Serama Hatch-A-Long!!

[darkbluespace]

Well, I am officially the token member in the thread with awful luck. There is something wrong with my trusty Brinsea incubator. The fan is working but the light that blinks/remains constant when the heat is running is blinking erratically or not on at all. I think it means the heater in my incubator isn't working, which explains all of my heat troubles today. Right now it is ranging from 97-102 (for the past few hours) with a space heater on and running basically up against it. Today however it was as low as 79 for a short period. I'm on day 19, going on day 20 tomorrow morning and am obviously really upset. I have 23 assorted silkie and serama eggs. I would feel a lot better if I could hear a little peep or see a little pip! It's so hard to know whether or not my eggs will be okay and hatch still. If anyone has any advice or experience with bad hatches please let me know what I can expect!!

That is a serious pain but the space heater was a great idea. While 97 to 102 may not be ideal, it averages out nicely. The eggs heat up and cool off much more slowly than the incubator so they stay in the average. At least you only have a couple days to go! The end is stressful enough though without this kind of challenge. Breathe and relax as much as you can. If it make you feel better, my luck was atrocious for all of January. I finally feel like things are looking up!



Did I tell you all that my duck eggs are fertile??!! 8 of 12 are developing!! So excited, I put a 13 more in yesterday. I am also incubating a duck egg in a cup for curiosities sake! I read about it on here and some of them actually "hatched" and lived. This egg was cracked so I thought I would try it. I thought it would be amazing to see it develop in the cup, even if it doesn't make it all the way.

I also worked on my cabinet incubator today. I got the whole thing wired and up and running! I got the front door mostly finished, I just have to get a piece of plexi glass to go in it. I already called for a quote. I hope it works like I am hoping because it has been a tremendous amount of work.

I now understand why they cost hundreds of dollars.

 

[RockyRose]

@heyheypaula it sounds like you are doing the best you can with your incubator breaking down...it's hard to say what will happen but if you keep a watch and can keep that temp where you have it (even fluctuating) hopefully you will get some hatching. I'm new at hatching but have read a lot of people's accounts of problems yet somehow the eggs hatch. One account even told of eggs that were thought to be duds left on a counter to be thrown away and at least one hatched several hours out of the bator! There are miracles happening all the time. Unborn chicks are fragile in some ways yet in other ways they are robust and tenacious, just one of mother nature's ways to keep us on our toes.
Please keep us posted on how things go, I'm praying for those little chicks to hatch for you.

@darkbluespace - I am excited for you with the cabinet incubator...what a great challenge to build one! Did you design it yourself or have plans? I'm just naturally curious, and would love to have one built someday since my son is such a great builder; I don't think I'd attempt it without some kind of proven design plan though. How are you hatching your duck egg in a cup? Is it inside the bator? Again just curious and always learning!

Only on day 3 here with the serama eggs and wanting to candle but trying to hold off until the weekend. Have a new puppy in the house taking up much of my time...so she's a good excuse for me to wait lol. In the meantime egg laying is increasing with my silkies (two young hens just starting to lay) and frizzles and I keep wanting to add eggs in a rotational hatching but have never done that before. With the seramas in bator now I am forcing myself to hold off. Was also tempted to order some silkie eggs from folks with SQ lines...again forcing myself to wait! My silkie parents are not the best quality and will probably produce mainly pet quality offspring so I want to add more good genes to my flock. Thinking of going to a show in a couple of weeks since I could buy grown SQ silkies instead of hatching and waiting 6-12 months to start getting better quality babies. Hatching fever is a challenge. Being new to breeding is a challenge too! Funny how I am forcing myself to wait on some things and have trouble getting motivated to do other (necessary) things.

 

[heyheypaula]

Thanks for all of your kind words everyone. It's day 20 and I haven't seen or heard any evidence that the eggs are doing okay and will hatch. I'd feel a lot better if there were some internal or external pips! I'm trying to be patient. Today has been a little trickier. Temps have ranged from 88-102, possibly 104. I'm pretty worried but I guess I don't really know until something happens. I'm too nervous to candle them! Fingers crossed for some pips tonight!

 

[heyheypaula]

I have good news!!! I have one little external pip on a tiny serama egg that I swore I saw wiggling yesterday night! Hopefully the rest or even a few more will follow!

 

[heyheypaula]

SO I have three pips in my serama eggs now! Coincidentally (?) they are all pretty much next to each other. No progress on the first two since I noticed them this morning but this new one is at the wrong end! I am going to keep a close eye on it. Anyone have any experience with chicks pipping at the wrong end of the egg? My luck continues... On a side note, is it interesting that none of my silkies have pipped yet? Are seramas notoriously early hatchers?

 

[darkbluespace]

SO I have three pips in my serama eggs now! Coincidentally (?) they are all pretty much next to each other. No progress on the first two since I noticed them this morning but this new one is at the wrong end! I am going to keep a close eye on it. Anyone have any experience with chicks pipping at the wrong end of the egg? My luck continues... On a side note, is it interesting that none of my silkies have pipped yet? Are seramas notoriously early hatchers?

That is awesome news!! I am so happy to hear that! It is not that Silkies are late hatchers, it is that Seramas are early hatchers so I would not be surprised if the Silkies pip soon. As for a chick with a wrong end pip, sometimes they hatch on their own, but you can help them after 24 hours of their pip, by then they have had time to absorb their yolk. Can't wait to see chickies!!

 

[darkbluespace]

@darkbluespace - I am excited for you with the cabinet incubator...what a great challenge to build one! Did you design it yourself or have plans? I'm just naturally curious, and would love to have one built someday since my son is such a great builder; I don't think I'd attempt it without some kind of proven design plan though. How are you hatching your duck egg in a cup? Is it inside the bator? Again just curious and always learning!

Only on day 3 here with the serama eggs and wanting to candle but trying to hold off until the weekend. Have a new puppy in the house taking up much of my time...so she's a good excuse for me to wait lol. In the meantime egg laying is increasing with my silkies (two young hens just starting to lay) and frizzles and I keep wanting to add eggs in a rotational hatching but have never done that before. With the seramas in bator now I am forcing myself to hold off. Was also tempted to order some silkie eggs from folks with SQ lines...again forcing myself to wait! My silkie parents are not the best quality and will probably produce mainly pet quality offspring so I want to add more good genes to my flock. Thinking of going to a show in a couple of weeks since I could buy grown SQ silkies instead of hatching and waiting 6-12 months to start getting better quality babies. Hatching fever is a challenge. Being new to breeding is a challenge too! Funny how I am forcing myself to wait on some things and have trouble getting motivated to do other (necessary) things.

I did design it myself, but I'm not too nervous about it working. This is the 5th, I think, incubator I have made. They are fun to make. The cabinet is about finished, I'll post a photo of it soon. There is usually some tweaking involved to get them just right but it saves me a ton of money to make them myself and they hold temp near perfectly no matter what the weather and if I am heating my house or not. We have wood stove heat so this is important.

My egg in a cup is in a sterile mason jar in the incubator. I will be curious to see if it does anything at all.

A new puppy does require a lot of time, it truly is like having a new baby! Good to have someone distracting you from poking eggs all the time! The hatching fever can be intense when you want to hatch everything now! Good of you to plan and hatch when the time is right!

 

[darkbluespace]

Here is Twinkle and Sparky and the new incubator !

 

[RockyRose]

@darkbluespace - what beautiful babies you have!

I am very impressed with your incubator and bet it will work wonderfully with all the experience you have building them. Inspirational! If I wasn't begging my son to work on coops I'd be begging him to build something like your cabinet model. Interesting experiment to try the egg in a cup, I'm curious how that will be any different from the usual.

Yes, the puppy was unplanned but things are working out ok. My son rescued her from a customer's place when he found her and 3 others living in a 2x2 chicken coop, sitting in mud and their own excrement, with a flickering heat lamp and temps expected to go down to 20F. He's temporarily living with me and I already have 3 adult dogs who aren't real sociable so I didn't think they would accept her, but I've been pleasantly surprised. I'm stuck with "daycare" but I'm a sucker for any kind of baby so I'm ok with that. At least she is staying in HIS room in a crate so my daycare is really just letting her outside every 2 hrs and giving her lunch and water. She seems happy with that, she's not a whiner, and I do enjoy playing with her on her outings.

Getting excited to candle eggs this weekend, Sunday will be day 7. For the heck of it I candled 4 yesterday and found a silkie egg with a large crack and disposed of it, glad I did as that one could have exploded. One of the four had a few veins (a silkie or sizzle) and the two Serama eggs didn't appear to have any development. Could be I just couldn't see it yet (only day 4 and my eyes aren't that great) or they are not fertile. I may candle all of them today to be sure there aren't any more badly cracked eggs. I don't know how I missed that one before setting except it was a strait line "L" shaped crack that I must have wrongly assumed was my marking.

I gave in to my egg addiction (oh well) and am expecting silkie eggs today or Monday shipping in from FLA. Since I am likely to be tossing infertiles after candling they can fill the voids! Now I need to read up on rotational incubating, have read a little bit and know some people set additional eggs once a week. I may have to break down and get a 2nd bator to use as a hatcher for lockdown - I think that's how most people do this so "new" eggs don't go through the increased lockdown humidity. And a way to truly lockdown while new eggs still need hand turning. Still need to sterilize the brooder box and my ecoglow brooder but have 2 weeks to do that. Three young silkies are using the ecoglow to roost on in the big brooder box...I hate to take it from them (it isn't even plugged in).

 

[darkbluespace]

@darkbluespace - what beautiful babies you have!

I am very impressed with your incubator and bet it will work wonderfully with all the experience you have building them. Inspirational! If I wasn't begging my son to work on coops I'd be begging him to build something like your cabinet model. Interesting experiment to try the egg in a cup, I'm curious how that will be any different from the usual.

Yes, the puppy was unplanned but things are working out ok. My son rescued her from a customer's place when he found her and 3 others living in a 2x2 chicken coop, sitting in mud and their own excrement, with a flickering heat lamp and temps expected to go down to 20F. He's temporarily living with me and I already have 3 adult dogs who aren't real sociable so I didn't think they would accept her, but I've been pleasantly surprised. I'm stuck with "daycare" but I'm a sucker for any kind of baby so I'm ok with that. At least she is staying in HIS room in a crate so my daycare is really just letting her outside every 2 hrs and giving her lunch and water. She seems happy with that, she's not a whiner, and I do enjoy playing with her on her outings.

Getting excited to candle eggs this weekend, Sunday will be day 7. For the heck of it I candled 4 yesterday and found a silkie egg with a large crack and disposed of it, glad I did as that one could have exploded. One of the four had a few veins (a silkie or sizzle) and the two Serama eggs didn't appear to have any development. Could be I just couldn't see it yet (only day 4 and my eyes aren't that great) or they are not fertile. I may candle all of them today to be sure there aren't any more badly cracked eggs. I don't know how I missed that one before setting except it was a strait line "L" shaped crack that I must have wrongly assumed was my marking.

I gave in to my egg addiction (oh well) and am expecting silkie eggs today or Monday shipping in from FLA. Since I am likely to be tossing infertiles after candling they can fill the voids! Now I need to read up on rotational incubating, have read a little bit and know some people set additional eggs once a week. I may have to break down and get a 2nd bator to use as a hatcher for lockdown - I think that's how most people do this so "new" eggs don't go through the increased lockdown humidity. And a way to truly lockdown while new eggs still need hand turning. Still need to sterilize the brooder box and my ecoglow brooder but have 2 weeks to do that. Three young silkies are using the ecoglow to roost on in the big brooder box...I hate to take it from them (it isn't even plugged in).

Sounds like those Silkies just need a new roost so you can "borrow" the ecoglow!

I'm glad those puppies were rescued, especially puppies have their whole lives ahead of them and can usually find good homes. It reminds me of a dog I rescued from my neighbors many years ago. It had sores and a skin infection and was chained outside in a concrete structure with no bedding and no water and it was going to be below freezing. I had called animal control but they couldn't find the dog for some reason. Odd, because it couldn't go anywhere. So I brought the dog home and found it a place where it could get some help and then a few days later I saw my neighbors come out to feed the dog and they were shocked to find it gone. Days later!! I could not believe it. So yes, I stole their dog, but the circumstances were extreme in my opinion. I am sure your puppy is just so grateful to be in a better place. I think many rescues are the best dogs because they know how bad things can be, they don't take the good life for granted.

I am having weird chicken/egg happenings here today. One of my new little chicks is not doing well and yesterday I was making sure she was drinking water but it occurred to me that she has not really eaten. I hadn't worried about it because I have never had a chick that just didn't eat. Maybe she didn't understand food, but she was with a couple chicks that were chowing down so I figured she would catch on but apparently not. I made her a yolk/probiotic/vitamin water mash and fed her some from a dropper. I put her in an incubator to get her thoroughly warm. I hope she'll make it, she is a really pretty mottled golden color and I want to know what she'll look like!!

Also, I realized the light went out in one of my incubators and it was down to 70 degrees! I got it up and running again so I imagine everyone will be fine. I have about 20 duck eggs in there and they are pretty durable and 11 Seramas for the Valentines Day HAL that I hope they will be okay. My egg in a cup may have already quit, dropping to 70 degrees may have been too much. It is fun to try weird experiments and it is a perfect use for a cracked egg. I have a huge double yolk duck egg from the other day and I am sure I will be tempted to incubate it.

I have a feeling I am going to need a nap soon