Setting some eggs 5-13-15. Looking for some folks to hatch a long with me.

[NTBugtraq]

I believe 16% is for waterfowl eggs. Good luck at lockdown!

I'll go with that, I was spot on for 13% at lockdown yesterday.

 

[FridayYet]

Hi everyone just to update I got 1 chick from my hatch I hunted high and low for someone who had chicks that was willing to sell me some. I managed to get 2 when I brought them home my little 1 had collapsed I gave her glucose and water but she died 15 mins later I,m gutted

So I need to concentrate on my newbies.

So sorry to hear that! So sad.

Enjoy your new little ones.

So here is my finished hatch. I wound up with 8 good healthy chicks with straight feet and all hatched unassisted. I didn't get anything out of the turkeys but I still have them in the bator since they started at a low temp. When you pick the eggs up they feel like they have a poult in them so I'm not giving up. 6 of my chicken eggs didn't do anything, and I think it's because we had a really bad round of thunderstorms here at the house during their hatch, I've heard thunder kills hatching chicks, now I think I have proof. I'm not an eggtopsy kind of guy, so I won't have a report whether they formed or not. When I candled day 18 they all looked good. They will be getting flung towards the woods here shortly, and the turkey eggs I'm giving till Friday.
Here's the pics.







And the parents of these babies

Adorable chicks! Congratulations

Went into lockdown today (day 18), but some basics had changed. I read another treatise on weight, where it says 15-16% was ideal, not 13%. Hard to say who is right. If 16% is ideal, then today 13.7% would be ideal, and my average is 11.1%. So, again based on readings, I choose to start lockdown without changing the humidity, its still at 22%, the lowest I can get in my bator (if the house is higher, you can't get lower in the bator). I did take some other advice I read, I filled channel 1 and 2 of my bator with rolled paper towels, then put a layer of paper towels under the mesh, and another layer on top of the mesh...then laid the eggs on their side on top of that paper towel layer. The theory is, when I add moisture (which I will do when I see the first pip), I will get a lot of moist surface. Ideally, I'd have 2 bators, one for the ones that have achieved their weight loss, the other for those that haven't. You keep the ones that haven't had sufficient weight loss at low humidity, the others get lots.

Anyway, I currently have 34/41 in the bator, all that have failed failed because of being not fertile. I think this incubation is going to be 4 or 5 days long, as today's candling showed a huge range of maturity.

Only 4 more sets of 41 to do...lolz...;-]

Good luck on your hatch! What kind of bator do you have - will the paper towel on top of the mesh impede airflow?

 

[NTBugtraq]

Good luck on your hatch! What kind of bator do you have - will the paper towel on top of the mesh impede airflow?

Thanks!

I have a Hovabator 1544, Styrofoam. The mesh was sitting on the bottom on top of the 4 water channels, so no, I don't believe it will impede air flow. There is a circulating fan on the top of the bator, and nothing between the eggs.

No pips yet, so humidity is still @ house humidity...24%. I am so tempted to weigh and candle again, but I did it yesterday and the day before and everything seemed on track so I am resisting. I have accepted that one or more might pip overnight and I won't be there to up the humidity instantly, instead I keep checking hourly for a pip, and if I don't see one before going to bed then it will mean it just has to wait till morning. But honestly, given house close to the ideal weight loss I have maintained this setting, there's really no reason to expect early hatchlings.

Meanwhile, I have been working out all the logistics of my outdoor coop. I realized today that I have my food bin in the open in the 2nd coop, and only a single door between the two coops. So sometimes a layer will find its way behind me as I pass from the main coop to the chick coop (where I will put 3-4 week olds). That's not what I want. And today in the brooder when I feed the 19 nearly 4 week olds, they swarm me, so what happens when I do that in their coop outside...I open the food bin and it gets swarmed by these little guys...;-] I have some old pool fencing which I am not trying to rig up as a pen, so I come into the small coop, pen the little guys, and can then work on feeding them both. Fermented feed is great, but boy is it a pain in the butt.

Oh, and I have added sprouted oats to my feed mix. So now I have 3 5 gal pails of food being fermented/sprouted outside, and another inside for the chicks starter food. Oh to be able to free-range....

 

[FridayYet]

Thanks!

I have a Hovabator 1544, Styrofoam. The mesh was sitting on the bottom on top of the 4 water channels, so no, I don't believe it will impede air flow. There is a circulating fan on the top of the bator, and nothing between the eggs.

No pips yet, so humidity is still @ house humidity...24%. I am so tempted to weigh and candle again, but I did it yesterday and the day before and everything seemed on track so I am resisting. I have accepted that one or more might pip overnight and I won't be there to up the humidity instantly, instead I keep checking hourly for a pip, and if I don't see one before going to bed then it will mean it just has to wait till morning. But honestly, given house close to the ideal weight loss I have maintained this setting, there's really no reason to expect early hatchlings.

Meanwhile, I have been working out all the logistics of my outdoor coop. I realized today that I have my food bin in the open in the 2nd coop, and only a single door between the two coops. So sometimes a layer will find its way behind me as I pass from the main coop to the chick coop (where I will put 3-4 week olds). That's not what I want. And today in the brooder when I feed the 19 nearly 4 week olds, they swarm me, so what happens when I do that in their coop outside...I open the food bin and it gets swarmed by these little guys...;-] I have some old pool fencing which I am not trying to rig up as a pen, so I come into the small coop, pen the little guys, and can then work on feeding them both. Fermented feed is great, but boy is it a pain in the butt.

Oh, and I have added sprouted oats to my feed mix. So now I have 3 5 gal pails of food being fermented/sprouted outside, and another inside for the chicks starter food. Oh to be able to free-range....

If it were me, (and you are way more "by-the-book" than I am, I'd split the difference before you go to bed and add a little more humidity. I'd rather protect the pip than have one get sticky.

I'm also not near as dedicated on feeding, although I do buy no-corn, no-soy, non GMO feed, plus fresh sprouts and veggies for snacks. I may ferment in the fall when it cools off, but even then they'll just get it once a day and free-feed the rest of the day. I do have grass/weeds in a part of my run though, and plenty of bugs!

Sounds like you will be doing a lot of hatching. How many permanent coops will you have?

 

[NTBugtraq]

If it were me, (and you are way more "by-the-book" than I am, I'd split the difference before you go to bed and add a little more humidity. I'd rather protect the pip than have one get sticky.

I'm also not near as dedicated on feeding, although I do buy no-corn, no-soy, non GMO feed, plus fresh sprouts and veggies for snacks. I may ferment in the fall when it cools off, but even then they'll just get it once a day and free-feed the rest of the day. I do have grass/weeds in a part of my run though, and plenty of bugs!

Sounds like you will be doing a lot of hatching. How many permanent coops will you have?

Well, a broody hen can't change the humidity, so if its ok for her to not grab a bunch of paper towels and soak them, how am I doing it wrong?...;-]

We buy the same feed, but you buy sprouts and I buy seed and sprout it. Soaking, forget about fermenting, means your flock does not have to hydrate their food to convert it...so even soaking is a plus. Fermenting happens in most outdoor spaces without you having to do a thing, just let some of the water drain from your soaking feed and by the next day it will be fermenting. If you keep the feed covered with water, heat is not to be feared, so no reason to put it off till the fall.

IMO, the longer you free feed them on stock feed the harder they will work to be satisfied, iows, the more they will eat.

I have 2 separate coops outside, one for my main flock, the other for 3-13 week chickens. I have my brooder inside that I believe will hold 34 till 3 weeks. So I guess that's 3 places. I am in the process of dividing the young chicken coop in a way that, if I have to, I can separate them in there.

 

[FridayYet]

You buy scratch n peck too? I think it's great food. Why do you say I buy sprouts? I sprout them on the windowsill. I do soak food sometimes overnight, but dry food works better for us, especially when we go on vacation and neighbors watch the birds. I hear fermentation buckets can get mold or turn bad in our hot summers, so they'll get it occasionally.

Sounds like you have a nice setup and I hope your hatch goes great!

 

[NTBugtraq]

You buy scratch n peck too? I think it's great food. Why do you say I buy sprouts? I sprout them on the windowsill. I do soak food sometimes overnight, but dry food works better for us, especially when we go on vacation and neighbors watch the birds. I hear fermentation buckets can get mold or turn bad in our hot summers, so they'll get it occasionally.

Sounds like you have a nice setup and I hope your hatch goes great!

Sorry, I mis-read your post and thought you bought the sprouts. Fermented feed could get bad bacteria, but not if its keep covered with water. The top of the water will look moldy, but that's just the fermentation working. My first hatches are now 4 weeks old, and I can tell you, trying to feed 19 with fermented feed is a hassle. Even though I have the feeders with the smallish holes in them, they walk all over them and poop in the feed. Since both are wet, it leads me to feel its mingling. At least dry food would keep the poop separated better.

 

[NTBugtraq]

Well, noticed first pip this morning around 5:30am...and the first hatch came at 6:30am. So I soaked the towels and brought the humidity up to 80%, then opened the vent for it to drop a tad. So far today I have had 10 hatches. There doesn't appear to be any discernable pattern. I have hatches from eggs that were 1 day old, to hatches that were 6 day old eggs. I've had a 65g egg and a 48g egg hatch. I've had eggs that had 4.5% under-weight, and eggs that were 1.3% over-weight. Funniest thing this time is that so far 8/10 are yellow with pink legs, 1/10 black with black legs, and 1/10 that is yellow with a black stripe on his back with pink legs.

 

[bantam brood 17]

Well, noticed first pip this morning around 5:30am...and the first hatch came at 6:30am. So I soaked the towels and brought the humidity up to 80%, then opened the vent for it to drop a tad. So far today I have had 10 hatches. There doesn't appear to be any discernable pattern. I have hatches from eggs that were 1 day old, to hatches that were 6 day old eggs. I've had a 65g egg and a 48g egg hatch. I've had eggs that had 4.5% under-weight, and eggs that were 1.3% over-weight. Funniest thing this time is that so far 8/10 are yellow with pink legs, 1/10 black with black legs, and 1/10 that is yellow with a black stripe on his back with pink legs.

Fantastic result

congratulations

 

[NTBugtraq]

Update to Day 20: I have 12 hatches and 2 pips out of 34.

Here is one fact about this hatch I have discovered in my data collecting...I had 7 unfertile eggs in my 41 set. So if we take those 7 out of any equations...on Day 7 I judged 12 of my 34 to be viable. On day 10, I judged 33 of 34 to be viable. I judged the last egg viable on Day 13. Clearly, making the viability decision on Day 10 is far more accurate than culling eggs on Day 7. Also, only 2/12 of my Day 7 viables have thus far hatched.

On Day 18 I picked the egg I thought was the most developed...it has not hatched yet...clearly I still have a lot to learn understanding what I see while candling.

Update for the morning of Day 21: Overnight I had 10 additional hatches, so I am up to 22 healthy chicks and no pips. Still no information in the data...nothing stands out. Of the 22, 5 are black with black feet, and still just the one yellow with some brown on its back, the rest (16) are yellow with pink feet.

Moved my previous hatchlings, now 4 weeks old, into their outdoor pen. Its covered in grass so they are getting a treat. The brooder, however, is a mess...;-[ won't be keeping chicks in there to 4 weeks again.