Set today, Sept 28th. Anyone else?

[Jeffross1968]

Did anyone candle yet? We plan to tonight...It's day 7!!!!

 

[Cherstin]

I have already candled! I candled day 3 and then again on day 4 so I could show my husband.

But today is only day 5 ... I hope that doesn't bust your bubble??! Don't worry, you should still be able to see the veins and chick!

 

[Jeffross1968]

Quote:
Ok, so I just checked. Actually, I set early Wednesday, allowing me to count Wednesday as day 1, so it's actually Day 6 for me. Still...I don't think I can wait another day ;-)


So how did your candling go?

 

[Cherstin]

Mine went great! The key, for me, was to make sure the room was COMPLETELY DARK. I used a little LED penlight and just cupped my hand around the egg and the light. I could see the "spiderey veins" and a little black blob of chick in each of my three eggs! They all looked good!

It was really exciting for me. I read someone's thread yesterday in regards to candling, and they made it sound like it's a ridiculous waste of time to candle before day seven. I almost felt like a naive noob for doing so ... but then I realized, "You know what? This is *my* journey. I'll candle whenever the heck I feel like it!"

It's not like I was going to throw them away already if I didn't see anything, you know??!

Anyway, PLEASE UPDATE! I can't wait to know what you see!

 

[cmom]

I set about 50 eggs in the incubator on Sept. 18th. They will go into lockdown on Thursday (Oct.6th) due to hatch on Sunday. I will candle when I put the eggs in lockdown. I have another 50 I put in the incubator on Sept. 27th. I will candle them either Thursday or Friday but since I'm putting the first 50 eggs into lockdown on Thursday and going to candle them any way, I may as well do the others too. It will be day 9 instead of my usual day 10.

 

[Jeffross1968]

Little disappointing. Out of 30 eggs, looks like 9 sure starters, some question marks, a couple no-go's and unfortunately, some pretty obvious blood rings...I think. Doing more research, but marked them for quick removal. We'll be doing another candle Thursday night, as we're leaving out of town for about 5 days after that. Was hoping for a better candle, but it is what it is. At least we should get a few Turken from this one!

 

[Cherstin]

Oh no! I'm sorry to hear about the ones that aren't looking so hot. I saw your other post, too, but I don't know anything about that, so I won't even speculate.

I've heard (after setting my own eggs, of course) that this time of year is not necessarily the most ideal for fertility rates and hatching. I'm not sure if, somewhere deep inside, the hens are preparing for winter, or if by this time of year, they just get "egged out," so I've told myself to be happy with whatever I get. For me, the hardest thing (but probably the ONLY thing that keeps me "in check") is having a 3-egg incubator. I would rather lose the whole batch than to just end up with one chick, which was what happened during my first incubation experience. The other 2 eggs had been cheeping and rocking and rolling all day, so they were RIGHT THERE, but I opened the lid to take out the fluffball who'd already hatched, and lost the other two.

I one solo chick looked so lost, and no matter what I'd tried I couldn't emulate the way his buddies would've treated him, so I rushed to the day-old farm and picked up some buddies. Unfortunately, we ended up losing that incubated chick around day ten.

So, even though you might have some losses, take pride that you might still end up with a decent return! I'm going to do some more reading up on the fertility rates throughout the seasons, and what affects it. Having 9 sure-starters sounds like a good sign to me! Best of luck to you on those Turken!

 

[spunkychickenmomma]

Well, I had set a total of 48 eggs. My autistic son decided that the eggs were too cold the other morning when the temps were in the 40's so he turned the thermostate all the way up to keep them warm. I didn't know what he had done until about 14 hours later. Now starting back over at day 1. God bless his big loving heart!!

 

[cmom]

Even though his hands weren't in the right place his heart was.

 

[Jeffross1968]

Awww, that's too bad. Hopefully no problems next time around! Sweet that he was really just trying to help...