The 6th Annual BYC Easter Hatch-a-long!

[Cynthia12]

I think I am going to hatch duck eggs this year for the hatchalong I have done chickens several times and Im just afraid they will not be picked up by March but I have never hatched ducks are they essentially the same, harder etc? Any tips appreciated

I did ducks for the fun of it once, for the experience. They are sooo cute..oh wait, I also helped a guy out who had a mother duck die. He wasn't sure how far along they were, but I got 4 to hatch. Sooo cute. I hatch the Welch Harlequin..pretty ducks..even the females. Here is a photo of them as babies .. a while back.



Love their little webbed feet!


And, and, their cute little beaks! lol

 

[ozexpat]

Hatching in the tropics on CocoBeach

We hatch around 200 birds a week (we may do way les or more for the HAL so dont write that number down). As RH is 65-100% year round, I have to run a dehimidifier to get it down to 40. I stop turning 3 days before hatch but keep them at "dry" humidity until first pip (actually for chickens I just move them 468 hours after setting).

For chickens, the eggs are set on Sat at 6pm. we stop turning at 6pm on wed, Move them to hatcher at 6am Friday. Hatch starts at 12md on Friday and is all over on Sat by 6pm but we leave any damp chicks in the hatcher until Sunday morning. We airport to airport ship birds on Sunday.

We hatch chickens, guineas, quail, partridge, mallard derivitives and scovies.

With our high humidity, broodies hatch 50-60%. We get 85-90%. On shipped eggs its a crap-shoot. The best is 65%. One season I set 340 imported eggs and hatched 17. Learning on shipped eggs sucks. Its impossible to tell if its your method or the eggs.

Incubators are all home made. and train my animal guys in a week to run the program. The only Hygrometer is the hygrostat I use to control the dehumidifier.

Its all about finding out what works in your ecosystem. We have developed a system that works for us.

The first few hatches were shocking. Floating dead in shell babies. We increased our hatch rate to 75% by lowering humidity.

We still had dead in shells. We started turning more vigorusly on day 1. I found out that failure to turn during the first few days will increase dead in shell late losses by as much as 25%. This got us up to the high 80s.

 

[Cynthia12]

This cold is no fun huh? Its zero right now and wind is still blowing strong out there. I haven't even gone out to the animals yet
Im trying to motivate myself to go do it real fast... My real fast with all the animals still takes me about an hour

I just checked the weather for my area and we have an alert for a wind chill warning. With the winds today at times we are going to be as low as 39below, oh when will winter end?

The wind is the worst when it's cold out! Even with it being in the 30's in the mornings here, if the wind is blowing, that is a chill and a half. We are at 40 now, will get up into the 50's again. I feat that we will not have any more snow.
There was one yr. that when spring hit, it never left! It rained, seriously, all through the summer. We were like the state of Washington, hurrying out to wash cars, mos the lawn and whatever else outdoor job we could get done while it wasn't raining, because more was predicted. What's up with our weather now days. Pretty sad!

 

[PrairieChickens]

I don't see my name on the list of participants. Just in case I forgot to actually say "I'm participating", I'm participating!

 

[chickenlady78]

Count me in!!!! Yay!!! I'll be hatching Buff Orpintons

 

[wickedhens]

I did ducks for the fun of it once, for the experience. They are sooo cute..oh wait, I also helped a guy out who had a mother duck die. He wasn't sure how far along they were, but I got 4 to hatch. Sooo cute. I hatch the Welch Harlequin..pretty ducks..even the females. Here is a photo of them as babies .. a while back.



Love their little webbed feet!


And, and, their cute little beaks! lol

Aw they are so pretty! I will need to look into this breed as well!

 

[gevshiba]

Incuview

 

[wickedhens]

Incuview

How do you like this incubator?

 

[Cynthia12]

Count me in!!!! Yay!!! I'll be hatching Buff Orpintons

 

[Cynthia12]

I don't see my name on the list of participants. Just in case I forgot to actually say "I'm participating", I'm participating!

You did check on the first post..of listings? Well, let's see if this works to get their attention. They can't be on all day, they come on and off like me..and..today is a Holiday. Let's hope they are out getting some President's Day DEALS!