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

[SoManyHats]

Sorry, I was out at the movies!

It was God is not Dead. Great movie too.

For resting in the incubator, big end it, it depends on the air cell damage. And if the yolk looks scrambled.

Three to five days usually. I do not really have a set date--the candler is your friend for this.

Scrambled yolk? What does that look like?

 

[mlm Mike]

Cracking up that you caught that math error! Lol. I had a friend give me MW turkey eggs a few weeks ago, they are in the bator now and due to hatch next week.

I have a first time broody Wyandotte in my main coop. I wanted to give her eggs for this hatch along, got a brooder set up, waited till it was dark enough outside and....promptly fell asleep. Arrrrgh! Will have to try again tonight.

Good luck getting those eggs under her.

First hatch for me and I have managed to come up with a couple of questions. more to follow im sure however I'm trying to stay current on the threads and soak up the knowledge. Lets start with humidity. I have a little giant still air that I added a fan to. I plan to use a automatic turner also. So I set everything up and had it running tues after a decent amount of tinkering I got the temp to stabilize at 99.4 for about 24hrs. Humidity however was around 10% and that had me a worried so I added water to 2 of the channels in the bottom and allowed it to stabilize. 12 hours later temp was down to 88 and humidity was 81%. decided that was way too high and read on here to not use the channels so I dumped the water back out. Bring it around full circle and I'm back to a dry incubator sitting at 99.5 degrees with 19% humidity for the past 20ish hours. Am I ready to set tmrw morning or do I need to bring the humidity up a bit more. 2nd questions is candling prior to incubation I shouldn't see anything but a clear egg correct? I'm sure its something that comes with practice but not really sure what I should see. I have 12 splash orpington, 12 partridge plymouth rock, and 12 mystery eggs that were purchased local a week ago. All of these appear to have aircells and based on pictures and information posted earlier appear to be normal. I have 5 eggs from my bantam easter eggers that don't appear to have aircells at all? Thank You In Advance and have a good day.

I'm not familiar with that incubator. But you will want the humidity higher. I'm not certain how we get there. I don't know if you saw it, but a while back ronott1 posted a photo of little plastic cups with lids. He had slits in them, each one of these brought the humidity up 5%.

 

[chickenlisa]

Reminder:

Alright, now we are to that time when we need to start recording egg numbers.




When you are finished setting ALL of your eggs, please post in this thread, how many total eggs you set for this Hatchalong. (anything +/- 2 days from set day counts)




If you ended up not setting any eggs, please also let us know, so we can record it and know when the count is done.

If you can, post pictures of the eggs you set. (Because we all love looking at pretty eggs in an incubator) If you have a broody, don't worry about it unless you take the picture before you give them to your broody.​

If you could also give us the total number you set, it would be helpful. It's a manual process to record this for us, there are over 300 participants and 3 of us. It would help us greatly if we didn't have to add up each individuals number set. Although we are interested in the breeds you set, please include the total number somewhere. Thank You!

I set (yesterday afternoon because most of them arrived on Wednesday..and the last box arrived on Thursday) anyways: 11 Silver Birchen eggs, 12 Speckled Sussex eggs, and 14 assorted others (mostly Marans) for a total of 37 eggs for the Easter Hatch-A-Long. They are just incubating at temp right now..with no turning or water added. I want air cells to have a chance to settle for the 1st week, since the one box came with a badly broken egg. I am worried about the rest of those eggs' air cells. I tried to candle them but couldn't see well. Happy Hatch-A-Long everyone!
I also woke up to 6 OE chicks hatched for my March test hatch. 2 more eggs to go and the BCM egg has a big pip. Pics soon... No kittens yet though.

 

[MontanaDolphin]

As far as counting for the hatch a long either day is fine. I don't know how the cross would impact incubation time.

Yeah, I knew they count...but I'm wondering if I set them today with the others, that lockdown will be too late for those serama/serama mixed eggs...if they hatch two days earlier than the rest, shouldn't that mean they should go into lockdown two days early???

 

[draye]

Set my eggs yesterday.
96 total.
17 Wheaten Ameraucana
54 Easter Eggers
15 Naked Neck
7 Light Brahma
3 Blue Copper Marans

 

[mlm Mike]

I set (yesterday afternoon because most of them arrived on Wednesday..and the last box arrived on Thursday) anyways: 11 Silver Birchen eggs, 12 Speckled Sussex eggs, and 14 assorted others (mostly Marans) for a total of 37 eggs for the Easter Hatch-A-Long. They are just incubating at temp right now..with no turning or water added. I want air cells to have a chance to settle for the 1st week, since the one box came with a badly broken egg. I am worried about the rest of those eggs' air cells. I tried to candle them but couldn't see well. Happy Hatch-A-Long everyone!
I also woke up to 6 OE chicks hatched for my March test hatch. 2 more eggs to go and the BCM egg has a big pip. Pics soon... No kittens yet though.

Thank you and good luck! Looking forward to the pics.

Yeah, I knew they count...but I'm wondering if I set them today with the others, that lockdown will be too late for those serama/serama mixed eggs...if they hatch two days earlier than the rest, shouldn't that mean they should go into lockdown two days early???

I see what you are saying. @Sally Sunshine has serama, maybe she can help.

 

[NotAFarm]

 

[uphilljill]

Congratulations on the hatch! You want to share how many and what you set for the hatch a long?




[COLOR=0000FF]For the HAL I set 12 GS line HBRs from Fred's Hens, 11 BRs from my breeding pair, and 4 MW turkey last week. 25 total.


I have 12 Salmon Faverolles, 5 BYMs, and 4 BRs in the hatcher now.[/COLOR]


 

Great, I kind of wish I would have kept a breeding pair of MW! Do you mean 27 ?

Cracking up that you caught that math error! Lol. I had a friend give me MW turkey eggs a few weeks ago, they are in the bator now and due to hatch next week.

I have a first time broody Wyandotte in my main coop. I wanted to give her eggs for this hatch along, got a brooder set up, waited till it was dark enough outside and....promptly fell asleep. Arrrrgh! Will have to try again tonight.

Lol. Usually I'm a bit better at simple arithmetic, but I haven't slept much the past few days due to kidding season. Good thing M is on the job!

Woke up this morning to find 3 chicks hatched and 5 more pips out if 20 eggs in the hatcher. Probably not gonna be able to sleep tonight either. Babies are so exciting!

 

[pickitfarm]

WHAT DAY IS IT.....COME ON, COME ON - YOU ALL KNOW......WHAT DAY IS IT?!
EGG SETTING DAY!

 

[mlm Mike]

Yeah, I knew they count...but I'm wondering if I set them today with the others, that lockdown will be too late for those serama/serama mixed eggs...if they hatch two days earlier than the rest, shouldn't that mean they should go into lockdown two days early???

My quick internet search indicates lockdown is still day 18.

And the hatch between day 18-21. Hopefully trusted source will be able to tell us how they do it.