The 4th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long

[acemario]

Question!!! So I set eggs at noon on March 9th, so lock down should have been yesterday at noon. I was out of town until 8:00 pm so I didn't lock down until then. I lowered the temperature as suggested in this forum and put in the water to raise the humidity right when I got home at 8:00. Then I went to bed and woke up to check the bator... the humidity is only peaking at 50%! (When I tested it before setting it was around 70%) And the temperature is at 96! What do I do? Do I open and add water/up the heat? or do I just wait and hope for the best?!? HELP!

 

[Gardeningmama]

Quote:
And The Mystery of The Red Block Has Been Solved! Thank You!

 

[noahsmom]

The Quote-a-thon begins! I've been so busy I have just updated about the eggs/chicks and not really replied to everyone else.

It home with the vitamins and the wry neck chick is perfect .... It seems to have more energy than any other! Both assisted chicks are perfect ( my little miracle babies)

See....?


The chick who spent the day in the cup is now walking around eating and drinking and staying upright. (See for yourself!)


I lost the silkie though

Now If I could only figure out how to help this one that flops around on its tummy helicoptering its legs and using its wings to move.... Any ideas?

I seen where you were able to help this baby, I just happen to quote this first and passed up the video - I did watch though and so great!!!

Ohh yes sometimes if I angle the flashlight just right I can get them to wiggle or can even make out aircells.

Me!I have 3 flash lights in there lol sometimes me and my son or me and my S.O. are in there peering in. I got in trouble last night because apparently I was shining the light just to close to the hatching baby and it was going to hurt his eyes

I've been keeping mine around 97 during lock down. So far so good.

Ok, so, how many people are sitting on their hands like good boys and girls? Ey? Not too much going on right now but watching the humidity. Although, I think I heard that someone had an early baby. I like to think at this point..day after tomorrow..I should see pips!

Nooo snow! Noooo rain~! Sunshine!! Cleaned out coops, and tomorrow we are going to hit the runs. Yaay, whew, we have been wanting to do this. Now it's dry enough to do it.

I'm trying to, It's hard!! lol I've got 8 silkie eggs left in the incubator and only 1 pip Today is day 22 for me.

Way to cute, Love all the different colors of the chickies!

I have cheeping coming from my bator!

That means tomorrow will be moving day for my juveniles and brooder cleaning day getting ready for the babies. That ought to keep me busy.

YAY!!!!!!

too far behind to catch up but I am going in lockdown tomorrow. I will candle, toss and post and update tomorrow.

Good luck to everyone!

Good Luck with your hatch!

Went into lockdown with the duckies and chickies! A little early for the chickies (I set late) but they should be ok. Can't wait to hear them peeping and see them hatch! So excited!

Aww, I would love to have ducks and watch them hatch, We have thought about ducks very seriously. Good Luck with your hatch!

Look what UPS dropped off just a while ago! My gift from winning in that fun contest that Sally put together..the funny posts..random post drawings..lucky me..tadpole sent me this beautiful cup. I love it! Thank you so much you two!

I love this cup, I have slowly began to collect rooster/chicken items for my kitchen, I really love a rooster/chicken themed kitchen. Congrats again on your win!

A friend of mine made these today. I thought the looked pretty neat. ...made with butterscotch, chow mein noodles, & Reese's eggs.

Okay, these look good and oh so cute, but the chow mein noodles, butter scotch and reeses eggs are just throwing me off taste wise. I would love to see a recipe to these to and just try them lol cause I have to know if they taste good!

Well Ladies and gents my official Lockdown number is 45 in the bator and 8 that I gave to my broody. that makes 53 out of 76 set making it to lockdown. I only had 3 quiters out of the 23 that got tossed the rest were clears. No pips yet but I am definatly getting excited reading about the pips going on out there.

post# 6666 maybe I need to hit the lottery.

YAY! Thats so exciting! Good Luck with your hatch!

I have a pip or two..one Blue Orp out..

woo hooo!! The fun has started..

Awesome! Won't be much longer now I can't wait until this weekend when everyone starts hatching, I will be glued to the computer I think lol

Had my first assist today. She pipped 2 days ago, but didn't manage to flake off the piece of shell. She had expended a lot of energy trying and this morning I flicked off that small piece of shell and cleared the nasty tan membrane away from her airway. When I came home from work, she hadn't really made any progress and the membranes were starting to get rather dry so I flicked off more pieces of shell and found that the membrane veins had receeded completely, but she was so tired. I opened a small hole and she stuck out a wing. I wet the membrane and opened up the hole a little more and out came her head. At that point, I set her down and let her do the rest in the bater (which took only a couple seconds). I picked her up to check navel, etc and was glad I did. She'd been in there so long she was about to have pasty butt and there was a big poo inside the shell. I wiped her clean and put her back in to dry off. She was alone in there so she was cheaping loud enough I could hear her in the other room. Once she was mostly dry, I stuck her in the nice warm brooder where she promptly went to the bottom of the sleeping chick pile and was happy as a clam. She's a loud little ball of fluff, but appears to be doing great. I am very very happy I read the entire assist thread before starting my hatch!

Aww, so glad you helped, I really loved reading your detailed story as well. My first one was so loud as well, Like I said on this thread when it first hatched (day early) it wasn't cheeping or peeping it was SCREAMING lol...He was running around playing soccer with the eggs! Good Luck with the rest of your hatch!

This is one of the Bates line RIR's from Ron Fogel:

Beautiful! He has wonderful RIR's...I have 10 HRIR's from Horstman Poultry in my brooder I will have to post some pics soon of them.

23 eggs locked down tonight and happily placed into their little egg cartons. Let the pacing, drinking and staring at the incubator begin! Luckily I have Friday off from work so I can really obsess over it.

Had 4 duds that I removed. A couple others are suspect, but I'm having trouble candling some of the darker eggs.

I should have taken pictures, we had our cochin Roo out in the yard earlier tonight letting our younger aussie Ellie practice herding. It was a pretty funny sight. I think we have us chicken herder in the making. We tried with our tom turkey over the weekend and well, that didn't work out so good. He had enough of it and when I made Ellie lay down Jasper decided to get her back, jumped on top of her and started stomping. I'm guessing Ellie won't be getting as close to him anymore.

LOL, I hear ya! There was definitely some of all of those things the past 2days, although I really don't drink much, only a drink here and there when S.O. is drinking his.
And that's a cute story lol I would have LOVED to see that, poor little Ellie, I doubt she will mess with the big bad turkey hehe

One of my duck eggs is starting to pip! This is my first time trying duck eggs, we'll see what happens

Yay! make sure to post pics, I love to see baby ducks!

Good Luck with your hatch!

First baby just popped out! This baby has some lungs!

My first baby had a set of lungs too lol its so funny.

Well, I locked down the 'bator after actually candling 3 of the 24 eggs and removing 1.

The first one I selected was the one I removed. Little or no development. So I candled a second egg; dunno 'bout air cells or anything, but the egg was clearly full of chick. So was the next egg.

Good enough for me. Unplugged the turner cradle, upped the humidity percentage to trigger the humidity pump, and walked away.

Because Sparkle the house Silkie is raising her chicks in the brooder bin under the incubator table, I will start the obsessive nose-pressing during the day.

YAY, Good Luck with your hatch! Does sparkle really live indoors? or is she just brought indoors when brooding?
I just don't know how I would feel about a live in chicken lol

GOOD MORNING EVERYONE !!! It's Thursday! I hope you guys have a great day!

Good Morning! Hope you have a great one too!

35 of 51 made it to lock down yesterday but some of those are suspect quitters. My temp dropped to 97 during the night. Does this mean trouble?????

That's not a bad number! and from what I'm reading temp is less important at this point, it's huidity that is the BIG worry now. Of course, I'm sure temp high and lows for to long could mean trouble. I bet things are fine.
I hope you have a great hatch!

Candled my Buckeyes, Marans, and d'Uccle eggs this morning before putting them in the hatcher. I had 6 clear or almost clear Buckeyes that had to go...bummer, and 3 BC Marans and 1 d'Uccle. Gosh, now I do not remember how many I set. I will have to go count at some point but I know I had posted it somewhere on here. A number of the Buckeyes look to have stopped developing, the bummer of shipped eggs, but left them in just in case. This is going to be an eggciting weekend!

Good Luck with your hatch! and I know I started with 33 and now have 22 (14 of those in the brooder) and at first I was SO confused on my numbers lol

Woke to a surprise

Bobwhite number one. Two days early. And a few more pips.

YAY! Good Luck with the rest of your hatch!

Just locked down! About two hours early, but I wanted to get it done before little people began stirring.

Pulled one quitter I'd been suspecting for a while, there's a couple I still suspect, but was unwilling to pull. Was so glad to see almost all had good looking air cells, as I'd worried a little that they may be a touch small. Whoo hoo! Nose pressing time!

LOL! Nose pressing time, love it.
I know what you mean, I have a 5year old and when I'm trying to do anything he makes me a nervous wreck lol he's not meaning to and he really isn't doing anything wrong, it's just I'm ALREADY a nervous wreck and he want's to be right into it with me. He had some real fun watching the eggs hatch yesterday, we all got to watch several hatch one after the other, it was great.

I had no idea about this hatch a long, but by coincidence just happened to set some eggs in the incubator--and when I checked dates, they will be Easter babies.

We set 17 eggs. They are all barnyard mixes. Our incubator is homemade, and we moved it to a better location this year (our basement, instead of the garage) and wanted to test it to make sure it's working properly before we order those expensive Marans eggs I've been drooling over.

As far as hatch rate--if I get as much as 50%, I'll be thrilled. After all, first hatch in a homemade bator in a new location...

What fun!

Good Luck with those Maran eggs!!

Hoping you get at least your 50%, I;ve read too that they can be hard.

I HEARD CHEEPING!!

Today is day 19. My guess is that my EE's are going to hatch early (day20?), and my BR's are going to be right on time possibly even late (at least that's my best guess by what I saw while candling. There was still space left in the BR's but the smaller EE's are fully dark)... and today I heard the tiniest, cutest, little CHEEPING!! No rush to come out kiddos... take your time & be healthy!

Awesome, Hope you have a great hatch!!

It's so exciting!

well had to cull my early hatcher, realized too late he had membrane stuck to half his face think a lack of Oxygen hurt his brain oh well still have two serama eggs in lock down, gosh those suckers are hard to hatch!

I'm so sorry!

I hope both of your seramas left hatch for you and are happy healthy babies!!

 

[Time-Out]

Of course they're loud because I'm actually gonna keep one of those roos! Would it be any other way?

It's funny, though, when you see roos for sale. 99% of the time, the advert states that they either crow quietly or haven't started yet. That's the case over here, anyway. I think it came about after the advent of the favourite question by citiots: "does he have a loud crow?" If you need to ask that question, you probably shouldn't be thinking about keeping a cockerel...

I have you all beat on crowing. I have the BYC record crower...................at 1 DAY old. (his daddy started crowing at 4 days old) Check it out:

It is interesting to read different information regarding hatching. I have read clinical studies that said the temperature at the end of hatch can go down with each day, ending at 95 degrees at hatch. One study had them hatching better at 97.5. There was a post yesterday that said hatcheries have to cool down large hatches or they would get too hot from the heat they generate.

The home stead chart that I use says to hatch at a degree lower than incubating. I have been hatching at 98.5 lately and they have had no intestinal problems.

I don't change the temp for hatching. It stays at 100 and haven't had any issues either. It's hard to say what to do best in the face of everyone's different experiences. My dad's favourite expression (when it suits him) is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". Maybe we should all continue doing as we have done until something does go wrong. It would be hard to point to the end temp as being the sole cause, though...

 

[CayuseRanch]

I am now remembering that during last years Easter hatch I had decided that the next time I did the hatch a long I was going to set a few days early so when everyone else is getting pips, peeps, and chicks, I would worry sitting here with mada movement or pips. So if one of you kind fellows would remind me next next year I would be much obliged.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Look what UPS dropped off just a while ago! My gift from winning in that fun contest that Sally put together..the funny posts..random post drawings..lucky me..tadpole sent me this beautiful cup. I love it! Thank you so much you two!

Beautiful!

A friend of mine made these today. I thought the looked pretty neat. ...made with butterscotch, chow mein noodles, & Reese's eggs.

Looks delicious!

Quote: Yay!

I
It might be splayed leg after all?
She's sporting the oh so fashionable prosthetic I made to help her get some traction with her feet and actually move when she flails like that. she seems to be trying to sit up a little bit. Help me improve this please.... She's the sweetest little thing, so I want her to make it if there is any way possible...

Yes, that's spraddle leg (also called splay leg). See here for treatment/directions under leg hobbles:
https://sites.google.com/a/larsencreek.com/chicken-orthopedics/leg-braces

Quote: Yes, you can share it with your friends.

Quote: Good call. The yolk sac can rupture scooting on the wire. But also, the other chicks can peck at it too. It should dry up and fall off on it's own.

Quote: Give them the vitamins anyway.

This is one of the Bates line RIR's from Ron Fogel:

Adorable!

One of my duck eggs is starting to pip! This is my first time trying duck eggs, we'll see what happens

35 of 51 made it to lock down yesterday but some of those are suspect quitters. My temp dropped to 97 during the night. Does this mean trouble?????

Just get it back up to temp and you'll probably be fine.

I had no idea about this hatch a long, but by coincidence just happened to set some eggs in the incubator--and when I checked dates, they will be Easter babies.

We set 17 eggs. They are all barnyard mixes. Our incubator is homemade, and we moved it to a better location this year (our basement, instead of the garage) and wanted to test it to make sure it's working properly before we order those expensive Marans eggs I've been drooling over.

As far as hatch rate--if I get as much as 50%, I'll be thrilled. After all, first hatch in a homemade bator in a new location...

What fun!

Welcome!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Congrats to all you that have pips and/or chicks hatching! (I wasn't going to quote everyone!)

I had 2 pips last night and this morning I have 6 pips. All barnevelders so far.

 

[Gardeningmama]

Congrats to all you that have pips and/or chicks hatching! (I wasn't going to quote everyone!)

I had 2 pips last night and this morning I have 6 pips. All barnevelders so far.

x2

 

[mbmess2003]

congrats to everyone that has the hatching process started! i heard peeping from under my broody hen that was sitting on some Icelandic eggs. Can't wait to get home from work and take a peek this evening.

 

[misskeeter]

Congrats to all you that have pips and/or chicks hatching! (I wasn't going to quote everyone!)

I had 2 pips last night and this morning I have 6 pips. All barnevelders so far.

Thanks for the link. Looking now.

And yes, I'm giving the vitamins anyway.