Serama Hatch-A-Long!!

[bullets]

Hello all.

I set 13 eggs on 2/23 and 8 eggs today (2/25), both sets are shipped eggs.  I had a quick peek at some of the 2/23 eggs while in the incubator and I see some development already.  I'm hoping to get 3-4 chicks out of all of these eggs, I know seramas are hard to hatch and with these being shipped on top of that!!  I tried to get eggs as close to my location as possible but there was a mishap with the closest eggs.  They sat in the post office over a 3 day weekend   The eggs look pretty good even for that long wait.  There are only 2 badly detached air cells. 

The eggs from slightly further away had a lot of detached air cells.  They are also much smaller eggs(ive seen quail eggs bigger).  REALLY hoping to get at least one chick from these.

I have 3 young seramas acquired locally.  My rooster is really bad and I allowed myself to get distracted while picking him and chose him for his beautiful pattern and not for the fact he looked like a Serama.  The seramas are pets for me, not show quality and to be honest I do not like the SQ birds.  I do want them to look more Serama than old English though.  So fingers crossed for a replacement rooster from my shipped eggs and maybe 1 or 2 pullets.

Sorry to hear about the shipping mishap! Really hoping you get some to hatch. Please update with pictures :]

About your cockerel..
If anything, keep your eye out for a really nice cockerel. Get spendy if you want a nice one and you'll be glad you did. I paid $125 plus $65 for mine and and I'm getting a lot out of him. He's wonderful! Just gotta spend it once in I a while for real quality birds. You won't be sorry!

 

[darkbluespace]

Hello all.

I set 13 eggs on 2/23 and 8 eggs today (2/25), both sets are shipped eggs.  I had a quick peek at some of the 2/23 eggs while in the incubator and I see some development already.  I'm hoping to get 3-4 chicks out of all of these eggs, I know seramas are hard to hatch and with these being shipped on top of that!!  I tried to get eggs as close to my location as possible but there was a mishap with the closest eggs.  They sat in the post office over a 3 day weekend   The eggs look pretty good even for that long wait.  There are only 2 badly detached air cells. 

The eggs from slightly further away had a lot of detached air cells.  They are also much smaller eggs(ive seen quail eggs bigger).  REALLY hoping to get at least one chick from these.

I have 3 young seramas acquired locally.  My rooster is really bad and I allowed myself to get distracted while picking him and chose him for his beautiful pattern and not for the fact he looked like a Serama.  The seramas are pets for me, not show quality and to be honest I do not like the SQ birds.  I do want them to look more Serama than old English though.  So fingers crossed for a replacement rooster from my shipped eggs and maybe 1 or 2 pullets.

Good luck with your eggs! Let us know how they are doing! Shipped eggs are quite the adventure, but it sounds like they are doing pretty well!

I have a tiny pullet that just hatched one egg. I thought that her eggs were fertile but they turned out not to be so I gave her an egg from a broody that gave up.

I have one other little hen sitting on a bunch of eggs.. I think another hen is trying to help.

 

[yellowherb]

I'm trying to leave the incubator alone. I'm not even going to pull the duds unless I have a reason to go in the incubator. I figure the less I mess with them, the better off they will be.

IF I do have to go in there, and I will in a week to remove eggs to the hatcher, I'll run a light over the eggs quickly to see if they are still developing. I tried Serama eggs about 2 months ago and some were doing well then my bator had a issue and I lost them It took me a while to get the courage up to try again.

I dry incubate and the internal humidity is about 30%, it may fluctuate a few degrees upwards but normally it's very stable. In the hatcher I get my humidity up to 60-65% after internal piping. So hoping this works.

 

[yellowherb]

I had a quick check and pulled the bad eggs. I have 13 still ticking and pulled 9 bad ones. Most of the bad ones come from a out of state shipment and were not wrapped quite as good as the others, even though they sat at the post office over a holiday weekend. If only 6 or 7 of those 13 left will hatch I'll be a happy camper. One of my good eggs, which I thought I would loose due to really wonky air cell, is a teeny tiny mini egg..it's doing well and I'm shocked.

 

[darkbluespace]

I had a quick check and pulled the bad eggs.  I have 13 still ticking and pulled 9 bad ones.  Most of the bad ones come from a out of state shipment and were not wrapped quite as good as the others, even though they sat at the post office over a holiday weekend.  If only 6 or 7 of those 13 left will hatch I'll be a happy camper.  One of my good eggs, which I thought I would loose due to really wonky air cell, is a teeny tiny mini egg..it's doing well and I'm shocked.

13 is pretty great! I am excited to see your chicks. The tiny eggs are so cute and they hatch such tiny chicks.

 

[yellowherb]

I was in the incubator today for some reason so I ran a light over the first row of serama eggs. These are the ones which I have lost most of and only have 3 remaining from that lot. One of the little ones I'm rooting for looked weird! I'm a experienced hatcher so know when a egg is bad pretty much right away when candling. I had this egg as bad. I could not see the embryo, the veins are not highly developed, in fact there's not near as many as I am used to seeing. So I took the egg out of the incubator and was going to throw it out. I sat there with the flashlight looking at it closer and suddenly it started moving... I thought maybe it was me since I had just "rolled" it in my hand, so maybe the yolk is catching up. There's definitely something in that egg..but again it's weird. Maybe this is because it's a shipped egg, maybe it's close to dying on me, I don't know. The top part of the inside of the egg, not the air cell, but under the membrane is "empty" like a mid to late DIS egg where the embryo settles to the bottom. So I stuck the candler under the bottom thinking the chick might be there, nope wasn't there either. This is from a egg set 2/25 so there's still lots of room in there but I can't believe I nearly made a newbie mistake like that. I feel this egg will not make it to the end, it's just not right inside. It's not often I catch one in the midst of dying since I don't candle that often. I could not find a distinctive embryo in the egg even though something was moving around in it.

 

[darkbluespace]

I was in the incubator today for some reason so I ran a light over the first row of serama eggs.  These are the ones which I have lost most of and only have 3 remaining from that lot.  One of the little ones I'm rooting for looked weird!  I'm a experienced hatcher so know when a egg is bad pretty much right away when candling.  I had this egg as bad.  I could not see the embryo, the veins are not highly developed, in fact there's not near as many as I am used to seeing.  So I took the egg out of the incubator and was going to throw it out.  I sat there with the flashlight looking at it closer and suddenly it started moving... I thought maybe it was me since I had just "rolled" it in my hand, so maybe the yolk is catching up.  There's definitely something in that egg..but again it's weird.  Maybe this is because it's a shipped egg, maybe it's close to dying on me, I don't know.  The top part of the inside of the egg, not the air cell, but under the membrane is "empty" like a mid to late DIS egg where the embryo settles to the bottom.  So I stuck the candler under the bottom thinking the chick might be there, nope wasn't there either.  This is from a egg set 2/25 so there's still lots of room in there but I can't believe I nearly made a newbie mistake like that.  I feel this egg will not make it to the end, it's just not right inside.  It's not often I catch one in the midst of dying since I don't candle that often.  I could not find a distinctive embryo in the egg even though something was moving around in it.

Eggs can surprise you. if I have any doubt at all, I leave it in. Once I took out a duck egg I thought had quit and put in on the counter. For some reason I thought to look at it the next day and it was still alive! If it doesn't smell, then I figure I don't have much to loose.

 

[yellowherb]

Eggs can surprise you. if I have any doubt at all, I leave it in. Once I took out a duck egg I thought had quit and put in on the counter. For some reason I thought to look at it the next day and it was still alive! If it doesn't smell, then I figure I don't have much to loose.

I know what you mean. My last round of sultan eggs had 2 which were looking late DIS and I never get those. I was bummed but decided to go ahead and leave them with the others until the good ones hatched. Put 6 eggs in the hatcher and got 6 chicks out lol. Not sure what those 2 chicks were doing in the egg but they were doing it low. I did have two chicks who were later to hatch and seemed to struggle with it more, maybe the same eggs or maybe not.. I didn't mark them.

 

[yellowherb]

I have some external pips

The tiniest one look like a late DIS, but it's in the hatcher just in case

 

[darkbluespace]

I have some external pips
The tiniest one look like a late DIS, but it's in the hatcher just in case

Good luck!!