The 4th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long

[mlm Mike]

My turkey hatch, which started Thursday, is still going on. I'm up to 8 poults hatched, 1 currently working on it, 2 pipped but now appear to have died (we've had company and I haven't spent much time watching the last day and a half). Chicks I have 3 out, one pipped on wrong end but close to the middle and 2 just sitting there.

 

[rarebear]

At last I am seeing some progress. I have the one polish that hatched last night, one Barnevelder hatched this afternoon with 2 more coming. Also have 2 cream legbars just pip but with no other action for the past few hours..is this ok? I am still waiting on another 25 eggs...that were set exactly 21 days ago at this time. I have a fortune invested in these shipped eggs...fingers crossed. This is the Polish and the Barnevelder. The cloudy photo is the Polish after hatching yesterday...she kept falling onto her back and looked dead.

 

[RedBugPoultry]

It shows you started with 49.

Thank you for finding that--bummer! Twenty no shows....Well, it could have been worse.

 

[xiamenmom]

Nothing happening here. Afraid this will be the second broody hen this season to set for three weeks for nothing

 

[chickenpooplady]

Congrats to everyone that has chicks! I still don't even have a pip.

 

[18Peeps]

3 Marans and 5 Amercaunas went into lockdown (all shipped eggs). 4 Amercaunas have hatched between yesterday afternoon at 2pm and before 4am this morning, but not a peep or wiggle from the other 4 eggs (1 Amercauna, 3 Maran). Is it normal that eggs sitting in the same incubator would have such wildly different hatch dates? I have such a bad feeling about them. When candling day 18, only 3 of the 5 Amercaunas seemed to be moving around. It was hard to see anything happening/moving in the Maran eggs, although they definitely appeared very developed.

The shipped eggs were originally set March 9th around midnight in a styrafoam incubator. The eggs all lost either just over 12% of their original shipped weight or just at 12% (Marans were larger eggs and did lose barely 12%). They have all been in the same box running at 99.5-100.5 for the whole hatch, with humidity between 25%-45% for days 1-18 and with humidity of around 55% for the last 3 days. Our elevation here is about 800ft, so we are not at high altitudes. The box remained closed until just today to take out the 4 fluffies and move the quickly to a brooder box (lid open maybe 1 min. max). I did notice when the chicks hatched they walked over the tops of their unhatched friends a little. Would this cause the other not to hatch? It did wiggle the eggs a little, but didn't send them rolling accross the incubator or anything.

Since all the others have pipped and unzipped, is it too early to tell if others should be doing the same? Is it time for the float test? If so, how violently would they wiggle if they were alive and would they wiggle at all if they were napping? Right now I'm just waiting to see if they move. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[Contrastphoto]

My hatch is finished! 17 out of 52 eggs.... Not so good, but I only one out of the 27 broody eggs hatched.

I think it was just a little cold at night for the eggs to hatch. I just added a roosters a few weeks before the hatch and I don't think the eggs where fertile yet. I know eggs can say fertile for several weeks after the rooster is gone, but how long does it take to get fertile eggs?

My shipped eggs from Lark Rise did incredible! 14 out of 16 shipped eggs hatched in the incubator. The best hatch I have had on shipped eggs!

Here are a few pictures their cute fuzzy butts!



I ended up giving the chicks to the broody mama with one baby! She is doing wonderful with them.

 

[18Peeps]

I'm sure it's early yet! Hang in there...it's early yet, right? 21-25days . I'm holding onto that hope myself! I have had 4 pip and unzip, but there is nothing coming from the other 3.

 

[Daniel1974]

I only get to eat a bunch of good food if I cook it, and at this point it's

WELL....I don't have enough bad words for the news I have to give.

When I was down there last I bumped one of the setting hooks on my incubator, and since they have butterfly lock-nuts, it oughtn't have mattered...and I couldn't see that I made any change...it requires you to really turn it to make changes. It's not sensitive like the dials on LGs or anything like that. Fortunately (most of the time) this is an antique Sportsman older than I, and it's robust and not wimpy in any way.

Unfortunately, this incubator has seen so many owners and uses that the threads on my top temp thermostat wafer have been nearly stripped, and when I bumped it the setting was changed by about, oh...




















12 degrees.


I pulled them all out and put them on the cold concrete floor of my basement to cool them as quickly as possible. I had 3 pipped, and one seemed to be alive, but no peeping. I carefully popped the top of the egg with my flashlight and opened a hold int north pole. It was pipped and breathing, shallowly. No blood in the veins, so I pulled it upright so it could cool to a livable temp quickly. I placed it back in the now cooler incubator.

I eggtopsied all of the 74 other eggs for this hatch date carefully, and there was another pip that was alive but still lots of blood in the membrane, so I put it back in. There were another 4 or 5 that were still alive, but weakly. I left them, as well. I left any that still had a chalky membrane, despite no signs of life. There were maybe 8. The rest had gone. It was awful.

I also had over 200 other eggs I'd set Monday. I have poor hopes for those but will leave them and candle later.

Very bad words. I had some amazing eggs in there. Amazing.

I was going to set some auctions tonight, but I'll be setting all of the eggs instead.

So sorry to hear that.

 

[Blarneyeggs]

Yes, I have seen them like that too. The ecoglow helps them because they stand up to push their back up into the heat. Tomorrow or the next day you won't even notice the leg problem.

guess ill break out the ecoglow immediately, thank you!

Blarney what does it do when you lift it? hang its legs? does it move them at all?

Sally, they move and wriggle the legs while I've been taping, and re~taping them.