Setting eggs in incubator May 3rd...Anyone with me?

[DiamondDust]

I will be getting shipped eggs tomorrow (I sure hope they make it tomorrow!) and will be setting them in the incubator on Friday. I hope there will be others setting eggs at about the same time!

 

[charliethezero]

I will be setting 16 to 30 eggs. I'm receiving 16-20 eggs in the mail tomorrow and was thinking of picking up a dozen if my neighbor has a colorful selection for my laying flock.

 

[melina90]

I set my eggs today (this afternoon). 20 hedemora eggs that I got shipped to me from sweden. I'm really curious to see how many of them will develop!

Here they are drying on the eggtray after being disinfected. Woohoo!

 

[DiamondDust]

Yay! I have company! What kind of eggs are you getting in the mail, charliethezero? My Blue Barnevelders arrived today from TLS (thanks Trisha!) and my polish arrived too! I'm setting 22 eggs all together, 16 Barnies and 6 polish. I gave half a dozen of my Barnie eggs to a friend to put in her incubator too...and she's setting the other half dozen polish.

Melina, how long does it take to get eggs from Sweden to Norway? It took two days for my Barnies to get here from Cali and three days for my polish to arrive from MI.

Everyone have a good hatch! I'll be updating as it goes along...mine are settling now and I am planning to set them in the incubator in the morning!

DD

 

[melina90]

Yay! I have company! What kind of eggs are you getting in the mail, charliethezero? My Blue Barnevelders arrived today from TLS (thanks Trisha!) and my polish arrived too! I'm setting 22 eggs all together, 16 Barnies and 6 polish. I gave half a dozen of my Barnie eggs to a friend to put in her incubator too...and she's setting the other half dozen polish.


DD

I can't wait to see your polish chicks! Sounds like a fun mix of breeds.

It took three days for the eggs to arrive. It really depends on how much postage is being sent at the moment, sometimes it can take two days and in january it took six days(but that was from northern sweden, I live in the southeast Norway).

Are you washing the eggs before you're setting them? It's my first time hatching eggs from another flock and because there's been alot of breakout of diseases around the last few months I decided to disinfect the eggs as soon as I got them. I'm hoping it won't affect the hatch rate!

 

[DiamondDust]

I don't wash the eggs. I probably would if I was worried about disease or if the eggs were terrribly dirty but I haven't felt that I needed to wash any yet.

I found that one of the polish eggs is cracked. I thought they were all okay when I took them out of the packaging earlier today but I was in a hurry so I must have missed that one. It sounds as though our eggs traveled about the same amount of time.

My plan is to candle the eggs tonight to check for rolling air cells and then put them in the incubator in the morning. Then I am going to keep my hands off until day 10! That's the plan anyway, lol! I love to check on them but I don't think it's good to do it too often. I will probably only cull obviously clear eggs and then leave them alone until day 18. Then I will candle them and put them in lockdown unless, again, they are completely clear. I will, of course, pull any weeping eggs.

I am using an LG incubator that I have had for three years. The first year I used it I had very good success. The next year not as good but still okay. This year so far my hatch rates are way down. I am really reading up on an old "LG incubator" thread to get tips on using it so I'm hoping this hatch will be much better again!

 

[schmockl]

I'll join. I'm setting 35 eggs tomorrow. Half silkie and half showgirl. This will be my second attempt at hatching shipped eggs. My first batch I had 6 LF eggs from a friend of mine and the other were 8 bantam eggs I had shipped to me. None of the shipped eggs hatched, but 4 out of the other 6 did. I hoping for a better success rate for these shipped eggs. I've read a lot on the forum the different techniques everyone has used for hatching shipped eggs. I'm going with not turning the eggs for the first 5 days to see if air cells will reattach.

 

[SarahJaneB]

Awesome!! So glad I'm not the only one setting eggs tomorrow! I'm setting 42, maybe more. Will also be setting eggs under a couple of hopeful broodies that refuse to get out of the box they're sharing over the next few days. Just Black Australorps for me

 

[SarahJaneB]

Ok ok, my temp was holding steady and humidity was down to 51% after washing it out, It'll drop to about 38% (which is where I usually keep it) tomorrow so I went ahead and set my eggs tonight, which will make day 1 for me tomorrow!

And I fit 44 eggs in the bator. Hope some weren't to old. Guess I'll find out. My rooster has been mating the girls a lot, perhaps a bit to much because my poor girls look a bit ragged

I don't like this but I'm hoping for a higher fertility rate this time. I believe this is my first hatch with hatching eggs fertilized by only him. This is his test I suppose.

 

[DiamondDust]

Hrmph...I give up on candling to check air cells, lol. I candled the polish just fine (one was badly cracked, not sure how I missed that, so I'm down to 5 Polish eggs) but the Barnie eggs are just too dark! I can't see a THING through those shells at this point. Oh well, I'll just treat them the same as the Polish eggs and see how they all do. Two of the Polish eggs had great air cells, two had very severe saddle shaped air cells, and one had a rolling air cell. I'll set them in the morning and not turn them for a few days to help those with unstable air cells.

Welcome SarahJaneB! I just love Australorps...they are some of the best layers I know of! I am SO hoping to be setting eggs from my own chickens next year!!!

My temp is at 100.5 (still air 'bator) and my humidity is at 35%. That's just what I want when I put the eggs in so everything is ready for tomorrow morning!

DD