She said/He said Who's right? Who's wrong? No one!

[sideWing]

Here is my little silver Maran cross chick is so beautiful! I am in love.

Please keep updating pics. Can't wait to see what color you end up with.

 

[WVduckchick]

WV!!!!!

Enjoying your sand and sun! Baking on the beach...

 

[scflock]

Rub it in...

 

[WalnutHill]

I can't even tell you how impressed I am.

Nothing to be impressed about, I got a quote for over $20k for cabinets and said f- that, I can do it myself. So I bought some books, turned some QS oak into firewood while practicing, and got to work.

 

[RubyNala97]

Ok - setting 30 eggs whenever i get temp to hold steady somewhere in the right range. 10 silkie - i'm not sure on the fertility of these . 8 backyard mix, 3 of which are EE. Getting good bulls-eyes in these eggs 3 Araucana 3 Orpington 3 Dorking and 3 Sussex X Frizzles These 12 are from a breeder so hopefully fertility is ok, and hopefully they survived the shipment Will be running Dry as the ambient humidity has been 75-80 for the last week

Good luck on your hatch! What color are the silkies? Keep us posted.

Yeah yeah - it held steady at 100.2F and 65% for 1/2 hour so i placed the tray of eggs in. The temp dropped back down to 55 but has been rising very slowly since. The humidity has also been dropping in there, so it will be good. I'll take the eggs out of the tray when i do my first candle and mark air cells in a few days.

I've never seen that incubator before!

Here is my little silver Maran cross chick is so beautiful! I am in love.

Nice! And adorable!

My EE roosters are young and aggressive. The young girls are falling in line, but the older girls that were already in the pen are still at the top of the pecking order, for now. My marans roosters, Cuckoo and BC, are also very amorous. They just need more hens. The silkie rooster may as well be wearing a tuxedo. He likes to dance for them first . His pen is also right beside the big hybrids. He will call them up to the fence, then dance for them, but that's all he can do. He has his eye on a big, black sex-link. I've thought about putting her in the pen with him, sitting down with a cold one, and enjoying the show. She's the top of the pecking order, twice his size, and I imagine she would put him in his place quickly

I've seen YouTube videos of the dance! Lol. At what age do they start trying to mate?

After losing 50% of my hatch for not being in town to touch a thing, I went the opposite extreme on the last hatch and had 100% of lockdown eggs hatch successfully. I waited about 4 hours after pip, when the poult turned the chip into an actual hole, before opening a bigger hole higher in the air cell. I did this to ensure that if the poult was successful in chipping shell but not breaking through the outer membrane, then it would not be suffocated when it rotated. I've lost many to that as they are so tight in the shell. Then when the time is right, blood vessels receded, if poult is not progressing I will actively unzip it.

This is exactly what the pea breeder told me. "Be careful it doesn't suffocate while trying to turn". How?? I hear it chirping. How do I know if it's going to suffocate? And if it has a pip hole (even thought its at the wrong side) in the shell and it's getting air, how can it still suffocate while turning? Any insight appreciated. Thanks!

 

[WalnutHill]

This is exactly what the pea breeder told me. "Be careful it doesn't suffocate while trying to turn". How?? I hear it chirping. How do I know if it's going to suffocate? And if it has a pip hole (even thought its at the wrong side) in the shell and it's getting air, how can it still suffocate while turning? Any insight appreciated. Thanks!

When it pips, the hole is in front of its beak. The hard shelled eggs tend to chip off nicely, but the membrane does not always tear. So when the poult rotates, its beak comes back in, and its back covers the pip hole. No big deal if it tears a new hole in the membrane while it zips...but if it fails to do so, it cannot breathe and once it has exhausted the air in the air cell, it dies.

I make a hole in the fat end of the egg. I don't worry about the pip hole or the zipping. If it zips, GREAT! If not, I'll peek through my hole and watch the blood vessels on the membrane. Once they are transparent, it's safe enough to go in and zip. I make the hole big enough to use a cotton swab to apply Bacitracin or even cosmetic grade mineral oil to the membrane between the poult and the air cell to prevent it from becoming too rubbery.

After the hatch, examine the membrane and shell and compare to a chicken egg. Large fowl eggs are rugged.

 

[WalnutHill]

I picked up my Brower brooder and GQF incubator. I'll be tearing into them to fix them once I have cleaned out all the rodent pee and pellets. The GQF smells like a 1960s metal shelf fridge stored in a damp basement and lived in by rats. Not nice at all. But on the good side, it looks like the issue may be just the heating element wire. It even has the GQF electronic thermostat and a safety wafer. I think it's a 1202, the tag is obliterated. It's harvest gold and has three turner trays and a hatcher tray. I don't think I can hatch turkeys in that tray, there is no headroom! And I need to find out what's up with the turner.

I am amazed by how tiny the incubator is compared to my apartment-fridge sized homebuilt.

The brooder is old but nice, the microswitch is jammed and the wafer is broken, so that will be my first fix.

 

[RubyNala97]

When it pips, the hole is in front of its beak.  The hard shelled eggs tend to chip off nicely, but the membrane does not always tear.  So when the poult rotates, its beak comes back in, and its back covers the pip hole.  No big deal if it tears a new hole in the membrane while it zips...but if it fails to do so, it cannot breathe and once it has exhausted the air in the air cell, it dies.

I make a hole in the fat end of the egg.  I don't worry about the pip hole or the zipping.  If it zips, GREAT!  If not, I'll peek through my hole and watch the blood vessels on the membrane.  Once they are transparent, it's safe enough to go in and zip.  I make the hole big enough to use a cotton swab to apply Bacitracin or even cosmetic grade mineral oil to the membrane between the poult and the air cell to prevent it from becoming too rubbery.

After the hatch, examine the membrane and shell and compare to a chicken egg.  Large fowl eggs are rugged.

Thank you. I get it now. I understand. But I'm so scared to do this. I don't have the experience to know what the membrane should look like and if it's the right time. I guess there is only one way to gain that experience. Is it ok to give it 24 hrs first? Because I know it's early since the external pip was actually its internal pip.

 

[WalnutHill]

Please look at the pics in Sally Sunshine's assisted hatching guide. It's kind of rambling and disjointed but is chock full of great information. Look for the photos of the membranes, too early and ready. You know how when a chick hatches and the membrane left in the shell is clear with perhaps a streak of pink remaining? That's ready. The vessels you see when candling, that's not ready.

As long as your humidity is high, be safe and make a small pip hole in the top of the big end. Don't look for the beak or anything heroic. Just make a little pip to ensure fresh air gets in there. It doesn't have to be big, it just has to have a hole that will reliably let air in. If the chick rotates so its wing covers its nostrils, that won't help...but do what you are willing and able to do.

 

[RubyNala97]

Please look at the pics in Sally Sunshine's assisted hatching guide.  It's kind of rambling and disjointed but is chock full of great information.  Look for the photos of the membranes, too early and ready.  You know how when a chick hatches and the membrane left in the shell is clear with perhaps a streak of pink remaining?  That's ready.  The vessels you see when candling, that's not ready.

As long as your humidity is high, be safe and make a small pip hole in the top of the big end.  Don't look for the beak or anything heroic.  Just make a little pip to ensure fresh air gets in there.  It doesn't have to be big, it just has to have a hole that will reliably let air in.  If the chick rotates so its wing covers its nostrils, that won't help...but do what you are willing and able to do.

Ok so just a hole into the air cell? *That means I don't touch the internal membrane, right?* Does it matter where into the air cell the whole is made? And how small? Like a pip hole size?