Starting staggered hatching adventure

WVduckchick · Mar 20, 2018

Redhead Rae said:
I want to hatch every Dark Cornish egg that hits the ground. I want to start a breeding/food generation program

I have a starter incubator and a lockdown incubator. The starter incubator is overflowing.

The influx of Banty Cochin/Chocolate Orp eggs were a bonus when I bought the Chocolate Orps from @WVduckchick and I wanted to hatch them because of the high probability that they will be broody birds. They threw a wrench into my plans.

Stack them?

I can always send your more bantam cochin eggs when you get room again.

You're starting the eggs in the new Ovation, right? Guess you can't stack them in there. My bad.

Maybe pick the 2 furthest along eggs and put them in lockdown early with the others?

Redhead Rae · Mar 20, 2018

WVduckchick said:
I can always send your more bantam cochin eggs when you get room again.

It was the mix BCxCO that interests me really

I'm not sure that a bunch of tiny banties would do well with all my LF birds.

WVduckchick said:
You're starting the eggs in the new Ovation, right? Guess you can't stack them in there. My bad.

I might be able to find a corner, but I'm not sure about that yet.

WVduckchick said:
Maybe pick the 2 furthest along eggs and put them in lockdown early with the others?

I think I might do that. Better idea than risking all 6 early.

Redhead Rae · Mar 25, 2018

Ok, time to update!

I've about given up on the eggs that were supposed to hatch on Wednesday. I've candled them and there is no movement. Today is only day 25, so I'm going to wait until tomorrow to eggtopsy them.

On Wednesday, I moved 5 new Cornish eggs into my starter incubator. I was able to Squeeze 29 eggs into the incubator, so I only had to move one egg into the lockdown incubator early. I picked the BC/CO egg that looked least developed and therefore, least likely to hatch. On Friday, I moved the other 5 BC/CO eggs that are due tomorrow into the lockdown incubator. These eggs were started in the cheap incubator and were moved into the Brinsea after a week. So they had high humidity for the first week.

Today, I moved the 11 BC/CO and 4 Cornish eggs that are due to hatch on Wednesday into the incubator. I'm MUCH more hopeful about these 15 eggs than the 6 older BC/CO eggs. I candled them and they look MUCH more developed than the 6 eggs that are due to hatch tomorrow.

For example, this is an egg that is "due" tomorrow.

This is an egg that is "due" on Wednesday. There is a lot less clear space in this egg than the older egg.

Redhead Rae · Mar 26, 2018

I chucked my 5 mixed flock eggs this afternoon. Today was day 26 and they all looked dead; no movement, dispersing/bursting veins, extremely drawn down air cells.

None of the 6 BC/CO eggs that are due today hatched yet.