The 4th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long

[Happy Chooks]

Happy Spring
We should have informed the weather gods that today I'd the first day of spring. Woke up to 29* again this morning. AHHHHHHH

If I recall correctly Happy Birthday too for you? I think it was you that mentioned it's also your birthday.

Happy Chooks, where are you?
I want to thank you for your encouragement/instruction yesterday re: the slow hatch. I worked my rear off until time to go to sleep. I checked on the eggs one more time and thought I her a peep peep peep. Then nothing. I told myself I was just wishful thinking.
Then this morning, of course. nothing. So after feeding our 2 flocks I decided that this lot had quit.
I go and prepare myself (as a good little nurse), get alcohol, couple pair of tweezers, etc., deciding that I would go ahead and eggtopsy the eggs prior to my husband returning home tonight,..
NO Way!! A chick just started peeping, broke through and is in the hatching process right now.

WHEW! So excited.,.and it's from one of the smallest eggs that I was sure was a quitter????

Thanks so much for your encouragement/instruction! Like so many of you experienced BYC'er your advise and encouragement are priceless! I'll just continue to wait and see.
Anyone in my shoes, just hang in there if possible. Today was 4 1/2 from lockdown or day 22! Talk to you all soon!

Sorry - had a bunch of stuff in town today. I'm soooooooo glad you didn't open the eggs! Never do that until around Day 24. If they are hatching on Day 22 though, that means your temps are a bit low - next time increase the temperature a bit.

Hopefully by now you have a baby out!

??Question to anyone available??
This chick that's hatching, seems to be doing well, so far. Curious, the white membrane itself looks paper thin enough, however noticed that the actually membraned seems to be detaching clean from the egg shell as well? Is that normal? Humidity to high or low? Just wondering. It doesn't seem to be sticking to the chick. Thanks!

Perfectly normal.

my partridge silkie that hatched this morning! waiting on 2 more partridge silkies and a partridge silkie/EE cross!!

That chick is so dang adorable!

Just got back from the post office with my chick order... but they are the wrong chicks. I have already figured it out with the hatchery and they were great and easy to work with, but I thought it would be fun if everyone guessed what they were. (although what the hatchery says they are and what i think they are is still different- so this will be a fun experiment)

So many breeds have a pattern like that. I'd say Rhodebars, but Penedesencas and Cream Legbars are also really similar in pattern.

 

[angelobutter]

the hatchery doesn't breed penedesencas but they do have cream legbars- though i am still voting on rhodebars because they look so close or bielefelder, since that's what they said they were when i sent them the picture. guess we will find out when they grow up lol

 

[misskeeter]

Day 18 candle of a good egg developing

Pretty dark... Not much to see, but it's obviously developing and taking up space... It's wiggling like mad!

 

[Happy Chooks]

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[wolftracks]

Maglight pooed out half way through my eggs and I'm giving up on anything blue, green or brown unless I get something SUPER strong. So far though I pulled out one Lt Sussex , which I was hoping would develop since losing my roo, one BBS Sumatra and one Silver Phoenix. I have about 50 others that I'll be able to see through when I replace my mag, but out of 60 I did see through, pulling 3 ain't to bad! The breeds I'm not getting great fertility with those are the one's I still need to candle, so I'll hit the feed store tomorrow. They have a mag for 25 bucks and I bet that thing sees through walls!

The bad part of not pulling many eggs, is I was gone all weekend and I've been having to sell a ton of eggs, since I have hatches going and no room at the inn with the Sportsman. I still have eggs to sell. OMG!! Can't believe how many eggs these girls are spitting out right now. Now watch and I'll be complaining after this hatch that I'm not getting enough eggs. LOL

I've had some more humidity issues. I was away when my hatch was due and had to bring the humidty back up. Got 3 chicks and then started getting chicks so drenched they died trying to break out of the zip. So upset about that. Had almost given up hope for any more and one of the FBCMs just hatched, so maybe I'm at a point that humidity won't be so screwed up.

 

[delisha]

Quote: Pretty close to the Lake. Humidity is always high here. You use fans and I do not always use them. If I am using them I might have to add some water in winter. I always go by air cells. My house humidity is around 50%.

 

[misskeeter]

What would be the % humidity that you would try for this hatch? What was the rate for the one that was too high?
Newbies will benefit from this info.

I was following 50% humidity for that incubation... Half of the eggs that went into lockdown failed to hatch due to chicks drowning in the egg after they had internally pipped.

For this hatch, I only added water when it fell below 15% humidity for over 24 hours. My air cells look MUCH better this time. I weighed everything. I will post final lockdown weights in a few when I figure some percentages.

 

[misskeeter]

I think people are far too quick to toss eggs. What might be a blood ring could also be veining. And if any veining is visible the chick is still developing. The fact of matter is if the egg doesn't smell then there is no need to toss it. The fear of eggs exploding is real but very much overwrought for few occurances. Again, you can smell a bacteria filling egg long before it explodes.

Yep... I had one that had a blood ring, but the chick is still going strong, so I left it. The other two got blood rings, then the veins disappeared, then it got to looking quite nasty.

Looks like a vein. I don't toss blood rings unless I don't see veining at day 10. I've had chicks hatch fine with blood rings. I recently tossed a blood ring for having no veining at all. I always crack these open anyway to confirm.

Yep.. no veining is my big warning sign.

I guess it's not for everyone. I had 2 chicks like that. It was a great learning experience for me. Now I know that the humidity was too high at the end of hatch. For this hatch I can adjust the humidity at lockdown for a better hatch rate. To see the ones that fail, can help us determine ways to keep future chicks from the same fate sometimes. Just my 2 cents.

That's how I knew my humidity was too high... I am glad I did it, just don't know if I can again.. it was horrible for me.

in theory they are the same breed of chicken but are sexlinks so males look different than the females. oh an another hint- definitely a rare breed

They look just like my dark cornish when she was a chickie...

 

[debs_flock]

Since I'm pretty new to this forum AND this is my first time setting eggs I'm not really sure how a hatch-a-long works

I just realized last night that I had accidentally set for Easter chicks. haha. I just bought the incubator and put in 10 eggs for fun to see what I'd get, wasn't even sure if they were fertile. We have chickens from next door that lay in our barn for some reason. I've only seen one of them and she's a red hen of some sort (what breed or mix of breeds I have no clue.) I know there have to be at least two hens laying in there though because I usually have 2 eggs every day. The neighbors also have 3 roosters of unknown breeds (1 columbian colored, 1 black, and one I think is a buff orp) so these eggs are a total mystery to me.

I candled last night and ended up tossing 2 quitters, but the other 8 look good. I'm pretty excited to see what I get.

Congratulations and good luck with them!

 

[wildriverswolf90]

I have some chicks hatching underneath one of my bantam cochins, I wasn't expecting them until the 22nd today is my birthday so it turned out to be egg-cellenthide) birthday surprise.