Set eggs on 3/18 who's with me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[sparrker]

Just candled again and out of 28 three didn't look right. One was clear, blood ring in another and the third had a black spot with no veins or development and had a floating air sack like thingy in it. Down to 25 that look great. My six EE's also look super. So excited. Congrats to everyone else. We are doing great first timers and experienced chicken folk also, can't forget you Halfway there

 

[wholewheatchicken]

I am down to my last three chicks to hatch

I had five left to go this morning. I thought one silkie had died as it showed no signs of life. Everyone else had a pip.
Got home this evening and one hatched right before I came downstairs. Another just pipped before I came downstairs again (maybe I should keep coming downstairs!)
And then I look at the "dead" silkie and it has a HUGE pip on the top of it. Little fooler was just sleeping!
I have one last Rhode Island Red chick that is starting to zip and then the two silkies. One of the silkies has a pretty good size hole so it shouldn't take it long when it decides to get going. Will be interesting how long it takes the last chick. Everyone wants out by now and it's cramped in the hatching box.
I've gone from 0% to 100%. That's crazy amazing.
I saw my second barn baby tonight. It must have been born while I was gone. I could tell another was hatching under my last broody in the stall. My Sophie girl that I gave the Buttercup egg to hatch for me has her own egg under her and if she sits long enough, she will hatch it too. If she gets up, I will try to finish it out in the incubator.
I'm going to put all the chicks we're keeping under the hens and let them really enjoy this. I've had two girls that have been sitting roughly six weeks and four weeks to be mommas!
I know toolbox Earleen's baby was getting ready to be born this afternoon. I was in the barn and she was tending to her eggs (all of which were supplied by my splash hen and not Earleen's) and I saw her litter was wet so I got the eggs and one was pipped and peeping and moved Earleen and her baby back some and got the wet litter out and put down fresh. She about took my hand off!
Wish me luck for tomorrow. I so want these hens to raise the babies instead of me! They will absolutely love getting to momma all these chicks. And I still have two hens that don't have babies. One just tried, but sat in a feed bucket and so I didn't give her eggs and then the other just finished raising babies. She sat for seven weeks to hatch some and mothered them for another seven weeks. She keeps going in and looking at everyone and I have a feeling she is feeling the itch to be a momma again. When her babies get under her, you can just see the sheer pleasure on her face! It's crazy.....

 

[DDNONIN2016]

Just candled again and out of 28 three didn't look right. One was clear, blood ring in another and the third had a black spot with no veins or development and had a floating air sack like thingy in it. Down to 25 that look great. My six EE's also look super. So excited. Congrats to everyone else. We are doing great first timers and experienced chicken folk also, can't forget you Halfway there

So happy for you. Hope they all hatch ! Can't wait to see all the pictures.

 

[DDNONIN2016]

I am down to my last three chicks to hatch

I had five left to go this morning. I thought one silkie had died as it showed no signs of life. Everyone else had a pip.
Got home this evening and one hatched right before I came downstairs. Another just pipped before I came downstairs again (maybe I should keep coming downstairs!)
And then I look at the "dead" silkie and it has a HUGE pip on the top of it. Little fooler was just sleeping!
I have one last Rhode Island Red chick that is starting to zip and then the two silkies. One of the silkies has a pretty good size hole so it shouldn't take it long when it decides to get going. Will be interesting how long it takes the last chick. Everyone wants out by now and it's cramped in the hatching box.
I've gone from 0% to 100%. That's crazy amazing.
I saw my second barn baby tonight. It must have been born while I was gone. I could tell another was hatching under my last broody in the stall. My Sophie girl that I gave the Buttercup egg to hatch for me has her own egg under her and if she sits long enough, she will hatch it too. If she gets up, I will try to finish it out in the incubator.
I'm going to put all the chicks we're keeping under the hens and let them really enjoy this. I've had two girls that have been sitting roughly six weeks and four weeks to be mommas!
I know toolbox Earleen's baby was getting ready to be born this afternoon. I was in the barn and she was tending to her eggs (all of which were supplied by my splash hen and not Earleen's) and I saw her litter was wet so I got the eggs and one was pipped and peeping and moved Earleen and her baby back some and got the wet litter out and put down fresh. She about took my hand off!
Wish me luck for tomorrow. I so want these hens to raise the babies instead of me! They will absolutely love getting to momma all these chicks. And I still have two hens that don't have babies. One just tried, but sat in a feed bucket and so I didn't give her eggs and then the other just finished raising babies. She sat for seven weeks to hatch some and mothered them for another seven weeks. She keeps going in and looking at everyone and I have a feeling she is feeling the itch to be a momma again. When her babies get under her, you can just see the sheer pleasure on her face! It's crazy.....

Wow 100%. You go girl !!!

 

[sparrker]

That is awesome 100%.

 

[wholewheatchicken]

It's officially finished and as soon as I've completed my post I'm going down to turn of the bator. Wow, people were right when they said it reeks inside of there. I can't imagine having to breathe that for a couple of days. So here are the results:
All 11 RIR chicks pipped and ten hatched. The eleventh died after pipping, but upon inspecting the egg there did not appear to be any issue that I could see. All ten babies are fluffed up and doing great.
All four silkie chicks pipped and hatched. The first two came early and are fluffed and doing great. The third I watched hatched at about 3:00 this morning. It was the one I thought was dead and wouldn't hatch and surprised me by pipping a huge pip at the end and it hatched very, very quickly. I thought it might bleed to death at the rate it was going and when it did come out of the shell it was fairly bloody inside. By this point the Reds attacked the membranes like they were a pack of sharks. I was getting very scared for the little chick in there. Sadly, when I got him out this morning he is not able to get his head up and walk correctly. This is what is on my diagnosis list to research and if anyone has any input, please tell me.
1. It was in the shell too long before pipping.
2. It was injured after it was born with all the chicks running around in there.
3. It was just weaker.
We will be putting it down very soon. It is very beautiful, though, a very nice silver color.
The last silkie to hatch came sometime between 3:00 and 9:00 this morning. It had been pipped yesterday and it took its time coming out. This morning when I got up it was still drying off and fluffing up. It appeared to be able to walk so I have transplanted it to a broody that I need to continue sitting as she has her own chick set to hatch in the next few days.
So the total number of chicks ends up being 10 Rhode Island Reds and 3 for sure silkies, possibly 4. I'm not counting in the last one until I see it actually out and moving on its own.
I think there are probably five barn chicks at this point with one hatching in the next few days. Sophie sat on her egg at the end of the week that the girls and I sat our eggs and I think it was a Friday so tomorrow it will hopefully hatch out. I gave Sophie my special incubator egg, "Buttercup", and it was born two night ago. That is why I chose her for the newborn chick so she will continue to sit and give her own chick a chance to make it.
So as soon as I got up, I could see the last silkie had hatched and there appeared to be no progress on the RIR chick and I decided to go ahead and check the progress of the egg. It had clearly died and I began getting the chicks out of the hatcher and moved three to the brooder. They were doing great so I decided to impliment my transplant plan sooner rather than later as I wanted the chicks to imprint on the mommas.
I went out to the barn to check on everyone and Yetta and Buttercup are definitely raising their chicks together. They are shoulder to shoulder and they had one of their chicks nestled between their shoulders keeping it warm. Light Earleen is right in front of them, so there are three hens working together in that area.
I brought out the first RIR chick and put it under LE (light Earleen and DE will be dark Earleen). She took it easily. I gave her two more RIR chicks so she should have four chicks now to raise. I gave Buttercup and LE three RIR chicks apiece and they already had two chicks between them. LE should also have her own chick by now.
Since DE is in the toolbox room by herself and has a small box I gave her one silkie and 2 RIR chicks. Now, there is one more silkie somewhere in the picture, but I really can't remember where I put it. I had a plan originally, but changed it some as I started working. Someone has it. I wanted to keep the last two RIR chicks together so they will have someone who looks like them as they're growing up, but she's in a smaller box and I didn't want to overcrowd them. Sophie just got the one newborn baby. She was not happy about it, but once it settled in and stopped cheeping she was fine. I've already done this with her in the past and she's proven herself to be a good foster mom and that is why she was chosen for the "special" babies.
So if you want to know what the girls thought of my bringing them chicks.......they loved it, especially the three that are together. They knew what I was doing and when they would see me come back with more chicks they lifted up the front of their breasts off the floor so I could put the babies in and then helped nestle them under them. Even DE who has been vicious lately gladly took on more babies. She was much more settled today. She obviously was just protecting her eggs. Her chick should have hatched last evening as it was pipping out yesterday afternoon. She took the babies, but I had a hard time putting more food in for them and had to kind of toss it onto the lid in front of her.
I'm going to keep a good eye on them today, but the last time I was out there the three hens together were teaching the babies that were out how to eat and drink. And they don't seem to care whose baby is under who. The little chicks that were out there yesterday would run around from hen to hen and nobody got upset if it went to the wrong momma. I'm glad at this point I don't have to keep track of who goes to who and which chick came from which momma.
I'm glad the girls are happy. They worked so hard for this. My roo is such a proud pappa. He has been antsing around in the barn for the last several days and attacking us as we try to come in and do chores. It's like a dad being at the hospital pacing the halls.
It was a lot of fun to hatch with the broodies. Won't be doing it again this season, but I am looking forward to the possibility of it next spring!
What did I learn from this hatch?
We need to fix our heat source. The chicks closest to the light bulbs hatched the easiest and I supsect the later chicks would have been here a lot sooner because they took a distinct pattern on pipping and hatching. It went straight down the line from the closest to the heat to the furthest and that may be what did my little silkie in.
Don't jump in and try to help. They really are okay. There was some pacing going on around here and frantic discussions of what should we do and I'm glad I held to it and didn't let anyone open my lid or assist with hatching. Less is so much better.
Loved the egg crates. I would never hatch without them. I think I might have been less successful if I hadn't used them this time. Those chicks are wild in there once they dry off and fluff up.
I won't hatch large fowl with banties again. I would separate them out into two hatchers. While the big chicks did do a lot to assist the newborns and they were a huge help in there, I didn't like it at all how they were running and jumping on my little ones. I thought it was an unsafe environment. And at the end those big chicks were getting restless and hungry and thirsty and they really did start attacking the newborns' eggshells and membranes like a pack of sharks. The little chick that was born that had a lot of blood in the membranes, I watched those big chicks grab up that stuff and start ripping it apart to eat it. It wasn't a pretty sight. Then one of the chicks was choking on part of it and there was bloody stuff on its face and it gagged part of it up and another chick grabbed some of it out of its beak and ate it and the first chick finished swallowing it......yeah, it was getting graphic and horrific in there. I had to go to bed because I was getting to where I really wanted some of those chicks out and I wasn't going to open the lid yet because the last silkie was still gearing up to zip.
I think that's about it.
Sorry my post is so long, but I wanted to share it all.
I had so much fun and I'm really proud of myself for getting the hang of it. And I am sooooo tickled the hens liked the chicks!!!!!!!!!
Just think, I get to do it again in a few weeks and then again a few weeks after that, if all goes well.

I could only type that all one time so I copied and pasted and I hope it transferred over really well.
It turns out to be a 94% hatch rate and 88% survival rate. It's much improved over my last two hatches that were 6% and 0%!!!!!!
I can't tell who belongs to who out there in the main stall anymore because those babies jump out from under a hen, run around, climb all over the hens and crawl back under one of them! Too funny.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

We candled Tues. night, I'd set 34 at noon the 17th so was 10.5 days. Randomly picked about 1/3. One there had blood ring and another looked like it stopped a few days into hatch. The kids wouldn't let me throw it out. Noting the air cell on others thought it was a bit small so took out my tumbler of water. This morning being 6 hours shy of 12 days, before I awoke the girls for school and still dark enough, candled 1/3 more at random to find 2 clears so got to toss those and the one that had quit from earlier. Now we're at 30 eggs having candled well over half. They look good and the air cell is back on track so put a tumbler of water back in. Was/am running 30-40%, it held at 18-22% without water for day and half to get the air cell to size.

Of the 14 shipped Blue Plymouth Rock eggs still have 13. There's hope yet for us to have a successful shipped egg hatch.

 

[smchickfarm]

Sounds like everyone is on track and wholewheatchicken has had a great hatch!!!

Love all the updates and love the thread .......so glad I started it...........

just kidding!

Love reading all the updates, keep them coming!!!

 

[smchickfarm]

Ok, I have candled again...........I know, but couldn't help myself

All 3 lavender orpingtons are growing!!! Saw good airsacs and veining...........

Good Grief, I am getting impatient!!!

 

[DDNONIN2016]

smchick I am glad you started this thread !!!! Love to read all the updates. Don't know what I would do without everyone's support.

Congrats to wholewheat on your excellent hatch !!! Happy happy happy for the broody girls too

Hang in there everyone else we are counting them down LOL. I can't wait