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

[chicken pickin]

EVERYONE

angelobutter just donated 6 separate prizes from amazon for the Funny posting and Mini Contest fun night, Very generous and thank you so much from all the future participants!!!




Dance Party, here right now!!

OH WOW that is FANTASTIC!!!!! Thanks angelobutter!!!

 

[jbenson]

Test hatch about complete here. There are two remaining zippers and one just hatched baby in the 'bator. I checked for cheeping inremaining eggs this morning, 3 had externally pipped and the chick was living so I quickly put them back. Candled the remaining eggs (not externally pipped), didn't see very many internal pips. Opened a small hole in the air sac of each looking for a beak with the flashlight. Most of them were malpositioned, completely upside down and they had all passed. Did some eggtopsy to determine the exact issues. Most of them really were just upside down and either pipped into their yolk sac or just didn't try to pip at all. One had internally pipped into the air sac and just didn't externally pip and perished. Lost half of my blue/green eggs to malposition. Pretty sure it's caused by not good enough hand turning. There were some days I forgot to turn one of the times or the turns weren't very evenly spaced throughout the day. Didn't loose any of my d'Uccles though, which makes me very happy. The last one popped out a little bit ago. One of the crosses of one of my favorite little cross breed hens with the d'Uccle roo hatched last night and the other is zipping right now along with the last blue egg. I'll be setting d'Uccles for the easter hatch, but will be using the auto-turner this time. Given how cute these chicks all turned out and the contacts I've had for them already (posted them for sale last night), DH is thinking I should hatch like mad this year and sell a ton of chicks!!! HATCH ALL THE CHICKS! If I don't have enough d'Uccles to completely fill the turner, I will fill the remaining slots with blue eggs.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Ok quick question for everyone with a brinsea spot check. I ordered one last week got it yesterday for the coolerbator I built and I think the darn thing is broken. I put it in my brinsea 20 to test it's accuracy before putting in the cooler and the darn thing just sits there with an L on it. I read this indicates the temp is out of range for it to read but I know the brinsea20 is working just fine because I just pulled the last of my last sets out of it and they are hatching normally. Any insite would be greatly appreciated since I am not comfortable loading the cooler without a good accurate thermometer. I currently have an accurite in it that is reading 99 but do not wanna risk the Easter hatch!

I thought the same thing when I got mine. So much so that I thought I wasted my money and didn't use it for about 3 hatches. If I did get it to read it disagreed with all my other thermometers. So I bought this one because I wanted something guaranteed accurate. http://thermoworks.com/products/low_cost/rt301wa.html
Lo and behold, it agreed exactly with the spot check so for that hatch, I went with them and it was the best hatch I ever had.

The L on the display is annoying though.

I thought turners did a turn every hour or something? You know when I made the cabinet cooler incubator I was going to buy auto turners and put them on shelves so I had better turning. But in the end I was too cheap, but I knew at any point I could add a motor turner OR auto trays. turning is so important and the 3x a day is hard on them and we do see malpositions because of it unfortunately

You know, as much as I love my hens, at this stage in my incubation knowledge I trust my eggs with myself before a hen any day. I have seen them crushed, pushed out, pooped on, ignored and on and on! ha ha ha. I wish I could take that route out of not having to care for a brooder box full of chicks, but in my situation its not feasible, nor do I have the eggs to "waste" in the not so known future with a hen. Some hens are fantastic some are not, most of mine havent been! even my best was a serama who had 12 eggs, she only had 8 hatch

I have 2 turners and I've checked them multiple times a day and I think it takes about 3 hours to go from side to side.

When I turned by hand I put a 1, 2, and 3 on the eggs rather than X and O so I would have more sides up and I turned 3 times a day as well.

I've had hens crush eggs and steal eggs from each other. I usually don't let a pullet hatch eggs but older hens separated into their own quarters work perfectly and don't use electricity. Rarely have a problem doing it that way.

I shared this on the Diary thread, will share it here as well.... I think its a cool read to understand what the chick is doing at hatch and why!

Development of motor patterns in avian embryos:
Control of hatching behavior

http://www.int-ornith-union.org/files/proceedings/durban/Symposium/S46/S46.1.htm

Nice link, thanks for posting.

Hmm auto turners sound good too. How would they go about staying on each level, maybe shelves made out of hardware cloth and then set the turners on them? where would the cords run out to be able to plug them in? DH and I are planning on starting our cooler bator this weekend, well hopefully. I think I like the sound of using auto turners.

I'll try to get more pictures but here's what I have on the computer now.

There's 3 levels for eggs.


And a hatcher drawer.

I also just got a spot check last weekend and am having trouble with it. It's reading 1 to 2 whole degrees different from my others! I went and bought a new battery and today a water wiggler is coming in the mail so I'm hoping I will get better readings this way. So frustrating since they are supposed to be SPOT on!

You can see, from left to right - 99.9, 100.3, 99.7 and then the spot check shows 102.4!! Ahhhhhh!!! I have tried moving it around in multiple locations within the incubator. Same thing happens. I also rotate my other thermometers too.

Frustating, I've been there.
Cooler than optimal is better than hotter so if it were me, I'd consider dropping the temp a little.

Now, Chicken Canoe I'd just call those 2 chicks MIRACLES...not science, lol!

I know it's anecdotal at best, and I agree, they're miracles. They were about a week older than the ones the hens hatched so I wanted to make sure who was who and leg banded the miracles but they lost them

If you knew the history of this breed since I first purchased them including shipment of the first chicks and while in my possession, their entire existence is a miracle.
They're almost impossible to kill.

 

[angelobutter]

OH WOW that is FANTASTIC!!!!! Thanks angelobutter!!!

lol

 

[pinusresinosa]

What is this mini contest stuff and when and where's the info? Who and why?

 

[chicken pickin]

What is this mini contest stuff and when and where's the info? Who and why?

The link is in post num 1 of this thread. Its a day of fun on april 11th for hatching participants only. Check it out.

Here is the link
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...-fun-night-5th-annual-byc-easter-hatch-a-long

 

[chicken pickin]

lol

 

[Gardeningmama]

I checked it taking my own body temperature (I think that was recommended somewhere here.) If I'm 106, then I'm probably dead. I feel fine.

I don't know if it makes a difference but I ordered directly from Brinsea?

 

[angelobutter]

I don't know if it makes a difference but I ordered directly from Brinsea?

I ordered mine directly from brinsea as well, when it gets here I can see what the accuracy is- maybe it is the seller somehow?

 

[uphilljill]

I ordered directly from them as well. I still want one, but figured I'd call to see if there's some other way to test or calibrate it, or get a replacement.