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

[chickensnbees]

Woke to my first pip and of course, it's on the wrong end. Looks like the chick knicked a vein, but not a big one and it's cracked away a good chunk of shell and I could see it's little beak moving and hear it peeping a bit. Here's hoping it gets the rest of hatching figured out cause I'll be at work all day and won't be back to help it until dinner time. I've never had a wrong end pipper before, but this is also my first time turning by hand, so the eggs were incubating on their sides instead of small end down in the auto-turner. Wonder if that had anything to do with it. I'll check on it again before I leave for work to see if it's made any progress. Several other eggs rocking in there, but so far, all the early action is from my mille fleur d'uccles. Nobody else is doing anything just yet, but it's only the morning of day 20.

I had one pip the wrong end on my hatch yesterday. It actually pipped Sunday and zipped yesterday from bottom to top the long way! It came out great and is going strong this morning. Crossing fingers hoping you have a fuzzy butt when you get home!

 

[chickenlisa]

And we were just STUMPS then! Didn't even have feet to put shoes on!

But seriously, my mother hatched her geese in the dishwarmer of her mothers firewood cookstove. The dishwarmer is the top cabinets and is heated by warm circulating water in a copper pipe that is kept hot by the firebox. One similar to this:

I LOVE this old stove/oven....I wish we had one like it now(along with my modern one though.) It has such character!

 

[Penny Hen]

I LOVE this old stove/oven....I wish we had one like it now(along with my modern one though.) It has such character!

You should see some of the ones that are new. Rocket red enamel and chrome!

 

[thowe]

I LOVE this old stove/oven....I wish we had one like it now(along with my modern one though.) It has such character!

I love the look of the old stove too, but I would guess you may have to be a talented cook to use that thing

 

[chickenlisa]

You should see some of the ones that are new. Rocket red enamel and chrome!

Cool! I should! It would go with my washer and dryer- both RED!!!

 

[ronott1]

Oh you kids today with your fancy closets, when I was your age we had to incubate in a cardboard box, with a light bulb and a pie pan of water, and we were thankful. (I kid, I kid, I'm guessing ronott1 and I are about the same age, he might be a tad younger.

)

 

[Kismet]

One of my two broodies keeps changing nests. I finally took her eggs away, and fired her. I candled all the eggs accumulated. There were the original nine (marked with an X), plus seven others. I put two good eggs under the other broody (a loyal Welsumer) and four others (they had moving chicks inside) in my incubator. The clear eggs I boiled up to make egg salad . . . or chicken food, depending.

I figure they are on about Day 10, judging the size of the embryo. I get irritated with broodies that attack, leaving scars, defend their nest, but are wishy-washy and won't stay in one place.

 

[melina90]

OK too much late night caffeine is being blamed for the following ramble but I am just too curious to know if anyone else gets a charge out of this idea.

You know one of these years wouldn't it be great to coordinate a Grand Egg Road Trip. It would be laid out kind of like how the Olympic torch is passed along but it will make a loop. Participants can be drivers or egg donators. You definitely would have to donate some kind of service or goods to be a recipient of eggs. And hook up major sponsors like TSC and Brinsea and others with Poultry stuff. Shoot, see if National Geographic would film the journey! Make it so big that it sets a record for something NEVER done before! Get some of these handyman engineers to trick out a trailer to hold the eggs at the optimum temperatures and a system to prevent jarring (like maybe hammocks) That way they don' have to be unloaded from one vehicle to the next, just hitched to a new one at the tag point. And you could hold more eggs that way......YEEESSSS!  

That sounds pretty awesome!! But I can't stop thinking disease when eggs are moved from one flock to another, and the vehicle should probably be disinfected between every stop...

 

[chicken pickin]

That sounds pretty awesome!! But I can't stop thinking disease when eggs are moved from one flock to another, and the vehicle should probably be disinfected between every stop...

I was thinking the same thing.

 

[melina90]

Hospital waiting room selfie (just doing preops for total hip replacement)! They're so delayed, and I really don't have time for this - I have eggs to turn! Lol.