September 2015 Hatch-A-long!!

[cajun1]

I just started 12 at 11.00am this morning. First time in the Igloobator & first time for me hatching anything. Day 0

 

[Joplus]

What kind of incubator are you using?[/quote]
A farm innovators still air. I have a plastic liner in there that has 2 wells. I'm at about 25% humidity dry and about 40% with the middle well filled but I like the stable temps with the higher humidity. And what I really need to do is get a fan in there. I let the well run dry today just to maybe put a small jar of water and get the humidity down for now but if my theory is right then I should be expecting temp fluctuations. It's just a pain. I really need to upgrade. If the store bought eggs produce anything at all I can probably justify getting new equipment

 

[Joplus]

I just started 12 at 11.00am this morning. First time in the Igloobator & first time for me hatching anything. Day 0 

Welcome to the September hatch a long. Happy Hatching

 

[Joplus]

Here goes try #2. Got some quail eggs to practice on from Sill today (somebody more savvy tell me how to tag a person on this forum please). I am trying the chicken eggs just for kicks. They are fertile eggs from the store. I figured it can't be any worse than the first try (it may not be better, but can't be worse than 0%). The two little ones are from Over Easy Chicken Ranch; picked them up this morning. One Black Copper Maran and one Blue Isbar.

Good luck

 

[Joplus]

My hen has 6 eggs total: two Easter eggers, three Cochins, and one cuckoo maran due 9/29/15
I checked today and saw for sure vessels in one egg but the others are too dark! My hen is dedicated to sit ALL day and night. Hopefully I get one of each at least!!

Welcome and good luck

 

[Joplus]

I have very few hens to hatch eggs from. I have one "Cornish Roaster" hen from Murray McMurray, and two Dark Cornish hens. Normally the Dark Cornish do a fine job of setting. I have one who eats the eggs before they hatch as well as going lame. She sat with her right leg out to the side and it became an issue before she finished. She was lame for another three weeks. So now I just gather eggs and incubate. I developed a system to roll through my small number of eggs in a continuous hatch: I put three dates written in pencil on each egg: Date laid, "Date In" (put into the incubator), Date to move them into the Hatcher circled. I open the incubator every six days. I candle the eggs starting at day 6; you can easily see the chick and movement. I candle again at day 12 just to see if it's a quitter. I candle and move the 18 day eggs out to the hatcher and at the same time I add the new eggs I have gathered and held up to 6 days into the incubator. My system is not fancy. I have two Styrofoam units. incubator I made a hand roller designed to be pulled from one side of the incubator and then the other. It rolls the eggs a half turn. I do this at least three to four times a day. So my September eggs were put in on 9/4/15 and on 9/10/15 when I went to put in my next batch I discovered the Incukit DC unit quit working over night none of the 30 eggs I had in the unit survived. I quickly fixed up a new system using a lower unit water heater thermometer, two 40 watt appliance bulbs and a computer fan. This is the same system I have for my still egg (18 day egg) hatcher. Hopefully every thing works out. After my chicks hatch the get moved to the 55 gallon tank seen below the the incubator in the pic above. They stay in the aquarium for three weeks and get moved to the coop. I hatched my first bird - the one with the yellow band - on 8/1/2015.

Welcome to the hatch a long!

 

[ihearvoices]

Well it is day 14, and i'm down another egg. It was clear that one of the remaining 13 was not keeping pace. Cracked it open and an indiscernable blob of eyes and other matter plopped out. I'd say it was somewhere between day 3-6 for quitting... not sure why, but it would have been one of my red dorkings.

I can now maxxed out at a 92% hatch rate. I was estimating 80% before i started, so we'll see how this next week goes.

 

[tao chick]

I'm on day 5 for 10 barnyard mixes. I candled yesterday and only thought one was questionable. I candled today and a different one looks questionable. I really need to learn the lesson of candling less often. I'm manually turning so I keep thinking it's not that much different to just pull them out and candle quick during the turning process. I have my next "scheduled" candling on Saturday. I hope I can hold out that long. Just turn them. Just turn them. Just turn them...

 

[mswendeu]

So far two have hatched out of 21 eggs.

 

[WVduckchick]

Alot of eggcitement going on. Congrats everybody!