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

[Sally Sunshine]

So some how the singing incubator from hell still has eggs in it with moving chicks! If what doesn't kill us makes us stronger than these are going to be super chicks I swear it! LOL

I hear this!

 

[Pozees]

Yeah, that's me. I had good hatches in the old hovabator but with this new incubator, I had it setup and temp and humidity were good but when I added eggs, it went all wonky. I have about 12 broodies in the henhouse but given my bad track record and their bad judgments,I figured an incubator would be the best way to go. Now, I'm not so sure.

It takes practice - if you can find a local source of really inexpensive eggs to practice with you will learn more about how your incubators work, and then practice with a few shipments of eggs that are less expensive - and rest assured you will still have terrible hatches, but if there are certain breeds you really want, you keep working at it, trying different shipping methods, different sources, different setting techniques. There are folks here on BYC who will sell you their backyard mix eggs for only slightly more than the cost of shipping, those are great for practicing on shipped eggs.

Don't be in a hurry, read everything Sally, Oz, and Ron (and many others who take the time to share what they've learned so far) post about hatching shipped eggs, and understand that every one of us has slightly different conditions affecting incubation. I have 5400+ feet of elevation and extremely arid conditions, so hatching here is different than someone at sea level with high humidity. In case those things don't make enough difference, the season will affect your conditions - is it winter with a furnace running? Summer with A/C?

I love the instructions Oz just posted for converting a Farm Innovators styrofoam incubator, and think it should work the same for an LG - very much worth a try!

I love going out to collect eggs and get all these colors!

These are a few from yesterday.

Beautiful eggs!!!

Down to about 40 of 92 HAL eggs. There were quite a few old eggs, but I might try lowering my hen to rooster ratio by making one more pen and seeing if it helps.

Worried about the pre-HAL birthday egg hatch - 4 Bresse and 1 Blue Copper Maran out of 3 dozen total (18 still in lockdown), hatch date was yesterday. No external pips for a long time and it is pretty quiet - only one internal pip responding. No Basques yet. Temperature/humidity log read fine for the whole period. Shipped eggs are much more nerve wracking.

Lost the limp chick overnight despite helping it drink an electrolyte/probiotic water with a bit of sugar added.

How many hens per rooster do you have together right now?

Sorry about losing the chick - you did what you could. Some are not going to make it.

 

[PAchickenlover]

Good morning all!

I had my own drama last night.. A huge branch came down and crushed about 15ft of my run fencing. Thankfully the birds had all turned in for the night and none were injured. I have to give a big shout out to my 14 yr old son Ben, he really stepped up to help me try to get the fence up as much as possible. Thank goodness I am not afraid of and know how to use my Hubby's chainsaw. There was no other way we were going to get the fence moved with that huge branch on it! Any how, here in a pic of what I found when I first got up there last night.

 

[LBKS]

It takes practice - if you can find a local source of really inexpensive eggs to practice with you will learn more about how your incubators work, and then practice with a few shipments of eggs that are less expensive - and rest assured you will still have terrible hatches, but if there are certain breeds you really want, you keep working at it, trying different shipping methods, different sources, different setting techniques.  There are folks here on BYC who will sell you their backyard mix eggs for only slightly more than the cost of shipping, those are great for practicing on shipped eggs.

Don't be in a hurry, read everything Sally, Oz, and Ron (and many others who take the time to share what they've learned so far) post about hatching shipped eggs, and understand that every one of us has slightly different conditions affecting incubation.  I have 5400+ feet of elevation and extremely arid conditions, so hatching here is different than someone at sea level with high humidity.  In case those things don't make enough difference, the season will affect your conditions - is it winter with a furnace running?  Summer with A/C?

I love the instructions Oz just posted for converting a Farm Innovators styrofoam incubator, and think it should work the same for an LG - very much worth a try!

Beautiful eggs!!!

How many hens per rooster do you have together right now?

Sorry about losing the chick - you did what you could.  Some are not going to make it. 

Have 10-12 per roo, a touch on the high side I think. If I split out one more pen I can drop it to about 8 per pen. Aiming on 8 per pen long term, but this year is a bit of an odd duck as I try to hatch out in quantity ahead of a hard cull down to move from BBS to just black.

 

[Pozees]

Good morning all!

I had my own drama last night.. A huge branch came down and crushed about 15ft of my run fencing.

Thankfully the birds had all turned in for the night and none were injured. I have to give a big shout out to my 14 yr old son Ben, he really stepped up to help me try to get the fence up as much as possible. Thank goodness I am not afraid of and know how to use my Hubby's chainsaw. There was no other way we were going to get the fence moved with that huge branch on it! Any how, here in a pic of what I found when I first got up there last night.

Oh wow, thank goodness you are all okay and you have good help! Way to step up, Ben!

 

[ddhyland]

Well, had another stinker this morning.

My 13 y/o walked by the bator and was all "Mom, the incubator stinks." Hubby asked how do you find which one is bad? Thought he was going to be sick when I told him smell them. That was funny!

I had one the other day, would that possibly cause others to go bad? Or just because? Both of these seemed to be somewhat thinner shelled and more porous eggs, would that be a reason maybe?

Anyway, down to 15 eggs. Some are probably clears (dark eggs). Definitely for surely have 4 eggs with growing chicks.

 

[chickensnbees]

Good morning all!

I had my own drama last night.. A huge branch came down and crushed about 15ft of my run fencing. Thankfully the birds had all turned in for the night and none were injured. I have to give a big shout out to my 14 yr old son Ben, he really stepped up to help me try to get the fence up as much as possible. Thank goodness I am not afraid of and know how to use my Hubby's chainsaw. There was no other way we were going to get the fence moved with that huge branch on it! Any how, here in a pic of what I found when I first got up there last night.

Glad the fence was the only casualty! Isn't it great when sons get old enough to help do the hard stuff? My son is 15 and I couldn't do half of what I do without his help. Way to go, Ben!

 

[mlm Mike]

Good morning all!

I had my own drama last night.. A huge branch came down and crushed about 15ft of my run fencing.

Thankfully the birds had all turned in for the night and none were injured. I have to give a big shout out to my 14 yr old son Ben, he really stepped up to help me try to get the fence up as much as possible. Thank goodness I am not afraid of and know how to use my Hubby's chainsaw. There was no other way we were going to get the fence moved with that huge branch on it! Any how, here in a pic of what I found when I first got up there last night.

I'm glad no one was hurt and non of the poultry escaped.

 

[JoyfulPromise]

Good morning everyone! SO Excited to candle for day 14 tonight!

Only 7 more days to a chickie explosion over here! First my incubator chicks will hatch, and then a few days later we are getting 100 Cornish meat chicks for the big brooders in the garage, and then two more days and my broody bantam will hatch her chicks!!!! I can't wait!!!!!!

Remember when I was looking for silkie eggs for my broody bantam hen, Nina? Well, I didn't find them, and I couldn't get her eggs in time for the hatch-along, but I WAS able to get 6 Polish eggs from LoveMyChicklets last Thursday, and I just candled them last night and 5 out of the 6 are growing strong!!! AND, she threw in a bonus SILKIE egg from her Partridge Silkie pair, and it has a bouncing little embryo too!!!! I am SO happy!

My LG has been behaving quite well, and I have not worried about it at all since Ronott1 posted that chart of viable temp range for hatching. I think the embryos are definitely heating up more now though, because I have had to tweak the thermostat down a tad yesterday when it kept staying a little higher than I wanted. Day 13 temp spike?

Oh, and other good news! One of our Australorps is getting much more serious about being broody, and I am pretty sure she will be ready to adopt a bunch of the chicks from the incubator next week!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

 

[coopsbyty]

Good morning all!

I had my own drama last night.. A huge branch came down and crushed about 15ft of my run fencing. Thankfully the birds had all turned in for the night and none were injured. I have to give a big shout out to my 14 yr old son Ben, he really stepped up to help me try to get the fence up as much as possible. Thank goodness I am not afraid of and know how to use my Hubby's chainsaw. There was no other way we were going to get the fence moved with that huge branch on it! Any how, here in a pic of what I found when I first got up there last night.

Yikes glad was only the fence. We careful getting it back up.