Setting eggs on Wednesday June 29

[Time-Out]

No, there was no movement in it. I've marked all questionable ones for rechecking in a few days.

We candled the last three eggs: vorwerks. They all look like quitters to me

so gutted. One was really sloshy. I imagine the aircell had completely ruptured. Horrible postie

We also recandled the first three sebright eggs and saw movement in one. So we have a total of 4 sebrights and 2 friesians. I know it's the 50% and I should be grateful, but I'm not lol. Ebay feedback said 5 out of 6 hatch, 6 out of 6 hatched... So I didn't order more because I thought I'd never have the room!

 

[LilyD]

Quote:
Yeah I'm in the same boat with the Delawares. Two out of 14 won't make a coop full for me. So now I am hunting for more eggs for just one more hatch before the end of the season. Grr. Thankfully I found not one but two people still doing eggs and having good hatches on the forum so I will have some good eggs coming to replace my duds. It makes me mad but since they don't guarantee eggs I can't leave them bad feedback

 

[Time-Out]

How many delawares would you like to keep?

I only wanted one hen of each as our garden is small and I don't eat eggs lol. The whole point in coordinating the hatch was to avoid loneliness/integration problems and save me a small fortune on vaccinations. Do you vaccinate yours?

I hope both our two survivors hang in till the end and turn out to be females for us. Unless of course it'd be easier to start from scratch? Difficult to tell. At least we're both still in the hatching game, even if it is a rough ride.

 

[LilyD]

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I would like to have 12 hens and 2 roos at least and then I will be able to hatch my own eggs to fill my freezer. I figure I will eat the Roosters from the hatchings and the girls can be sold for people who want good quality laying hens. I know I have 2 eggs developing from this batch. I have 48 more eggs coming at the end of the month to hatch out and I will choose my flock from them. That way they will start laying in the spring of next year hopefully.

Eventually I will have Buff Orpingtons in my other coop so that no matter which coop they are in they will be usable for both eggs and meat.

 

[LilyD]

My first temp spike and personally I don't blame the poor incubator. It is over 100 degrees outside right now and around that inside (no air conditioning). While I was gone to work the incubator got to 103.3. When I got home I gave the incubator it's own personal fan to cool it off and got it back down to 100.2. It works really well to get one of the small desk fans and I put it right on top of the incubator aimed at the vent for the incubator. It pulled in cooler air because of the fan and cooled off slowly but still cooled off. I will candle tonight to make sure none of the babies are too upset about the heat wave.

How is everyone else doing on their hatching.

 

[LilyD]

Okay here is my Day 15/14 update. I did my final candling today for my incubator batches since lock down is late Sunday night.

My first set of eggs was shipped and started out with 14. 9 were infertile from the start. 2 that I candled tonight showed total lack of growth since the last candling so I knew they were quitters. Out of the three remaining I saw distinct movement in one. One other was fully developed but I didn't see movement. The third looked underdeveloped but seemed to have movement so I left it. So out of 14 3 will make it to lock down.

Set 2 was the farm batch of 12 eggs. One infertile from the start, one quitter probably around day 7 and the rest all moving and healthy. So 10 going into lock down.

Set 3 was 15 shipped eggs. Two were cracked during shipping and I tried to repair them. One didn't develop at all the second repaired egg looked like it quit. I didn't see movement but I am not sure so I left it in. I had one other infertile in that group but other than that the whole group is moving and healthy and the chicks look huge. So 13 are going into lock down and I expect 12 to possibly hatch.

So out of 41 to start 26 going into lockdown which means I had 15 that didn't make it. 5 of which were quitters and the rest were infertile. I hope my next batch has better fertility rate.

Any news on babies??

 

[Time-Out]

That's not too bad. Over 50% are making it through to the last stage. Fingers crossed they all hatch for you

I candled mine too and removed 3 out of 3 Vorwerks, 1 out of 3 Friesians and 4 out of 6 Sebrights. I craked the eggs open and found the 4 Sebrights, 2 Vorwerks and 1 Friesian never got off the ground. There was nothing to be seen inside the egg except a lot of gooiness. One Vorwerk had started devlopping. It looked like maybe a day 6/7 quitter. I'm happier at the ones with nothing than the one who started growing then gave up. That just makes me sad :-(

5 days to go!

 

[LilyD]

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Yeah I agree I would much rather have infertile than fertile quitters. Just so sad that so few from my first batch were fertile. Those were the eggs I really wanted to hatch too. If I get even one out of the three I have left from that batch I will be so happy.

Thank goodness I have another three batches of eggs coming for the end of the month so I can try again once the incubator is disinfected. I really want some Dellys!!

Now it's time for us to sit on our hands and wait to see what we get. I think this is the hardest part of the whole thing.

 

[texmix]

I started with 36 shipped eggs. After the last candle, I am planning to lock down 24 on Sunday. I saw definite movement in 23. One was so dark I couldn’t see movement but it is in late development. Good luck to everyone.

 

[LilyD]

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Good luck you you too. I am in the same boat 26 going into lock down but two were like yours couldn't see movement so I don't know if they are alive. Guess we will see on Wednesday. I can't wait.