THE MOTHER'S DAY HATCH-A-LONG!!!! The last day to join in and set eggs with us is April 28th.

[yinepu]

Don't worry, it's a reasonable question. There are a lot of variables in shipping eggs and fertility is usually not the reason for failure to hatch. Odds are if you have anything developing at all fertility is NOT the issue. I have had 5 sets of shipped eggs with a zero hatch but development did start in at least some of the eggs sent. The only time I contacted a seller is when nothing developed in the dozen they sent and another person confirmed they had nothing develop in the shipment prior to mine. This was early in the year and the seller, who had not done any test hatching of their own, refunded my money. As I accept the risk of shipping eggs I did not ASK them to do that. Most sellers will try to keep you happy especially if the problem is at least partly on their side.



That's awfull - I feel a little bad for the hungry fox, but enough is enough. Good hunting!

lol.. i received rotten eggs one time.. several had exploded in the box before i opened it.. the seller swore it was the postal service's fault even though I had received it three days after they shipped it and opened it right away

needless to say I never bought eggs from them again

 

[lcammack]

Hi fellow mother's day hatchers, I have a question. We are new to incubating, this is our first try. I am wondering what the best procedure is for taking them out and candling and putting them back in the incubator? We have 42 eggs set and we did a spot check of about six random eggs from different spots in the incubator all were veined and moving very much (which was so cool for my daughters and I to see). We had one duck egg that looked to have no development but I thought I would recheck that one at day 10. We candled these on day seven and want to do a complete candle of them all on day 10. I am worried about opening and closing the incubator so many times. We have to candle them in one of our bathrooms (it is the only room in our house with no window). So would it be easier to load up a 24 egg carton and take them all into the bathroom in two trips? Sorry for the long post, I hope I explained it well enough. Thanks in advance for any ideas or advice!

 

[HEChicken]

Hi fellow mother's day hatchers, I have a question. We are new to incubating, this is our first try. I am wondering what the best procedure is for taking them out and candling and putting them back in the incubator? We have 42 eggs set and we did a spot check of about six random eggs from different spots in the incubator all were veined and moving very much (which was so cool for my daughters and I to see). We had one duck egg that looked to have no development but I thought I would recheck that one at day 10. We candled these on day seven and want to do a complete candle of them all on day 10. I am worried about opening and closing the incubator so many times. We have to candle them in one of our bathrooms (it is the only room in our house with no window). So would it be easier to load up a 24 egg carton and take them all into the bathroom in two trips? Sorry for the long post, I hope I explained it well enough. Thanks in advance for any ideas or advice!

I have the same issue in that the only windowless rooms in my house are the bathrooms. I figure that Mama Hen gets off the eggs for 10-15 minutes a day to eat, drink and poop so clearly a little cooling time each day isn't going to hurt them. So I take the whole carton out of the incubator and carry it - CAREFULLY - into the bathroom. Prior to moving them, I have scales, flashlight, notepad etc already in the bathroom so I am ready to go, and can get them back in the incubator in a short space of time. Meanwhile, the incubator itself is holding temp and is ready to return them to incubating temp as soon as I replace them.

 

[vickifiveoh]

I set a dozen Silkie eggs on the 28th!! Hope everyone has a great hatch!!!!

 

[Arielle]

Update... I moved the babies that were attacked last night.. again... my 13 month old brahma rooster only lost some tail feathers, my 2 month old brahma rooster has a broken leg, and a 2 month old brahma had an open wound on her wing. I feel like I am running a trauma unit here.

I rely on good fencing and a well built coop to save my chickens from coyote and fox. It is sad to lose them to predators. My son with baseball bat in hand chased off a coyote with hen in mouth. ALL because she refused to get into the coop at dusk. DH chased to fox and it was so scared it hasn't returned. Predators are always a concern . . . sorry your chickens had so many injuries.

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

I set eggs Saturday night the 28th. Can I be in?? 20 BLRW in the bator. They do hatch a day early usually......

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

Hi fellow mother's day hatchers, I have a question. We are new to incubating, this is our first try. I am wondering what the best procedure is for taking them out and candling and putting them back in the incubator? We have 42 eggs set and we did a spot check of about six random eggs from different spots in the incubator all were veined and moving very much (which was so cool for my daughters and I to see). We had one duck egg that looked to have no development but I thought I would recheck that one at day 10. We candled these on day seven and want to do a complete candle of them all on day 10.  I am worried about opening and closing the incubator so many times. We have to candle them in one of our bathrooms (it is the only room in our house with no window). So would it be easier to load up a 24 egg carton and take them all into the bathroom in two trips? Sorry for the long post, I hope I explained it well enough.  Thanks in advance for any ideas or advice!

I have the square bator with the lid. The plug is attached to the top part, so I just remove the bottom with the eggs and go fast to the bathroom and git r done, then take it back and put the lid back on. I hate moving them because I am a klutz--- I worry I will trip and lose them all in one fell swoop

 

[what did I do]

Hi fellow mother's day hatchers, I have a question. We are new to incubating, this is our first try. I am wondering what the best procedure is for taking them out and candling and putting them back in the incubator? We have 42 eggs set and we did a spot check of about six random eggs from different spots in the incubator all were veined and moving very much (which was so cool for my daughters and I to see). We had one duck egg that looked to have no development but I thought I would recheck that one at day 10. We candled these on day seven and want to do a complete candle of them all on day 10.  I am worried about opening and closing the incubator so many times. We have to candle them in one of our bathrooms (it is the only room in our house with no window). So would it be easier to load up a 24 egg carton and take them all into the bathroom in two trips? Sorry for the long post, I hope I explained it well enough.  Thanks in advance for any ideas or advice!

I'm new to this but last time I just unpluged that bator and took it to the bathroom. The heat from the bator heated up the bathroom a little. My eggs were in a turner so they didn't roll around as I moved them. The three times we've candled these we just did it after dark, wait that was 4 times we've candled.

My kids love hatching eggs too. The kids love the chickens too.

 

[what did I do]

Update... I moved the babies that were attacked last night.. again... my 13 month old brahma rooster only lost some tail feathers, my 2 month old brahma rooster has a broken leg, and a 2 month old brahma had an open wound on her wing. I feel like I am running a trauma unit here.

I feel for you. It seems like when you have one animal accident you end up with more. One year it was the dogs and cats. This year it is the cows. We also have a fox stalking us. I think we should be ok as long as we have cows in the corral but once the cows are out to pasture anything can happen. Last fall dh had to take care of a family of raccoons late at night and only half dressed. LOL, it was just too funny.

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

I feel for you. It seems like when you have one animal accident you end up with more. One year it was the dogs and cats. This year it is the cows. We also have a fox stalking us. I think we should be ok as long as we have cows in the corral but once the cows are out to pasture anything can happen. Last fall dh had to take care of a family of raccoons late at night and only half dressed. LOL, it was just too funny.

Too bad you did not get pics of that....