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

[Sally Sunshine]

With all the talk of brinsea problems I thought I would check my big one. Now I think I might have a slight problem in my brinsea 20, since I received my spot checks and water wiggles I have had them in my coolerbator and my mini. Both seem spot on for a temp. Also tested them on myself. So I thought let's pop one in the big incubator. It appears to be almost 2 degrees off!! It's been sitting at 97.5* all day!! I wondered why my last two hatches in it were so poor and took several extra days!! I mean I had chicks hatching up to 5 days late. So my question is should I turn it up to say 101? And just watch the spot check? Nearly all of my appenzellers are in there!! Heck most of my eggs are in there period. Or should I move them to the cooler which is holding near perfect at 99.9? Opinions?

are you sure your spot check is SPOT on? I honestly did the armpit and I should have done it orally! ha ha ha

So I have a family emergency and am flying to Colorado in the morning. I put 100 plus eggs into lock down this evening. Candled as I went they are all close to pipping internally already. Not sure how long I will be gone but will most likely miss the hatch. Leaving my kids to watch out for the chicks and also to turn the 388 eggs for Easter. Hopefully they do as they should. This will not be a good trip. Please pray for my family.

oh no praying for them,

Here's what we woke up to this morning. We are used to the, nice one day, cold the next. Hoping my fruit trees do ok. We may have another day of this tomorrow, then start warming up again.

Shook the snow off of a few of the buds..they are ready to pop
out. Now, if they will just hold off until these storms pass.
This is one of our apple trees.


This is a cherry tree..didn't have cherries last year..we are so
hoping that we get them this year. Lots and lots of blossom
clumps on this tree.


A few of my girls followed me to the feed shed. They thought
they were starving to death because the lawn was covered in
snow. Well, they always follow me when I go to the feed shed.
They know there is all kind of goodies in there, they love the
scratch once in a while.

How lovely!!

Tornadoes moving through the are now. Hopefully the power will stay up.

oh no!! BE SAFE!

Oh what a beautiful morning!!!

We woke up to our foster cat Princess' 5 newly born kittens!!!! She did it all by herself and they are so precious!

5!!

She is letting them nurse, but got restless and shifted around so we would pet her when we went in the room where she is.She got up and babies dropped off her and ended up behind her when she turned around so we pet her..then she settled down again.. She was insistently pushy about that yesterday and I thought maybe she was just very uncomfortable. Understandably so! But I hope she stays put with them and ignores us pretty much soon. Should we leave her be, have alone time, today...I want those babies to have her full attention and proper beginning.Any advice from you experienced kitten folks? There are 2 dilute orange and whites, 2 gray and whites, and 2 dark gray with little white hairs over the top...like shimmery icing over the gray. I know the answer to this...but did she make them by herself? They are just her colors...gray, dilute orange, and white...lol

Here they are:

ach du gut!!! thats too cute!

Quote:

Quote:

Since so many of you are posting candling pics, thought I'd share one of mine!

BEAUTIFUL candle! one of the best I seen!!

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Quote:
This is an EXTREMELY HELPFUL GUIDE, I always have it in the HATCHING 101 Article for reference, it gives a lot of details/images on an
infertile blastodisc vs fertile blastoderm. Also it will explain that not all "CLEARS" are infertile. It will clearly show death after 24, 48 hours and so forth! its great way to tell what day your embryo passed on breakout analysis.

a paste from the hatching 101.......

Clears at CANDLE are not always infertile!
READ: http://www.aviagen.com/assets/Tech_Center/BB_Resources_Tools/Hatchery_How_Tos/04HowTo4-IdentifyInfertileEggsandEarlyDeads.pdf
​

 

[Sally Sunshine]

With apologies to Carly Simon:

Well I opened up the bator
Just to have a little look
I sure could use an ovascope
But a flashight was all it took
You had spider like formations
and an aircell that looked just right
And I was sitting there hoping
you'd be a pullet, you'd be a pullet and
You're so Vein
In 16 days out you'll pop
But now your so vein.....

HAAAAAAAAAAAA love this!!

 

[ronott1]

oops. Im definitely new at this. Regardless. Definitely no day 10 chicken.

It was a very nice picture and easy to see. It is also great that you cracked it open to see what was going on in the egg.

I t is sad when you have to crack a lot of them during a hatch....

 

[JacksonB54]

Woo-hoo, I have a broody! Have now put her in charge of 4 of the eggs that were in the 'bator. She started out with a single egg (poor thing!) two days ago, and yesterday 3 other hens added to that, so there are now 8 eggs total under her. That's about all she can handle, as she is an OEGB Duckwing and TINY! Best of all, after one goes broody here, others soon follow. Come on, Easter!

 

[MontanaDolphin]

Clears at CANDLE are not always infertile!
READ: http://www.aviagen.com/assets/Tech_Center/BB_Resources_Tools/Hatchery_How_Tos/04HowTo4-IdentifyInfertileEggsandEarlyDeads.pdf
​

I have to comment on this, because I'm hoping someone doesn't make the same mistake I did.

I cracked open an egg that was "clear" at candling on day 10 last time I hatched. I saw no veining, no spot of a baby, nothing. When I broke it open, there was in fact an embryo...a very tiny one, mind you...and I just figured it was an early quitter. WRONG! Since it was the first time I had every cracked open an egg to find an embryo, my curiosity had me looking at it with a magnifying glass...and the heart was beating!!! So PLEASE everyone, be careful what you pull and throw out! I will no longer pull the clears...they will stay in with the rest until hatch day...if after all have hatched I still have "clears", then I will pull them (because, IMO, 21 days of no growth, or hardly any growth, it's not worth the risk to me).

 

[Anikaanimalgirl]

Oh what a beautiful morning!!!

We woke up to our foster cat Princess' 5 newly born kittens!!!! She did it all by herself and they are so precious!

5!!

She is letting them nurse, but got restless and shifted around so we would pet her when we went in the room where she is.She got up and babies dropped off her and ended up behind her when she turned around so we pet her..then she settled down again.. She was insistently pushy about that yesterday and I thought maybe she was just very uncomfortable. Understandably so! But I hope she stays put with them and ignores us pretty much soon. Should we leave her be, have alone time, today...I want those babies to have her full attention and proper beginning.Any advice from you experienced kitten folks? There are 2 dilute orange and whites, 2 gray and whites, and 2 dark gray with little white hairs over the top...like shimmery icing over the gray. I know the answer to this...but did she make them by herself? They are just her colors...gray, dilute orange, and white...lol

Here they are:

oh how adorable!!!!! newborn life is a precious thing, isn't it?

 

[Sally Sunshine]

Quote:

I hear you! we all make that one at some point! its a major bummer for sure

 

[Happy Chooks]

Haha... Silkie Sensation.... I just stick to my 3x/day only because thats how people have told me to do it.Im glad to know that its ok to just turn them twice because sometimes i have to call my mom while at work and she is baby sitting and have her turn them for me... which she isnt very interested in doing.
I do turn as fast as possible so the temps/humidity do not fluctuate too much, so far my temps have only went down as far as 95 while turning... im not a brave one with candling but i did take time a few times to candle them just to make sure they were growing correctly... so out of the 17 set to hatch this weekend all of them looked to be on target as of monday. I couldnt put an incubator in my kids rooms as my oldest constantly has friends in and out and they are "rowdy"... i would worry about them knocking the incubators over or something. haha My incubator is currently in the basement which is where my brooder is.... Ill be ok on the couch but considering its my "first unsupervised" hatch (its been almost 20 years since we last hatched) im a little anxious/nervous to see how my hatch rate goes!

20 years since your last hatch?

My oh my this is going to be exciting for you!

So at least two of the three cochins I set for the hatch are coming along! Can't quite tell with the EE's yet, still a bit too early to see anything in those green shells. And I had a cochin hatch yesterday - an April Fool's baby (so it'll be a rooster) and I found out that the eggs are mille fleur! So that makes this little one the first chick I've ever hatched for my mille fleur project.

Also, unrelated to the hatch-a-long, I had my first goose egg pip internally tonight! First geese I've hatched so I'm excited

I want to see pictures of that gosling!

Has anyone ever set golden peasant eggs before on this hatch-along??? If not, guess what I'll be hatching NEXT year...

Someone has them set for this hatchalong.

With all the talk of brinsea problems I thought I would check my big one. Now I think I might have a slight problem in my brinsea 20, since I received my spot checks and water wiggles I have had them in my coolerbator and my mini. Both seem spot on for a temp. Also tested them on myself. So I thought let's pop one in the big incubator. It appears to be almost 2 degrees off!! It's been sitting at 97.5* all day!! I wondered why my last two hatches in it were so poor and took several extra days!! I mean I had chicks hatching up to 5 days late. So my question is should I turn it up to say 101? And just watch the spot check? Nearly all of my appenzellers are in there!! Heck most of my eggs are in there period. Or should I move them to the cooler which is holding near perfect at 99.9? Opinions?

If you hatch was that late, yes, your temperature is way off. I'd adjust the temperature to meet the brinsea spot check. 101.5 for a still air incubator, 99.5 for one with a fan.

I candled and all, but the Silkie have veins. So six growing. I didn't pull it thought I would give it a few more days.

This is the first time I have used a incubator that the eggs lay on their sides. When I candled it looked like everything was on one side. Is this normal? I have the turner set to turn every 45 mins.

Yes, sometimes it looks like they are growing on the side. Make sure you are turning the eggs though.

Well I got some opinions from my fb groups also and ended up tossing the bright speckled one and cracking it open to inspect what I was seeing. It was a very warm very runny egg. Nothing else at all.

So I have a family emergency and am flying to Colorado in the morning. I put 100 plus eggs into lock down this evening. Candled as I went they are all close to pipping internally already. Not sure how long I will be gone but will most likely miss the hatch. Leaving my kids to watch out for the chicks and also to turn the 388 eggs for Easter. Hopefully they do as they should. This will not be a good trip. Please pray for my family.

So sorry. I hope you get things resolved quickly. Have a safe trip!

Here's what we woke up to this morning. We are used to the, nice one day, cold the next. Hoping my fruit trees do ok. We may have another day of this tomorrow, then start warming up again.

Shook the snow off of a few of the buds..they are ready to pop
out. Now, if they will just hold off until these storms pass.
This is one of our apple trees.


This is a cherry tree..didn't have cherries last year..we are so
hoping that we get them this year. Lots and lots of blossom
clumps on this tree.


A few of my girls followed me to the feed shed. They thought
they were starving to death because the lawn was covered in
snow. Well, they always follow me when I go to the feed shed.
They know there is all kind of goodies in there, they love the
scratch once in a while.

You got the storm we had a couple of days ago. Mike, it's coming your way!

Tornadoes moving through the are now. Hopefully the power will stay up.

Tornadoes scare me. Stay safe!

Oh what a beautiful morning!!!

We woke up to our foster cat Princess' 5 newly born kittens!!!! She did it all by herself and they are so precious!

5!!

She is letting them nurse, but got restless and shifted around so we would pet her when we went in the room where she is.She got up and babies dropped off her and ended up behind her when she turned around so we pet her..then she settled down again.. She was insistently pushy about that yesterday and I thought maybe she was just very uncomfortable. Understandably so! But I hope she stays put with them and ignores us pretty much soon. Should we leave her be, have alone time, today...I want those babies to have her full attention and proper beginning.Any advice from you experienced kitten folks? There are 2 dilute orange and whites, 2 gray and whites, and 2 dark gray with little white hairs over the top...like shimmery icing over the gray. I know the answer to this...but did she make them by herself? They are just her colors...gray, dilute orange, and white...lol

Here they are:

Adorable! Makes me want a kitty again! (no litter box, no litter box, no litter box)

I have no idea on whether you should leave her be or not.

Since so many of you are posting candling pics, thought I'd share one of mine!

Fantastic picture!

This was on day 4. Can you tell if that's a vein or a blood ring?

Doesn't look like a blood ring yet, I'd leave it in there.

YAY first ever chick shipment!!!


SERAMA BABIES got to MA and are alive and WELL!!!! OMG OMG OMG baby steps taken! Now to put the big girl shorts on!!! ha ha ha!!

OMG this is HUGE FOR ME HUGE!!!! oh this makes me feel so much better today!!!

yayyyyy

AWESOME! Nice job Sally!

Woo-hoo, I have a broody! Have now put her in charge of 4 of the eggs that were in the 'bator. She started out with a single egg (poor thing!) two days ago, and yesterday 3 other hens added to that, so there are now 8 eggs total under her. That's about all she can handle, as she is an OEGB Duckwing and TINY! Best of all, after one goes broody here, others soon follow. Come on, Easter!

Congrats! I had a hen on the nest last night too. She's not one of the hens that have been belly plucking, but she's one of my reliable broodies. We'll see if she's on the nest today and tonight.

I have to comment on this, because I'm hoping someone doesn't make the same mistake I did.

I cracked open an egg that was "clear" at candling on day 10 last time I hatched. I saw no veining, no spot of a baby, nothing. When I broke it open, there was in fact an embryo...a very tiny one, mind you...and I just figured it was an early quitter. WRONG! Since it was the first time I had every cracked open an egg to find an embryo, my curiosity had me looking at it with a magnifying glass...and the heart was beating!!! So PLEASE everyone, be careful what you pull and throw out! I will no longer pull the clears...they will stay in with the rest until hatch day...if after all have hatched I still have "clears", then I will pull them (because, IMO, 21 days of no growth, or hardly any growth, it's not worth the risk to me).

Very good point, if in doubt, LEAVE IT IN the incubator!

Most of us that incubate have been there. I went to open one that was a late quitter. Everything else had hatched, and there was no movement in this last egg. I opened it, and not gently, and to my horror, it was still alive. It would not have made it anyway, there was not enough growth for it to hatch, but still, it was awful. I have not egtopsied any since this happened.

 

[onlygirloutof6]

Just got home last night. Have a lot of Quail eggs! Am I to late for Hal count?