Setting eggs on FEB 10

[Bellurd]

Hi Heather! I can't wait to get out of the suburbs and have some real land to work with like you guys! In a few years we plan to move a little further from LA, where it is much more rural and we can afford more land. I want mini jersey's so bad! I drink whole milk like its water.

But about shipped eggs... this was obviously my first hatch so I'm no expert, but when my eggs arrived from Illinois, a lot of the air cells were detached. I had read about letting them rest but my excitement got the best of me and I totally forgot and just threw them in a bator. So far I have six babies running around and the last one is still working hard in her egg. I was able to help the wrong end pipper once her blood vessels receded and that went amazingly well. Her feet were smooshed against the back of her poor little head.

I'm going to be amazed if I get a 100% hatch rate for my first time. I have to give the Brinsea all the credit. I was able to open it often and take hatched chicks out without my humidity dropping below 72.

 

[CowgirlHC]

aww look how cute! And thanks for the happy birthday to my daughter. We are definitely very blessed to live the lifestyle we do and I LOVE it! I just got my shipped eggs today and my goodness were they packaged well!!! I have pics I was so happy. I pulled the plug on the 'bator with the other eggs in it :-( I'm eggtopsy'ing them tonight then cleaning/sterilizing the bator and going to add my egg turner we borrowed from a friend and play with the humidity before setting. Anyone know how to best store these shipped eggs while waiting to set? I'm setting Saturday morning, giving them plenty of time to settle and reattach any disturbed air sacks. I'm just trying to give them the best chance ever. I'm going to set them in an egg carton for hatching w/ the bottoms cut out to keep them up right and keep the temp stable keeping them at the same level. I read that cheat sheet and it's recommending dry incubating til hatching but, that kind of makes me nervous.

 

[bugglesmommy]

Only one air cell is detached the rest look... popped. The shapes are wildly irregular and some don't have a visable air cell at all.

Your chicks give me some hope, cara. Even a few chicks will cover the expense to me. I have some seramas coming next week. I hope the postal service treats them a little better.

 

[Bellurd]

This was my box when I got the eggs. I really was trying not to get my hopes up after I saw it.

 

[bugglesmommy]

This was my box when I got the eggs. I really was trying not to get my hopes up after I saw it.

Geesh! You had ONE JOB post office. How hard is it to be gentle with a fragile box? What are they getting paid for with priority shipping if this is how they treat a package? I did as a post suggested and shook a fridge egg until I heard the pop of the air cell popping loose. It takes a good bit of forceful shaking.

 

[CowgirlHC]

Oh no! My box arrived in perfect shape, so here's to hoping. I unpacked everyone (got 2 extras so yay!) and put them point end down in an egg carton in a cooler room. Should I bring them to room temp all day tomorrow and set saturday?

 

[CowgirlHC]

OK so I did eggtopsys and one didn't form much at all, the others did but never fully developed retracting their yolk. I've given the 'bator a break and cleaned it good, now have it set up messing with the controls/humidity. I have the egg turner in it and tried no water at first. The mercury thermometer it came with laying on the egg turner registered around 102-104. I bought an accu-rite indoor/outdoor thermometer/hygromeeter and put the unit in it as well as the probe. The probe is also laying on the egg turner in the middle (the mercury is on the upper right hand side) and then the main unit at the bottom in the center. There is only 1 degree difference in the accu-rite, which is to be expected since one is closer to the heating element. Without water and w/ 1 plug in (as per the LG instructions in the box) is around 45-47% w/o water. Seems fine to me but will that make them dry out? I just added about half full troughs still with one plug in and seeing where that gets me, then I'll play w/ the plugs and then try adding sponges or what not. I don't have much time though, so at least I have the temp pretty good. Should I aim for 100 since my digital thermometer doesn't have decimals?

 

[bugglesmommy]

Oh no!  My box arrived in perfect shape, so here's to hoping.  I unpacked everyone (got 2 extras so yay!) and put them point end down in an egg carton in a cooler room.  Should I bring them to room temp all day tomorrow and set saturday?

My box was undamaged to. It was just the air cells that were damaged. Have you checked yours? Damaged air cells need altered tactics like slightly less humidity to encourage air cell growth. They should be okay to set Saturday, does your auto turner keep them upright?

102-104 is pretty high. 104 is a fatal temp. if there for any length of time. 100 is a drop high, but it depends a little on if you have a fan or still air. I had still air so aimed for 101° and had a good hatch.

I am just starting with real chicken keeping. I've had a few for a few years but with our own land and space I'm wanting to eventually sell and ship my own eggs. I will raise Polish, silkies, Millie fluer, silver Phoenix, and seramas.

When I'm finally getting fertile eggs of my own I'd like to try a test run shipping. They are chicks now so it will be a while but anyone interested in swapping eggs down the road?

 

[CowgirlHC]

If we put a breeding pen together sure, I'd swap with you! Right now we run heavy breed brown egg layers, nothing fancy but prolific layers! I have no clue how to check air cells at this stage, what am I looking for? I have a still air LG, the directions say 99.5 but I too heard for still air up to 100.5. Yes the turner keeps them up right, which is how they are now, and once lock down stars I plan on putting them in egg cartons that have the bottoms cut out.

I'm up to both plugs in because once I added the water the humidity dropped (not sure why) but it did by like 5-8%.

 

[my sunwolf]

Looks like I missed the gun on this one

I'm Emi, I'm 22, and I live in the really windy mountains of Virginia, not too high up. Just enough so that there's no flat land, but we have 3 acres of rolling pasture. Married with no human kids, but a pretty good dog replacement, a few cats, two cows, and about 123 chickens (mostly babies in my basement). Yeah, chicken math caught up with me. I have some brown egg girls I started out with, a bunch of Easter Eggers, and now delving into some BBS Ameraucanas. I would definitely be interested in egg swapping, though that picture of the mushed box labeled "fragile" has me pretty scared of the postal service.

For this next round of incubation, I have a friend who has given me some banty eggs (from a black Cochin cross hen and a Mille Fleur Belgian Bearded hen both bred with a game mutt roo), but I'm not sure those are going to hatch, they're pretty old at this point (5 days) and by Saturday will be over a week, yikes. The breeding pen with the Ameraucana roo over various brown egg laying hens is going okay, we're getting 3-4 eggs a day off of 5 hens, and they're all around 2 years old, so that's not bad. Still testing the incubator on "unimportant" eggs until I can get a good hatch.


The 7 babies who survived the hatch are hanging out with 10 TSC Cornish X chicks

As you can see, they're all due for a bigger brooder: