October Hatch-A-Long

[maranfarmer563]

Coopcop do you use the dry method,I have had great results with it,no water till day 18,both my eggs and shipped eggs from Colorado

 

[CoopCop]

Coopcop do you use the dry method,I have had great results with it,no water till day 18,both my eggs and shipped eggs from Colorado

I am using the dry method. Using my eggs as the standard last hatch I had 100% hatch with it (started with 6 eggs, pulled a clear that was infertile, all 5 remaining hatched into healthy chicks). This is just my 2nd hatch but 100% hatch on eggs from a young pullet tells me something was working right. My shipped eggs didn't hatch near as well, but they had a pretty rough time with the postal service so I am not going to blame the hatch method for it.

 

[AmericanMom]

I am setting sometime tomorrow, waiting to get a few more EE eggs then I am in for another three weeks of waiting and watch and worrying...

 

[ChickyChickens]

Well I've successfully made it 6 days without candling.......day 7 tomorrow!!!!!! I can't wait to see those little bouncing blobs! Who has day 7 tomorrow with me?????

ME!!!!!!
I have 2 broodies on day 7!

 

[Newchics]

Today will be day 7 for us but i'm afraid we don't have good eggs. i cant tell only see dark and light sections.

 

[maranfarmer563]

Turn the egg side ways,see if air sack moves too

 

[Newchics]

I turned them sloooooowly on side then other end and yes they move from end to other and sideways. Is that good or bad

 

[Paula Ashley]

Ooh.. I'm picking up my 8 Black Orpington eggs and setting them today!

My first little gang ever. I am so excited.

Thank you Bazy for bringing my eggs back from Simms, TX.

You ROCK!

 

[HugHess]

Hi everyone,

Congratulations on setting your eggs and best wishes for happy healthy hatches!
My first ever attempt at setting eggs happened in August...
(and) since I became instantly addicted...I now have what may either be Ayam Cemani X Mottled Orpingtons OR pure Cemani 'brewing' in the bator, I am beside myself with hope and wonder...as well as making myself an insane person because I have never tried to hatch shipped eggs! Excited either way, I don't care what they are (but will probably have my first cerebral 'accident' if they were to actually hatch AND be Cemani!
They were very shabbily handled by our wonderful USPS and being my 2nd batch of eggs to ever set, I have my work cut out for me, I know. Thank God I love a challenge!
With all that said, I do have 6 of the 8 eggs delivered showing veining, which is not bad considering the aforementioned handling...one egg appears unfertilized and the other was cracked 50 ways from Sunday...I sure feel blessed to have what I currently do have! They are due within the first three days of October, so I just had to join the October hatch-a-long!
Look forward to seeing the upcoming stories, good and bad, as I have learned so much from my fellow BYCer's and appreciate everyone for being in 'league' with me in our single-minded intent. Man, how I do LOVE Chicken Math!!! Did I mention that I will be picking up my third 'batch' sometime next week? My insanity continues, and I wouldn't have it any other way!
Best wishes to ALL!

HugHess

 

[HugHess]

I turned them sloooooowly on side then other end and yes they move from end to other and sideways. Is that good or bad

Hi,

I can only speak from my personal experience with my first ever 'set' of eggs... I have a Hova Bator 1602 Thermal Air (manual) and I turned the bejeezus
out of my eggs! Let me rephrase that, I turned the heck out of the carton they were in...
I know our paths differ in that you have a manual turner...but just in case it helps both you and others that are walking in my DIY shoes...

I used a piece of a Priority Mail box to create a roughly 45* degree slant and moved that as well as flipping the carton around, all over the bator to make up for the still air and variant temps... I usually turned them every 3-5 hours (6-7 times daily) for the first 10 days and then slightly let off that through to day 18. I also did the cool down method starting on day 10 by taking them out of the bator for 20-40 minutes a day...but it was an avg. of 85* in the room they were incubating in. Don't think I will do it that long this time with the weather starting to change.
Out of the 7 eggs that went into lock down...(and considering I was almost sure #7 was an early quitter)...I got 6 beauties to hatch out of those 7!
Also, when I prepped for lock down I took the same cupboard liner and used that to line the bottom grid of the bator...this helped new chicks greatly with footing and resting, etc., glad I did that too.

As you can see, I took the top of the egg carton and placed my babies as vertically as possible in the carton's air vents for hatching. You can see that in the pipped egg to the left. This worked out very well, for me, as the eggs were not rolling around...hatching chicks didn't really get a chance to make pippers and zippers into action figures while the newly hatched chicks were getting their wits about them, and clean up was much more of a breeze.
I plan on doing the same thing for the next two batches.
I made many, if not all, of my decisions based off this site and Brinsea's website, which has a pretty good amount of information regarding incubating's technical side...which helped me a lot...
If this might help in any way then I am glad for it... in other words...keep up the turning! It worked for me! ALL said IMO, of course.

Good luck with your hatch!