I picked up seven live chicks after a 14.5 hour straight drive and came away with ZERO d'anvers hens. What an enormous bummer, and I can't keep roosters. Husband was heartbroken, he really liked our little boys, but chicks are hard to come by so we're going in deep with shipped eggs for our first try at incubating. I know, I know, like learning to ride a horse on an arabian. I'm not going to get my hopes up super high, but I'm also going to try doing my due diligence by learning what I can and trying my best.
I ordered 12 eggs and received 15. The box arrived on my doorstep at 11:30 AM on Thursday the 24th, right side up, and in pristine shape. I temp gunned the eggs at about 80f. A 12 hour sit was recommended by the breeder. Every egg was oriented in the box point down, so they rested in their box. I washed my hands, carefully removed every cream colored egg from its bubble wrap burrito, used a soft pencil to give it a number and wrote down its weight after weighing it. My biggest egg weighed 39 grams, my smallest egg 25 grams! That small egg is soooo small! Average egg size 34 grams.
I candled each egg before I sat them into the incubator. I searched for this "air sac" in each egg. It is very small and hard if not impossible for me to really see right now. I have my suspicions that egg #3 is not going to make it. I see bubbles in the top when I handle the egg in my fingers. I see nothing else in the eggs, such as cracks or movement or anything very visible besides the fuzzy darkness of the yolk. My incubator, the Nurture Right 360, had been running for at least a few days and the humidity showed 50% (using distilled water) and temperature at 99.5%. I cross referenced the temperature and humidity with other calibrated probes and determined its reading to be accurate. Each egg got an X on one side and an O on the other, and in they all went. I checked the rotating feature and it looked like it worked perfectly. The eggs were set this morning at 12:30 AM.
Upon waking for the day at 8 AM, I noticed that my eggs were not turning completely anymore. They were turning, but it seems sort of janky. After some research I discovered that the rotation tray isn't really made for such little eggs, and so, the husband is using his 3D printer to print a "mini bantam" size turning tray from off of Thingiverse. Shoutout to whoever modeled it up so I could do this. I will replace the turner when I candle the eggs for life at day 4(?). In the mean time, I am letting the machine just run and do its thing.
I hope that my process so far has been correct enough that we're off to a good start. If it seems like I missed any crucial steps, please let me know.
Crossing my fingers for at least two. Please at least two!! The possible colors in this mix are mille fleur, blue mille fleur, blue buff columbian, blue quail, and porcelain.
Thank you for joining me!
I ordered 12 eggs and received 15. The box arrived on my doorstep at 11:30 AM on Thursday the 24th, right side up, and in pristine shape. I temp gunned the eggs at about 80f. A 12 hour sit was recommended by the breeder. Every egg was oriented in the box point down, so they rested in their box. I washed my hands, carefully removed every cream colored egg from its bubble wrap burrito, used a soft pencil to give it a number and wrote down its weight after weighing it. My biggest egg weighed 39 grams, my smallest egg 25 grams! That small egg is soooo small! Average egg size 34 grams.
I candled each egg before I sat them into the incubator. I searched for this "air sac" in each egg. It is very small and hard if not impossible for me to really see right now. I have my suspicions that egg #3 is not going to make it. I see bubbles in the top when I handle the egg in my fingers. I see nothing else in the eggs, such as cracks or movement or anything very visible besides the fuzzy darkness of the yolk. My incubator, the Nurture Right 360, had been running for at least a few days and the humidity showed 50% (using distilled water) and temperature at 99.5%. I cross referenced the temperature and humidity with other calibrated probes and determined its reading to be accurate. Each egg got an X on one side and an O on the other, and in they all went. I checked the rotating feature and it looked like it worked perfectly. The eggs were set this morning at 12:30 AM.
Upon waking for the day at 8 AM, I noticed that my eggs were not turning completely anymore. They were turning, but it seems sort of janky. After some research I discovered that the rotation tray isn't really made for such little eggs, and so, the husband is using his 3D printer to print a "mini bantam" size turning tray from off of Thingiverse. Shoutout to whoever modeled it up so I could do this. I will replace the turner when I candle the eggs for life at day 4(?). In the mean time, I am letting the machine just run and do its thing.
I hope that my process so far has been correct enough that we're off to a good start. If it seems like I missed any crucial steps, please let me know.
Crossing my fingers for at least two. Please at least two!! The possible colors in this mix are mille fleur, blue mille fleur, blue buff columbian, blue quail, and porcelain.
Thank you for joining me!
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Don't really toss any eggs out until day 10 though, as a beginner.
... now I am trying to research what I should do next. Only a few of my eggs have normal looking air sacs and the rest are varying degrees of saddle and off positioning, from not super alarming to "oh no". I have one egg where the sac is on the pointy end... and one with a sac on the side.
