The 5th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[Cynthia12]

Please ignore previous question. She passed on her own. I made her as comfy as I could. Put her on a soft baby blanket beside me on my bed and pet her. It seemed to calm her some. Thank you guys for all the help with her. Especially @Cynthia12 , who stayed up helping me multipule nights.

 

[Cynthia12]

Good morning everyone!! I hope you all have an awesome day!! Remember what this day is truly about!

Back at ya again.. And, Amen to remembering what this day is truly about.

 

[SilkieSensation]

HAPPY EASTER!

I have 2 turkeys hatched this morning. Duckies are pipped. Looks like my hatches are running a day or 2 behind the expected dates, but still not bad. I'll get a total count once the last batch (due Mon 21st) finishes hatching.

 

[wolftracks]

Over 1450 in posts again before I could get in here. That seems to be the number lately. My floor is full of candy, toys and baskets. OMG!!!


Sooooo, I did see that some had some early hatches. Not me!

Looks like yesterday was a great hatch day. Not for me!

I woke up to the Sportsman down to 40% and my heart dropped. Another horrible hatch. Grabbed a cup of water to add and opening up the bator after shining a light in and seeing nothing. There's still a lots of eggs in there. I forgot to count what's left. I used strawberry containers ti separate breeds. Added water and shined the light back across the top of the containers and saw feet wiggling from out of an egg. Since I used the Sportsman this time I had to grab out a bunch of containers to get to it. Thought it was the only one that hatched and would probably lose it to, but I got him out of the shell pretty easy. It was drying up around him and he was peeping like crazy with his feet out and beak barely to the side. Went to put him back in and heard more peeping and I have 2 Black Mottled Japs out. My only yellow chicks right now. So I don't know if I've killed them all off with that open door, but so far I didn't get ZERO! That's a plus. Now if more will just hatch. I need to sell chicks to buy more feed.

Here chicky chicky!!!!!!!

 

[servpolice]

Happy easter peeps

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

Over 1450 in posts again before I could get in here. That seems to be the number lately. My floor is full of candy, toys and baskets. OMG!!!


Sooooo, I did see that some had some early hatches. Not me!

Looks like yesterday was a great hatch day. Not for me!

I woke up to the Sportsman down to 40% and my heart dropped. Another horrible hatch. Grabbed a cup of water to add and opening up the bator after shining a light in and seeing nothing. There's still a lots of eggs in there. I forgot to count what's left. I used strawberry containers ti separate breeds. Added water and shined the light back across the top of the containers and saw feet wiggling from out of an egg. Since I used the Sportsman this time I had to grab out a bunch of containers to get to it. Thought it was the only one that hatched and would probably lose it to, but I got him out of the shell pretty easy. It was drying up around him and he was peeping like crazy with his feet out and beak barely to the side. Went to put him back in and heard more peeping and I have 2 Black Mottled Japs out. My only yellow chicks right now. So I don't know if I've killed them all off with that open door, but so far I didn't get ZERO! That's a plus. Now if more will just hatch. I need to sell chicks to buy more feed. 

Here chicky chicky!!!!!!!

Go chicks go!

 

[tnmommy]

Congrats to all with successful hatches! I have 12 chicks rocking in the shells. Hope I have pips when I get home.

 

[CGinJCMO]

I give up trying to catch up with this thread. LOL

Here's my number for the HAL totals: 17 chicks hatched

My hatch is finished. I set 56 eggs total. 16 were BLRW bought local and set on Thursday: the rest were my hens' eggs set on Saturday, Sunday(2) & Monday(3). Of the BLRW, 5 hatched - one with yolk still out. It died, but not after it crawled all over all the other eggs making them dirty and maybe affecting the rest of the hatch. Of my barnyard easter eggers, I had 13 hatch. Of the 17 that made it to the brooder, and the cat knocking the screen off and making the waterer spill, I still have 15 chicks remaining - one BLRW and one EE died from being wet and cold.

If I have this kind of luck with locally "ship" eggs (I transported them), how am I suppose to expect anything better when it's shipped by people (a.k.a. USPS) that won't carefully handle my precious eggs like I did? This was only about 30% hatch rate. I'm kinda disappointed because last month I had 72% and I wasn't able to check on things over the evenings or weekends (school/classroom incubation). Not that I did anything different at home (no tweaking of the knob, just adding a little water if it was reading a little low just like at school) but right before lockdown my temperatures did spike up to 104. I just don't know for sure what went wrong. Most of the eggs that went to lockdown had fully developed chicks in the eggs. Most of them seem to have died without breaking the inner membrane; a few, had internally pipped but didn't try for the shell.

This incubation I did run an experiment. I found the mass of each egg before incubating, wrote it on the egg, and waited to see if there was a size that was too small or too big for good hatching. Since I had such a poor hatch rate, I don't know if my results will be valid or not. In case anyone else wants the data and conduct their own experiments here's what happened. BTW, absolutely no assistance allowed, eggs were rotated during days 1-18 thoughout the incubator so hot/cool spots could be eliminated twice per week, most eggs were in a turner, and a PC fan added to still air stryrofoam incubator. I noted the egg shell color as well as the color of the chick in case darker shell or darker chicks absorbed or retained more heat and possibly affect hatch rates (but something that could skew results - I did not have an equal number of light eggs and dark eggs).

Egg hatching order:
b=blue egg, c=cream colored egg . . . mass (grams) of egg at beginning . . . color of chick w=white/cream d=dark black/brown

Day 1
b 51.2g w
c 67.7g w
b 51.6g w
b 55.4g d
b 52.7g d
c 54.5g w
Day 2 (first two chicks came out overnight and not sure which one's first)
b 56.2g w
c 62.3g w
c 65.3g w
b 53.4g d
Day 3 (again overnight and not sure which chick came out of which egg but I had one light colored and one dark colored chick)
b 53.2g
b 50.4g
c 58.? (couldn't read the decimal number-smeared) light chick

Well, I'm off to take a nap. Now to wait for everyone's totals, raise up these chicks until I can figure out boy/girl, then raise until butchering (boys) or egg laying (girls). Maybe I'll try again in the fall (depending upon how well the roosters behave) or see if another teacher would like to have eggs in the class room this spring.

CG

 

[Arielle]

Quote:

If the membrane is not white, the chick is stuck.

So what should I do? I see veins, so I'm afraid to help her.

If the vein are very easy to see-- wait until they become very fine and very difficult to find. You can open the shell a bit for good breathing .

Quote: My LG fluctuates in temps-- I used to track the high and low air temps. THe 106 scared me. In reality it didn't mean the egg temps were getting that high, just the air temps. I stopped measuring the highs since I got good hatches. I take the average of several readings. Sorry this did n't work out for you-- try again?? Perhpas use a water weasel thing.

Quote:

Mine aren't due until tomorrow but I think I've really messed them up... But miracles do happen

Miracles do happen!! Marans are famous for being late, perhaps other breeds are too. A slighly low temp also delays the hatch. Good luck -- they'll be here. Tomorrow is my hatching day.

Our first try at incubation for an Easter hatch and all was going splendidly.My friend gave us 22 beautiful eggs, a mix of barred rock, Rhode Island Reds, and Black stars. Of the 22 eggs 21 were fertilized.. Last saturday however, one of the kids friends messed with the incubator and turned temps up to 110! So bummed, nothing hatching, we were holding out hope but I think we will have to try again and tape the knob down. Instead, being the mom I am I went and bought my children some welsummer/maran chicks and some silkies. I did not want tears on Easter, but I feel awful for all the little babies that didn't make it. Praying everyone else is having a better hatch day/weekend

Oppps----

Good momma to go get chicks!

I started with 36 eggs and put 26 eggs under three broodies after 14 days in a still air LG. The development was very inconsistent in the eggs. I believe it is due to the temperature variation within the incubator and the fact that I was out of town and my DH elevated the incubator from side to side to "turn" the eggs instead of opening it and hand turning. The titling caused the temperatures to vary from 103 on the "high" side of the incubator to 93 on the side that was not elevated. I should have just put the eggs under the broodies before leaving but I didn't want the hens sitting on anything I didn't know was developing well. Live and learn........
So far, there are 8 chicks out.....I didn't set them in the incubator until late evening on the 29th. With the temp problems, I'll give them some more time but it isn't looking good....
I'll post final numbers tomorrow after I see if any late bloomers show up.

I stopped turning that way when the temp readings showed exactly that effect. Hand turning each one is a labor of love. Hope you have a few late bloomers.

Quote: Goooooooo chickies!!

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

...

Miracles do happen!! Marans are famous for being late, perhaps other breeds are too. A slighly low temp also delays the hatch. Good luck -- they'll be here.

Mine are smaller Polish mix. But I think my temps were around 98 or so....
So yeah...