The 4th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long

[The Chickeneer]

Heres the dozen Pekin duck eggs I set. My Thermometer/Hydrometer has a jacked up screen lol...I can still kind of read it though.

 

[jksranch]

count me in I have 12 turken eggs and 8 buff lace brahmas due in the week and will set them Mar 9th

 

[RedIII]

Sounds like it. Now if one of my Games would go broody and not hide the nest, I'd stick eggs under her. They'll take off and come back with 8-15 chicks at a time. Where the heck to they keep 15? They aren't that big! Who knows how many they actually have??? I only realize they've taken off and 3 weeks and a couple of days later, I have a momma back, leading chicks to the feeders. LOL

I have an EE that's broody right now. She's half Leghorn, so not a big girl, by any means. She started with at least 12 eggs under her. She couldn't even sit on all of them! Greedy little girl. And an uncle of mine has an OEG pair.........the hen has hidden a nest right under the floorboards of the shed

I guess if you're small, you should use it to your advantage.

I did an eggtopsy on the cracked egg I confiscated from my broody. It wasn't developing at all, and the crack wasn't near as bad as some of the others I've seen. I stuck one of my Icelandic eggs under her to see if she'd take it, then noticed in the process that that one's cracked, too

So, down to six Icelandic eggs. Unless this one miraculously pulls through. Sigh. I'm sorry I'm grumpy.

 

[RedIII]

Okay, call me naughty if you must, but I did it. I switched out all of the eggs under my broody for the Icelandic eggs I had in the bator, then put the eggs she's been setting on in the bator to watch them

 

[Gardeningmama]

I'll be setting an undetermined # of Barnevelders, and 12+ Barred Cochins. Small hatch. I am seriously considering keeping my EE hen locked up for a few days so I can get some of her pretty blue eggs to set. Quirky girl is the only hen of mine that refuses to lay in the boxes. Still haven't found her new hiding spot.

 

[gryeyes]

I ordered Speckled Sussex eggs from two sources, and one source is adding some Orpington eggs -his choice- to the order. Both orders should be here by Friday to settle.

 

[Cynthia12]

I have an EE that's broody right now. She's half Leghorn, so not a big girl, by any means. She started with at least 12 eggs under her. She couldn't even sit on all of them! Greedy little girl. And an uncle of mine has an OEG pair.........the hen has hidden a nest right under the floorboards of the shed

I guess if you're small, you should use it to your advantage.

I did an eggtopsy on the cracked egg I confiscated from my broody. It wasn't developing at all, and the crack wasn't near as bad as some of the others I've seen. I stuck one of my Icelandic eggs under her to see if she'd take it, then noticed in the process that that one's cracked, too

So, down to six Icelandic eggs. Unless this one miraculously pulls through. Sigh. I'm sorry I'm grumpy.

Don't keep the cracked one there. )

 

[michaelf]

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE !!! its Monday:/ maybe another cup of coffee will perk me up. Did not sleep well... kept dreaming of my eggs hatching this week and setting this weekend . I guess you say... antsy! Hope everyone has a wonderful day !

 

[Time-Out]

Silkies are a bantam. Some raise them successfully with a LF flock. I personally would not. I have a separate building for bantams. I do however have my silkie chick in with other LF chicks. I have other silkies in the incubator and when they hatch all the silkie chicks will be together. When I do hatches, I will put new LF hatches in with silkies until they start to feather out. Silkies are good adopters to chicks.

You can get LF silkies too. I've had both and there's quite a size difference. I haven't had many as they're not my cup of tea, but the little silkie hen bantam we had was definitely cuter than the mean LF cockerel! She was like a little ball of cotton

Hoping to get some more eggs as I sold her last year.

So my broody I mentioned earlier is still definitely broody She is young so I hope she does well(she is about 8 months old) This is her first time hatching eggs. I took 3 infertile eggs out from under her last night that she has been sitting on for about 4 days and this morning placed 6 what I hope are fertile eggs from my own flock(limping rooster equals probably not too many fertile chickens). She was up stretching eating and drinking and when she returned to her nest looked at the eggs tapped one and then gently rolled it out of her nest. She tried to roll out a second egg but ended up keeping it. Any reason to why she would remove an egg? I tried to put it back in her nest and will go check on her shortly to see if she kept it.

I had to start early, too. The oldest of my eggs were 10 days old as of yesterday, and since I only got seven of them before I couldn't collect any more, I wanted to give them the best chance I could for hatching. I actually had nightmares last night that the hygrometer was reading something ridiculous like ".02543" and was panicking, THEN dreamed that all but two of my eggs had holes in them that I hadn't noticed before, so they were just yolk dribbling out......and THEN I dreamed that I accidentally broke my last two eggs open just by touching them and was trying to put the chicks back in because it was day 19. Ugh! *panic*

Sounds like some needs a cup of tea and a shoulder massage. Stop fretting lol Although, to be honest, I regularly go through periods of dreaming about chickens and have been known to get up at silly times in the night to check on eggs or look out the window.

I'm STILL catching up!! Missed the deadline to guess # eggs hatching, too! Darn. Oh well. At 230 people x 75 eggs = my guess, not official of course. Hard to make a prediction when the number of people joining in is not final. I'm too much of a numbers person to make a shot in the dark. lol

I played around with averages. I wouldn't have a clue what to guess if I didn't have something to go on. It makes it more fun playing with the numbers. Just don't tell my mum... I teased her about her calculations last year when I asked her to guess how many eggs would hatch out of the 114 I was setting. It was hilarious listening to her. The difference is, she's not very good at maths so hers made no sense whatsoever. It was a bit like this:

All those calculations and she comes up with 58 minutes! I hope to be that close with my guess lol

Oh man!! I really liked the sunshine!!!!!

So did I! So friendly!

I'll be setting an undetermined # of Barnevelders, and 12+ Barred Cochins. Small hatch. I am seriously considering keeping my EE hen locked up for a few days so I can get some of her pretty blue eggs to set. Quirky girl is the only hen of mine that refuses to lay in the boxes. Still haven't found her new hiding spot.

I've got a couple of hens locked up that were broody last year (when it was inconvenient). I'm hoping that with nothing better to do than sit on eggs, they'll get the hint. Feeling a little mean though

 

[noahsmom]

Those with auto egg turners, what do you do if you want to put a container or shot glass full of water in incubator? I tried bc even though I'm doing a dry hatch my humidity is going down to 16% ...always below 19%, their just isn't any room. Will a sponge last as long as a container? I don't want to keep having to open the bator up.