Staggered hatch: **UPDATE** All finished. Final results on page 5

[stampntam]

Cool, never heard of Marsh Daisies, I am going to have to google that!
thanks

 

[Highlander]

Quote:
Are they an autosexing breed? There is a big difference in colour between those pale ones and that dark chipmunk one. Cuties though!

I wish! That would make thing much easier wouldn't it? They aren't autosexing, though they do look like they should be. The way I've had it explained to me, there used to be three main distinct colours, Brown, Buff and Wheaten. When the breed got to the point of nearly dying out fifty or so years ago, the people who found the last few birds ended up having to breed the different colours together in order to keep the breed going. So now their colour genes are all mixed up and they don't breed true. You could breed two of one colour whose parents and grandparents were that same colour, and get chicks of any colour popping out. It's something that a recently set up UK breeder's group is hoping to sort out but getting them to breed true will probably take years and years, and I actually quite like the 'lucky dip' aspect of them.

I also think that fluff colour doesn't indicate adult colour, as my two adult cockerels were both pure yellow as chicks and turned out two different colours as adults. I've asked that of a couple of people who keep them (on a different forum) but didn't get any responses. Oh well. I'll find out soon enough. I've ID tagged them all and I'm keeping notes on each chick.

That chipmunk one is my favourite! Got my fingers crossed s/he's a girl...

Oh ok, I like the sound of a lucky dip too. They just reminded me a little of my Cream Legbars - the females were dark chipmunk and the males were lighter. I was hoping that wasn't the case in your brooder!

 

[pdsavage]

I had 4 stagered hatches first 2 I finally found why they would get to lock down then die.
the humidity was way off and they drowned.
So I have some going on lock down today and some going into lock down sunday.
I am thinking about hatching some eggs that where given to me (eating eggs-rooster in with hens).

I am hoping for some lavenders when my eggs hatch in a couple of days.

 

[stampntam]

Quote:
so what do you do so they don't drown, I am going to do a staggered hatch, put eggs in on 2/6 and I have more coming this weekend that I plann to put in same bator, so they will be about a week apart? I have a Hovabator 1602 with turner.

 

[pdsavage]

Quote:
so what do you do so they don't drown, I am going to do a staggered hatch, put eggs in on 2/6 and I have more coming this weekend that I plann to put in same bator, so they will be about a week apart? I have a Hovabator 1602 with turner.

The hydrometer I had in there wasn't working right,I put a better one in so I don't over humidify them.
Also I just added 12 of the eggs given to me,RIR over a bunch of diffrent hens.
I hope a few hatch,ill take em back to her and show her what was in her eggs.

I also have 2 incubators so i use one for hatching,the other one is the one I keep all the eggs in. Then at lockdown i move em to the hatching incubator.

 

[stampntam]

Quote:
so what do you do so they don't drown, I am going to do a staggered hatch, put eggs in on 2/6 and I have more coming this weekend that I plann to put in same bator, so they will be about a week apart? I have a Hovabator 1602 with turner.

The hydrometer I had in there wasn't working right,I put a better one in so I don't over humidify them.
Also I just added 12 of the eggs given to me,RIR over a bunch of diffrent hens.
I hope a few hatch,ill take em back to her and show her what was in her eggs.

I also have 2 incubators so i use one for hatching,the other one is the one I keep all the eggs in. Then at lockdown i move em to the hatching incubator.

So what do you keep your humidity at for lockdown when there are other eggs not ready for lockdown, I only have one incubator, well really two but the the one only holds 7 eggs. I can't afford to buy another one I guess I made the mistake of buying more eggs! With the turner in there could I take the ones ready for lockdown off turn and remove rail and let the other one continue to turn at lockdown or will the new chicks knock them to much? Oh, I don't know what to do.

 

[dwegg]

Quote:
they are so cute..sorry if I missed this but what breed are they....? very cute

 

[Gypsy07]

Okay, latest update:

Tonight was lockdown time for the next four eggs, so I used the opportunity to candle everybody in the bator. As well as the four eggs on day 18, I had another 10 on day 6. The four eggs going into lockdown are still looking pretty good overall, but two of them I'm feeling a bit iffy about. They just look a bit... not right. The membrane at the fat end of the eggs (just before the air sac part) looks weird. Almost like there are burst blood vessels in there. I've marked those two, so I'll be able to tell them apart later on...

The ten on day 6 gave me a pleasant surprise. I wasn't expecting too much from them cause the oldest were a full fortnight old, but 9 of them are fertile. Woohoo!

So I've removed the infertile one, removed the turning rails and put the four prospective hatchers fat end up in an egg carton. These four had to cope with extra high humidity between days 3 and 10 due to my first six eggs being in lockdown, so from days 10-18 I took the water trays out completely to make sure they lost enough moisture. Humidity was running at 30-35% most days, and occasionally made it as high as 40%. I'm aiming for 80-85% for the next few days as I'm going to be opening the bator to hand turn the others four or five times a day, and I want to keep the humidity as high as possible in there.

This is getting exciting now!!!

Edited to add: The infertile one I removed wasn't infertile after all. I cracked it into my dogs bowl and it was a goopy liquid yolk with strings of blood in it. Blood ring! Yuk!

 

[Red&Yellow]

Oh so cool! I'll be watching

I resisted the urge to pop another egg in after day 3...maybe I shouldn't've?

 

[Gypsy07]

Quote:
If you've got your humidity problem sorted now you should get a pretty good hatch. A separate incubator and hatcher removes all the problems of different stage eggs needing different humidity so your hatch rate shouldn't be affected at all. I'd LOVE a separate bator to use as a hatcher but I couldn't find one going cheap enough. Good luck! When are yours due to hatch then?