Setting eggs tonight anyone else?(10-14-10) pics added

[greeneacre]

Not an expert about bators as this is my first time and I did build my own too. I wonder if you got stryofoam boards, like they use in packaging and fix them around the outside of three sides of the aquarium to help with heat loss. I see them occassionly on Craigslist for free. Not sure about the temperture drop maybe some one with more experience can comment on. Good luck with your four.

 

[haTHOR]

yes, i think i will do that next time! did not have an issue the first night, just put up a sheet of aluminum foil around the back to get some reflected heat gain...but i think i learned last night what the aquarium could and could not handle without some extra help. even with that challenge, this way of hatching was so worth it. so amazing to see everything so clearly! esp. with little kids, it was just a delight.

 

[greeneacre]

Had a sixth hatch on Friday. There are 4 eggs left and after candling two I believe are quitters with a band of dark and then a lighter area--yolk sac?-- and 2 that are dark. I am day 24.

 

[haTHOR]

i would say you are done, but of course that is up to you. feels bad to throw them out. i am at day 23 and am taking down the bator when i get home from church...it smells.

when i was adding some water yesterday to my 5 unhatched, my toddler dropped something in to the aquarium and it broke two eggs, so i got a chance to see what was up with them. one was infertile (it was a first egg from a pullet, and would have made barred olive eggers, so i hatched it just for the heck of it as she laid fro the first time on the day i set eggs). the other was fully developed and looked great, but had not pipped internally at all into the air space, and was dead.

the three i have left i will likely open the tops on later, just to see whether they internally pipped or what. those cold temps on thursday night, in my opinion, got them. we'll see with the forensics investigation whether my hunch might be correct.

so i set 12 eggs, threw one out that died around day 11, and went into lockdown with 11. i figured the blue never developed but couldn't see well enough to be sure, so kept it since it did not smell. so, 10 that were definitely alive at lockdown, and i hatched 6. not bad, but last hatch was way better. 31 went into lockdown, and 25 hatched.

 

[tallyho]

End of Day 23 and I pulled the plug on the last egg. I thought I saw movement in it yesterday but nothing now. It never moved like the others, never pipped, no peeping. I'm afraid to open it. Out 13, I hatched 4 cute fluffs. I'm predicting 1 cockeral. He already looks bigger and bossier and he was the last one born. Not too bad for shipped eggs.

 

[greeneacre]

Here are pictures of my first hatch. I got 6 out of 12. Not bad for shipped eggs and first time hatching and a homemade bator.
Two hams.

four curious and moving all the time.

This is very addictive I bought more eggs.

 

[sloallie10]

Quote:
lucky! i am a first time incubator and my chickes are due in like a week! what kind or bator did you use?

 

[greeneacre]

Mine was modeled after the Gopher bator on this site.

How many eggs do you have set? I set more this morning.