Set 8 Eggs In Brinsea Mini Advance Today 9/13/11. Wanna Join?

[henmad]

One week is a great time to candle. When I candled at one week I found that three of my eggs were not fertile at all and removed them.
So now I have one lone Aruacana egg. Not sure of the Daddy. The Hen looks like a pure Lavender Araucana but there must be some cross
in her because the egg is greenish. Nice Colour green but I think the pure ones are always blue.

Here is the lone egg due to hatch in about 36 hours. Can't wait.

 

[CSisley]

Cielo,
The directions I have for Brinsea say that the humidity should average between 40%-50% during incubation and 65% or higher during hatching. It also says that the most effective way to tell if your humidity is right is to plot the average weight loss of the eggs over the course of the incubation. It should be a relatively straight line of loss with an ending goal of 14%. If you have greater than a 14% loss then your humidity was too low, if you have less than 14% then your humidity was too high. Keep in mind this isn’t my voice of experience talking just what I’ve read, I’m completely new to incubation. I’ve read also on BYC that some people swear they have better hatches with “dry” incubation where they add no water to the water pots until hatch time and then they get the humidity above a certain percent…I suspect this works for people that live in very humid climates.

 

[CSisley]

~70 Hr Update!
My incubator has been running fantastically.

According to its measurements it has kept the temperature at a steady 99.5-99.6 F range. I also have a Flukers two in one instrument in there that says that the temperature has been between 100-101 F range but I trust the Brinsea’s readings a little more, at least for now. The humidity has stayed very steady at ~48% with water in one of the two pots. I have candled and think I see signs of development in most if not all the eggs but there are two that I’m a little concerned about. One SFH and one BLRW egg, appear to have a loose air bubble I suspect from a ruptured or dislodged air cell. I’ve read that these eggs have a much slimmer chance of hatching but I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.

I guess that this is the result of being shipped but I had hoped this wouldn’t happen given that the breeder is a little less than two hours away! Thankfully the breeder has agreed to not charge me for eggs that don’t hatch but still!

 

[henmad]

Towards the end of day 21 a small hole in the shell.

Another five hours of working its way out of the shell.

The chick looks like a proper Lavender Araucana so I think the rooster must have been the Araucana as well as Mum.
We hope it's a girl. We named "her" Pearl.... we're thinking positive!

 

[discoveregg]

Awww...congratulations!

 

[CSisley]

Henmad, Congratulations! What a pretty little face she(hopefully) has!

 

[cielo]

Yay! A hatchee. Pearl is lovely.
I have 11 days left. I have tried candling a few times and think that 2 of my 3 are empty... 1 I think has hope, maybe.

I believe I may be terrible at candling though so I think I will do it no longer and hope that an egg or two hatches and none explode. The eggs were shipped from in state, I was hoping for more success. Being my first time though I suppose I would do well to heed the saying and not count my chicks before they are hatched! Ay ay ay. In the future I plan to hatch mainly eggs from my own stock. These eggs were kindly given to me though. I'd like to get more eggs from the breeder but I think I'll try and pick them up in person if I can. I think hatching eggs may be stressful...
-Cielo

 

[henmad]

Thanks All, Best of luck to you all. It's easy to get apprehensive near the end, but the hatching is magic.
Can't wait to see the photo's of all your chicks.

 

[cielo]

No explosions yet. I'll candle them again maybe tonight. They may all be duds... but one looks different... eh. I'm trying not to care or think too much about them but it's hard. I'd really like to know if there is a chance of chicks or if I'm just waiting for nothing.
-Cielo

 

[discoveregg]

Just finished candling. The Dominiques were easy, the light brown eggs were easy to illuminate. 4 were infertile. The Cuckoo marans are a different story. The eggs are so dark that I had a really hard time even seeing the air cell, let alone any veining or blobs. One of them was lighter and it appeared to have nothing in it, not even an air cell, so that one I tossed. But I'm going to take my chances on the rest of them and keep them in the bator.

I'm hoping for no explosions

Can anyone recommend a really bright flash light that they've successfully candled maran eggs with?