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

[potagergirl]

I think one of my hens went broody. She is in the nest right now, and I only collected 4 eggs today. I've been collecting 6 to 11 eggs a day. I've never seen a hen in the nesting box at night, so I think she's trying to set eggs. I'll know for sure if I find her there tomorrow. Don't know how many are under her, either. If she does hatch some out, I'd have to pull them out and brood them separate for fear that they'd fall out of the raised coop. Is there a safe way to maybe move the mom and unhatched eggs to another area, or will that just mess things up?

This was our first year for having a hen old enough to become broody. Yes you can move her we moved ours and it worked like a charm.
What I did was wait until she was setting hard on those eggs almost 2 weeks. Then after dark around 10pm we took a cookie sheet out and where my hen chose the
floor to build her nest I slipped the pan under as hubby did some slight lifting of the hen. He carried nest, eggs and hen all in one on that sheet across the yard to the
broody pen we have. It worked and if I had to do it again I would. Just remember take straw/shavings whatever you have in the nest box with her.
Good luck and I hope you have an awesome hatch!

 

[chicken pickin]

Dr thought my belly looked too small too, so sent me for an extra sono (which I didn't mind as my boy would not let us see what he was at the 4-5 month sono.) Baby was growing perfectly fine, I just had no extra fat (then..plenty now...lol) I ended up with 5 sonos all together (one being the 3-D sono which was awesome!!) I was considered high risk between age and screening numbers.

With my first pregnancy DRs tried to convince me I was too small also. They said I wasnt gaining enough weight and the size of my stomach was significantly off. They told me my baby would only be about 5lbs when born full term. They had me terrified new young mom and all. Well Delivery day came, I was full term and my daughter was born at 8lbs 1oz. HEH I showed them lol.

Second pregnancy they started the same old talk oh your not gaining enough weight your stomach is too small there might be something wrong with the baby etc etc etc I didn't listen to them this time, I let them do all the extra sonos they thought they needed, I too also got a 3D sono of DD #2 Now that was cool. At one of the sonos the technichian said wow your stomach looks small but your insides are the size of an olympic sized swimming pool lol. DRs say my stomach size at full term was only the size of a typical 6month along stomach. DD#2 was born full term at 7lbs 7oz

Third pregnancy DRs finally caught on to my pregnancy pattern and realized small stomach doesn't mean small baby. DD#3 was born full term at 7lbs even

 

[Wisher1000]

LOL! I had the opposite problem. I had one doctor tell me he recommended induction two weeks early because he didn't want the baby to be able to drive home from the hospital. They all talked about how big the baby was. I ended up delivering a week early because of toxiemia, and my son was 6 lbs. 12 ozs and 21" long. They don't always know.......

Y'all are killing me with all the posts! I'm on BYC every day and there is no way I can keep up on this thread. Someone let me know if I miss something huge. You'll know because I will have not commented on it. I just had to skip more than 400 posts!!

 

[AmyLynn2374]

With my first pregnancy DRs tried to convince me I was too small also. They said I wasnt gaining enough weight and the size of my stomach was significantly off. They told me my baby would only be about 5lbs when born full term. They had me terrified new young mom and all. Well Delivery day came, I was full term and my daughter was born at 8lbs 1oz. HEH I showed them lol.

Second pregnancy they started the same old talk oh your not gaining enough weight your stomach is too small there might be something wrong with the baby etc etc etc I didn't listen to them this time, I let them do all the extra sonos they thought they needed, I too also got a 3D sono of DD #2 Now that was cool. At one of the sonos the technichian said wow your stomach looks small but your insides are the size of an olympic sized swimming pool lol. DRs say my stomach size at full term was only the size of a typical 6month along stomach. DD#2 was born full term at 7lbs 7oz

Third pregnancy DRs finally caught on to my pregnancy pattern and realized small stomach doesn't mean small baby. DD#3 was born full term at 7lbs even

LOL Took them long enough to figure it out! My boy was 7lbs 13 1/2 ozs

LOL! I had the opposite problem. I had one doctor tell me he recommended induction two weeks early because he didn't want the baby to be able to drive home from the hospital. They all talked about how big the baby was. I ended up delivering a week early because of toxiemia, and my son was 6 lbs. 12 ozs and 21" long. They don't always know.......

Y'all are killing me with all the posts! I'm on BYC every day and there is no way I can keep up on this thread. Someone let me know if I miss something huge. You'll know because I will have not commented on it. I just had to skip more than 400 posts!!

Did you have gestational diabetes?? My BFF went through that. They decided they needed to induce 2 weeks early because it looked as if the baby was already well over 9 lbs. They induced and he was 8lbs 9oz I believe. Most of hers was fluid gain from the gestational diabetes.

 

[Dcat]

Im not sure I can be of much help since I don't really have the experience but here are my thoughts.

Last night during candling I noticed that one of my Marans eggs had lits of hair line cracks. I can only imagine I bumped it or something and caused the damage before set day or maybe while hand turning, not really certain. Upon candling that egg I also noticed that the air cell was very large like lockdown large also. My decision was because I could not see if it was developing due to the dark egg shell I pulled the egg so I possibly didn't end up with a horrid mess later.

If you decide not to pull them and if you want to give it a go because you can see development and you want these shipped egg to hatch you should definitely move them to a different incubator just incase. In the new incubator you should probably keep the humidity quite high to help the air cell not get much bigger. I dont think I would box the egg, Im not sure they will get enough oxygen. Keep an eye on them daily to be sure they are growing proper and that they don't start to smell.

As for the egg that is only developing in half the egg, I have had this happen before, one time. But honestly I cant remember if it hatched or not. I want to say it did not but I cant really remember. Im not sure what causes that.

I really hope someone else will jump in with better advice for you. I wasn't very helpful lol. Good Luck!

I have an egg doing the same no veins all on one side thing. None of the other eggs look like this but the chick is in there moving around just as much as every one else. Maybe when it's hatched I'll call it Lefty or something. It is definatly growing so I will cross my fingers and pray for the best. This egg was in the incubator with all my eggs piled up so I'm sure I missed a couple in the hand turning, since then I've had to toss quite a few so there is a lot more room than the first week

but I still have a lot of babies in there. Last night I finally told my hubby how many eggs I actually set, the look on his face was priceless. He thought I only set like 10 eggs so when I told him 80 he was almost speechless....almost. I have since been getting ribbed about all the cheeping that will be going on around here. He likes to use the word that his grandmother used which is pew pew pew, so that is what I've been hearing which makes me laugh as I say it back.

 

[Junibutt]

I have an egg doing the same no veins all on one side thing. None of the other eggs look like this but the chick is in there moving around just as much as every one else. Maybe when it's hatched I'll call it Lefty or something. It is definatly growing so I will cross my fingers and pray for the best. This egg was in the incubator with all my eggs piled up so I'm sure I missed a couple in the hand turning, since then I've had to toss quite a few so there is a lot more room than the first week

but I still have a lot of babies in there. Last night I finally told my hubby how many eggs I actually set, the look on his face was priceless. He thought I only set like 10 eggs so when I told him 80 he was almost speechless....almost. I have since been getting ribbed about all the cheeping that will be going on around here. He likes to use the word that his grandmother used which is pew pew pew, so that is what I've been hearing which makes me laugh as I say it back.

Your husband has a lot of patience. I have an advance warning from DW that 2 days max inside. After that they go in the basement or garage. Although I know when she said 2 days, she knew it will at least take a week to get that done!

She knew I had ordered an incubator so was expecting the first one, however when I received the second one she realized how many eggs I was setting and then the eggs came on 4 different days so it was an interesting situation.

 

[ellymayRans]

I'm out. A friend of DH was over with his kids this weekend and they were not adequately supervised (I was not home) and one of them turned up the incubator to 120 and cooked everything inside. I am super bummed because there were 13 project eggs in there that it took me 2 weeks to collect.

Omy! I would be Sooo Not happy! I think I'd have to tell someone about that!!

So sorry..

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Your husband has a lot of patience. I have an advance warning from DW that 2 days max inside. After that they go in the basement or garage. Although I know when she said 2 days, she knew it will at least take a week to get that done!

She knew I had ordered an incubator so was expecting the first one, however when I received the second one she realized how many eggs I was setting and then the eggs came on 4 different days so it was an interesting situation.

The dust wouldn't have a chance to kill me if I raised chicks in the house, my wife would do the deed immediately.

 

[Dcat]

Your husband has a lot of patience. I have an advance warning from DW that 2 days max inside. After that they go in the basement or garage. Although I know when she said 2 days, she knew it will at least take a week to get that done!

She knew I had ordered an incubator so was expecting the first one, however when I received the second one she realized how many eggs I was setting and then the eggs came on 4 different days so it was an interesting situation.

He really is a patient man. I guess 20 odd years together has taught him to just shake his head, maybe complain a little bit then laugh it off. Sometimes the laughing takes a couple days to happen but then he has a new "Janet" story to tell his friends, LOL. He thought I still only had one incubator.......I had to tell him about the 2nd(but smaller) one I built and then my DD told him about the one my mom bought me out of the blue. I think she didn't like the idea that I had eggs piled up on each other. So DH asked "where do you have them all?". I can't believe he didn't notice the two in the living room and the one in the laundry room! Two of them work with light bulbs and they flash on and off LOL.

 

[Crystal Chick]

Hi all! This is my first time incubating eggs. I have 7 in the incubator and they are looking good at candling! I am trying to figure out how to set up the brooder. Every article I can find says to have a heat lamp but when I went to the hardware store they had several different wattages. Do I want 75W or 120W?