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

[SoManyHats]

Have you hatched these before?  I am also hatching Marans eggs.  I am worried about what I've heard about them being hard to hatch.

I've had good hatch rates with them. You just have to be patient. In my experience, they are always the last ones hatching and it is a slow process. Case in point today, 6 of my 8 chicks have hatched, and the two that haven't are the two BCMs. One has been pipped for over 12 hours. One just finally made a tiny pip 8 hours after all the others had pipped. I'm just reminding myself that this always happens and to relax about it.

 

[efamily215]

We're brand new to this forum, and are setting eggs tonight. Thought about setting them at the penultimate pi moment (3.141592653 or 3/14/15 at 9:26:53) but want to start hatching Good Friday.

 

[Cynthia12]

Mailman came with no eggs.... I called the post office and they said my eggs were delivered. I have no idea where they were delivered to. I am tempted to walk around my neighborhood to see if maybe he delivered it to one of my neighbors. I am so sad..

 

[Cynthia12]

I'm so excited to be joining this years Hatch-Along! It's my first time hatching. I have chicken eggs to incubate. Yay! Let the fun begin.

 

[Happy Chooks]

Ok, I went through all this trouble to wire a STC-1000 digital temperature controller to my LG incubator, and technically, it is working correctly, but honestly, I am not very happy with it so far!

The temperature seems to swing a lot more than it did when using the regular LG thermostat. I have a Fahrenheit thermometer probe that I calibrated in the incubator, and it has max/min recall, so I placed it in different corners of the incubator and tested the temperature range. It swings from 97.5º to 103.8º in the same spot over 4-5 minutes!!!! I definitely do not remember having this much of a temp swing before!

Now I kind of understand why it is happening - I have the digital controller set at 38º Celcius (because 37.5 didn't get the temp high enough), and it has a .3º Celcius "Difference Set Value" before it clicks the heater on, so if I have it set at 38º Celcius, it waits until the controller probe reads 37.7º before switching ON the heater, but it drops to 37.3º while the heater starts warming up the temperature, and then it does turn OFF the heater right at 38º but the residual heat continues to climb until it reads 39.7º C or 103.8º F before starting to drop back down.

Now this is with an empty incubator, so I assume it will be more stable when it is full of eggs, but do you think I should be worried about the temp swing, or just average out the high & low temps and call it good?

It will be more stable with eggs in it. I haven't used an LG, but my hovabator is more stable with eggs in it.

I'm so excited to be joining this years Hatch-Along! It's my first time hatching. I have chicken eggs to incubate. Yay! Let the fun begin.

Welcome!

I hadn't planned to join the hatch-a-long this year as my brooders are already overflowing, but my BCM laid their first egg of the year today so I HAVE TO set it to check fertility, right? And I can't set just one - there has to be at least a dozen in there to make sure I don't have any lonely chicks hatch, right? Well, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Also welcome! Sounds like a good story.

found my eggs but it doesn't look good... Is it possible to rise the eggs off?

Awful. I would wash them and then candle them. If they are not completely scrambled, you might be able to set them.

Bad news: Found out there is something wrong with my Brinsea Mini when I plugged it in to test it out today. It keeps shutting itself off if I touch the power cord.

Good news: Got a new Farm Innovators 4200 when I went into town today

Other Good news: I can now set more than 10 eggs!

Other Bad news: I can now set more than 10 eggs....

Question though; I'm used to the Brinsea; it pretty much did everything for me. The Farm Innovator came with this little thermometer I'm supposed to calibrate, apparently by moving it up and down on it's cardboard backing? Well according to the thermometer I calibrated it to, it's running about 1.5 degrees too high, but it won't move on the backing. Can I just, you know, remember it runs too high, and just subtract when I'm checking temp? Or should I somehow find another thermometer to stick in there?

Ha! Love your good news/bad news.

I don't know anything about a Farm Innovator incubator. Hopefully someone else does, and can help you.

 

[Cynthia12]

found my eggs but it doesn't look good... Is it possible to rise the eggs off?

Oh my goodness, these look like some that I got last yr. I washed the ones that weren't broken, lightly used a paper towel, the put the only 5 that were not cracked or broken, had three hatch..so, you could get some..worth a try..let the person know that you bought them from that this happened! They will surely send you more. Here is a photo of mine like this last yr.




I sent these photos to the person that sent them, they sent me more. So sorry it happened to you!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Finally!! So far we have 5 BCM we got from a freind, 5 black blue orpington bantam and 8 easter egger eggs ready. Last 13 are from our own girls. Will see if we get any extras in the morning and set bator at noon. Kids are all excited we are joining

Welcome!

No this is my first time too. But I figure it cant be any harder than Call Ducks!

Welcome!

I found them at my neighbors house. I am so devastated... I am not sure if I will have time to find anymore eggs to set for tomorrow. I do have some of my own eggs but I don't know is they are fertile because my rooster is only 13 weeks old.

You have until Monday, so don't fret about setting tomorrow. It is difficult when you receive eggs in that condition. It's not very likely that a 13 week old cockerel is mating successfully. I hope you can find some eggs locally.

Help Needed!!!!

Anyone has experience with Brinsea Humidity pump? @ronott1 or anyone else. Need help, I set up the pump per instructions with an Octagon 40 and cranked up the humidity to test if the pump works. The pump did turn on and its been on for 30 minutes now but I don't see any vapors or water going in through the tube. Could it be just an air block or something else?

If its airlock how do I fix it? I tried to call Brinsea but they are closed right now and I have a feeling they will be closed over the weekend as well.

I don't have one, but I have used a friends once. The humidity pump drops water onto the paper thingy that hangs down from the lid. So you won't see any vapors, but you should see water going through the tube. It will also make a noise when it pumps water into the incubator.

I've had good hatch rates with them. You just have to be patient. In my experience, they are always the last ones hatching and it is a slow process. Case in point today, 6 of my 8 chicks have hatched, and the two that haven't are the two BCMs. One has been pipped for over 12 hours. One just finally made a tiny pip 8 hours after all the others had pipped. I'm just reminding myself that this always happens and to relax about it.

Great information, thanks for sharing! Folks need to realize that some breeds are really slow hatchers. (Orps too)

We're brand new to this forum, and are setting eggs tonight. Thought about setting them at the penultimate pi moment (3.141592653 or 3/14/15 at 9:26:53) but want to start hatching Good Friday.

Welcome to BYC and the Hatchalong! Love your precise setting time!

Also, don't forget to let us know how many eggs you set!

 

[Cynthia12]

We're brand new to this forum, and are setting eggs tonight. Thought about setting them at the penultimate pi moment (3.141592653 or 3/14/15 at 9:26:53) but want to start hatching Good Friday.

 

[Junibutt]

Quote: Ok, I tried that and succeeded by putting the pump at a higher level. However now I have a different problem. The water that went inside, instead of just moisting the pad, its dripping from it. If I had eggs in the bator, the water would have been all over the eggs. I have the pad in perfect V shape, so what gives.

 

[efamily215]

Thought that info (how many eggs to set) is to be kept secret for now, since that's a contest. True?