we will get from the 20 eggs in total, as we haven’t candled them. I guess we just have to wait and see.

Good luck

 

[L1sa]

I'm officially on lock down. And great news all 5 had movement, still not sure what those black spots are in 3 eggs but we see what happens

Also candling them before lock down there was one egg I swear was trying to break through the air sack...neat to see, I've never seen that before

Good luck to you too!

 

[L1sa]

I had a sneaky candle from under my broody last night, we're only on day 6 and 5 looked developed, 1 looks empty, but I'll check again in another couple of days just to be sure before I remove!

 

[Natanya]

I set my first ever eggs in my homemade incubator; 7 50% silkie/50% showgirl eggs of unknown color that I picked up from a breeder in a nearby city. Today is day 4, I candled all 7 and 4 have obvious signs of development, 2 were indistinct, and 1 seems to not be developing. My hatch date is Nov. 19th.

I'm pretty excited.

My humidity was all over the place for the first twodays from 40-70%, but I seem to have pinned it down to 54-56% by adjusting my ventilation holes. It's been bouncing between those two numbers for the past couple days. I'm hoping to coax my humidity to increase to the ideal 58-60%, but I think my 54-56% will be okay. Especially since I don't know how accurate my humidity reader actually is.

 

[madlaina]

We have a game of musical eggs happening. Broody one, who is unfortunately brooding in one of the nest boxes in the coop ( we tried to move her, but it didn’t go well), got up for a break this morning. When I checked on her later, she was sitting on the unfertilised eggs layer by the other chickens today and one of the others was sitting on the fertilised eggs, acting broody. I picked the wrong broody up and put her on the ground, quickly counted the eggs (8 as there were supposed to be) and picked up the broody to relocate her back onto her eggs.
To my surprise I found her sitting on 3 of our chickens’ unfertilised eggs plus one of the fertile ones (easily identifiable as it was a Maran egg - all our chickens lay green eggs). What the actual heck? So I grabbed that egg, put it back in the fertile clutch, checked all the green eggs in the fertile clutch to locate the one that didn’t belong before putting the chicken back.
I think it is time to block access to the nesting boxes for the other chickens for the next few days to stop these shenanigans. I’ll sort out some temporary nest boxes for them this afternoon.
Oh and the newly broody is now in chicken jail. Sigh, this is stressful.

 

[L1sa]

It is so much more stressful when they are brooding in GP, they are not the brightest creatures in the world and are easily confused!! They will sit on and try and hatch golf balls for heavens sake!

My last brood in GP went disasterous (there is a post charting all that progress - Broody Plymouth BR hatchalong) we ended up with just one hatching just because of all the interruptions, other hens moving eggs, mumma kicking out eggs, me collecting them by mistake... it was just a balls up from the get go!! But. I did learn loads on that brood, this time I successfully moved the broody before she was given the fertilised eggs, to her own maternity wing, where she is just getting on with it! I don't even have to think about it, I know that no one else can get in there to bother her, even I leave her alone!! And hopefully with less interruptions we'll actually get a decent hatch rate!

Best of luck with your musical broodys

Keep us updated.