I go into lockdown tonight. Setting up the brooder for possibly Thursday hatch. My last hatch I let the babies stay in until they were about 90% fluffed then took them out and put them in the brooder and they did ok under the heat lamp. I put sawdust in so they wouldnt get splay legged. I got the medicated crumble for treating them for cocci at TSC and put in just a sprinkle of chick grit with thier food. I got a quail waterer end cap for a quart waterer and used that so they could drink but not get in it and drown. I took the empty shells out by quickly opening the bator and grabbing them. It didnt mess up the humidity at all or the temps and I was using the LG for the past two hatches. This hatch tho, with my Hovabator, I probably wont bother it too much since Im having trouble keeping the humidity stablized. It keeps dropping to 20% overnight or sometime during the day when Im at work. Im going to get some fish tank tubing as suggested on other posts to fish into the bator thru one of the holes<no pun intended> so add water when needed so I dont screw with the humidity durning lockdown. Hope everything goes well. Candled some last night and all the eggs are dark so looks like everything is ok so far. Wont know for sure until I see that pipping.
I want to cry right now.. I am so upset!!! I officially went into lockdown last night and couldn't sleep at all!! I made sure the humidity was 65%-70% and the temp was perfect.. More so than the other 18 days of incubation... I was up every hour and it took me almost that long to go to sleep each time.. From about 11pm til about 7am, I slept MAYBE 30 minutes! Well, my "adopted" daughter (a very close friend of the family that lives with us to help me with my son) gets up to get my son off to school at 6:30.. I told her to wake me at 8.. I woke up at 10:30!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost didn't catch the mail lady to get hatching eggs out (they were supposed to go out last week but were returned to me because "lives don't fly on sat & sun") The humidity in the bator was 55% and the temp was 103.6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
.... She said she tried to wake me up but i told her I wanted to sleep longer... OK!! SO, WHY DIDN'T YOU MAKE SURE THE BABIES DIDN'T FRY!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?! I saw a lot of rocking last night from one egg, now... NOTHING!!!!! PLEASE someone tell me I still have a chance!!!! The spike was 3 hours at most!!! I've done everything i could to make this hatch happen and now I might lose them all anyway?!?!?!?
This is the whole reason I couldn't sleep last night in the first place!!!!
We are joining this hatch along. This is our first ever hatch. We have Mottled Houdan, a few black silkies and mixed breed bantams scheduled to go into lockdown tonight. So excited but nervous.
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Actually, I have both!! I wouldn't mind having the chocolate.. But the alcohol? I'm afraid at this point I would get too drunk to watch the bator the way i need to!
Maybe after it's all over with, I will have some to either celebrate or forget.. Hopefully the first option...
Amanda says she saw the Delaware wiggle again but I haven't seen it.. Not sure if she is imagining it to make herself feel better or if it actually happened.. Guess I will be staring at the bator from time to time, or in other words, about every 10 minutes until i see something happening.. LOL
