October Hatch-a-long 2022🎃🐣🍁

[LadiesAndJane]

So seeing how it is a bit too early for the Halloween hatch-a-long, thought I would see if anyone is interested in joining in for an earlier October hatch.
I have a test hatch planned for two newer layers, 10 month old Silkie sisters.
This will be third generation with my paint Silkies. Chicks will hatch out black, paint or dominant white. Hoping for some good markings in the paint chicks and not just flecks of black. Have buyers lined up for most of them.
Setting tomorrow with expected hatch date of 10/2/22.
Photos of the upcoming chicks’ parents.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Here, just for the cuteness until all the October chicks hatch, are some two day old Silkies.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

First baby is out.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Setting 16 eggs today. 8 from Niko (paint), 6 from Lilikoi (black), 1 Polkie egg left from last weeks collection (the Polkie has since gone broody for the very first time) and 1 unknown Silkie egg from 8/28. All the others are from 9/3 up to today.
Will check on Wednesday for fertility, I can usually see veining already by then.
All the eggs are marked and plan is to put in dividers at lock down so I can tell which chicks are from which birds. Only Niko’s have the potential of hatching out all white.

 

[LadiesAndJane]

so cute, that one yellow on the right has so much fluff it can hardly see. i LOVE their feathered feet

Thanks! These 3 are super fluffy.
Little fluff nuggets can see just fine I think it’s just the angle of the photo. Though they will probably need feather trims as adults.
Same chick from the back.

 

[Pampered chicken girl]

Yay! Two of my babies hatched! One at 5:15 yesterday morning and one at 9:30 last night!
Here is one of them

 

[LadiesAndJane]

Update, candled again here about six hours after the last one. Didn’t make sense I couldn’t see better development, though it could as everyone knows shipped eggs are a gamble.
Well I was excited to see that 10 out of the 16 eggs are showing clear development.
This is promising as this is much better than my last shipped egg adventure about 2 years ago. I feel I can allow myself to be excited now!!

 

[LadiesAndJane]

So today is “lock down“ for the first set of eggs, DAY 17.
11 eggs have made it this far, out of 16 started.

Second set are on DAY 10.
12 still look good. Only one EQ so far. In this set is one additional egg that was started a day later.

DAY 4 for the shipped eggs and pulled 4 obvious clears. 12 remaining.

 

[Marten]

The first one hatched about 10 minutes ago! And it was not any of the four that had pipped last night. The four that pipped are all closing in on 24 hours now, so I'm hoping all the cheeps from their buddy will encourage them.

 

[Marten]

I think we're done with hatching!

Of the 13 eggs scheduled to hatch, 11 have hatched. Unfortunately, the little guy in the cracked egg failed to internally pip, although he was fully developed. That one hurt a bit, I feel so bad for them. The egg was actually rocking back and forth moving last night, and I'd decided to at least try to help him if he hadn't pipped this morning. By the time I got to him today, he was gone.

One of the smaller cream legbar eggs from a young hen didn't hatch, either. Really, it's almost a case study in waiting for good eggs, because I was given five of the smaller eggs and only two of them made it to hatch. Two were early quitters and the third never pipped. But of the nine larger eggs, eight made it to lockdown and the only one that didn't hatch was the cracked egg.

I also had one pullet hatch very quickly and energetically, but with a partially unabsorbed yolk. I did the "back in the shell in a cup in the incubator" method, and while she's absorbed the yellow part of the yolk, there's still a bloody mass that's still attached. She's been out of the egg for about 20 hours now, so I'm really crossing my fingers for her.