~*Third Annual Cinco de Mayo Turkey Hatch-Athon*~ all poultry welcome!

[HappyAcresKY]

I am not famililar with the hovabator-- but do use the LG. What I noticed is that the  hatched chicks  started to die when bator was filling up with hatchlings. Now I remove chicks , only leaving the newest ones to fluff out. 

We're up to at least 15 but I think more, it's hard to count them I think I will get them out, the humidity is spiking so much you can hardly see in the windows anymore.

 

[Arielle]

THe drying hatched shells give off a lot of water, so you can pull out the babies and leave the shells. Humidity should stay good.

 

[lsmith]

THe drying hatched shells give off a lot of water, so you can pull out the babies and leave the shells. Humidity should stay good. 

I didn't know this- great tip!

 

[Arielle]

I forgot to boil eggs to have with lunch-- a salad of greens that I am venturing to try . . Culantro which is the strangest looking cilantro ever. Great flavor and more like loose leave lettuce. Flat leave parsley; scallion. dandilion greens. THe first and last listed are the adventure!! Figure if I use the tangy salad dressing that I love it will offset any bitter greens.

Bitter greens are strange after a life time of sweet lettuces! Sure wish I had boiled upsome eggs though.

 

[foxvalleyfarm]

My first CDM hatch is finished. 5 chicks hatched. I culled one. And two Ancona ducks. My second is gearing up to start at any time.

 

[Arielle]

My first CDM hatch is finished. 5 chicks hatched. I culled one. And two Ancona ducks. My second is gearing up to start at any time.

 

[chicken pickin]

This is exactly what I want! Did you buy them locally or from somewhere that ships? I would be afraid to have one shipped but am not opposed to taking a weekend drive.

I did buy them somewhat local. It was a 2 hour drive to get to them and then 2 hours home, so not bad all around.

 

[GerbilsOnToast]

Is that a White Park baby?

No, it's a white Galloway/Angus with black points. Our brood herd is black Angus, our bulls are white Galloway. About 30% of the calves come out with dad's coloring, the rest are black.

 

[winteree]

Supposedly, fertilized eggs that are shipped can just sit there and do absolutely nothing. There is just way too much that can go wrong with shipping.

So, it isn't necessarily Meyer's fault.

yeah i wish my feed store would keep their chicks in stock. i went today to buy some after getting a call that they got a new shippment last friday and they where already out. turns out they only buy 20-50 chicks at a time and someone always buys a butt load before i get there (that has happened 7 times now). I have been trying to get chickens since the begining of december for pete sakes!!

i first tryed online and fell out of my chair apon seeing the prices. i tryed to get some from my grandma because she was lowsy with them, then they for the most part all got killed (but a lone rooster). i then tryed to get them from a not-so-local sancutary per my grandma's recomention from january onward and got the cold shoulder for a little over 3 months. Then i got angery and tryed hatching them out which none of the egg's hatched. And i finally went on crisglist and got a bantam pair which one was supost to be a hen but they will not stop fighting which is leading me to think i payed for two roosters

. I may never get the birds i want

. i just ordered some hatching duck egg's and when i get payed on monday i'm going to order hatching turkey egg's and if something doesn't give i'm going to save up my money until christmas and order ALL the birds i wanted this year for next year as my christmas present!!!

 

[winteree]

Winteree, I'm sorry for your frustration with the eggs but I wonder if you are confusing the term "infertile" with "failure to develop" - they are two very different things. I see way too many times where an egg fails to develop and the immediate conclusion jumped to is that the eggs are "infertile".

Fertility is when the rooster/tom/drake/gander has mated the female and introduced his sperm to the egg. An egg that is fertile will - under the right conditions - develop into a fetus and eventually into a chick/poult/duckling/gosling.

However there are many things along the way that can affect the ability of the egg to develop correctly. Sitting out in the sun and baking. Or the opposite - being left at a cold temperature for too long and freezing. A temperature that is too low for the embryo to sustain development. Poor genetics.

When you throw shipping into the mix, you have even more factors to consider. Many experienced hatchers - who expect 100% development from their own eggs, are happy with 50% from shipped eggs. Arielle mentioned many of the challenges faced by shipped eggs. I personally had an expensive shipment of marans eggs develop and hatch out a single chick. It is frustrating and heartbreaking and when you add up the cost, you realize that one chick is a very expensive little chick. But it is the reality with shipped eggs. And it is the risk we take when we order shipped eggs.

There are unscrupulous people who knowingly ship infertile eggs. But a hatchery has a reputation at stake and cannot afford to do the same. It is always possible for an egg or two to slip through unfertilized, even from a male who is doing his job. You can't know without cracking them and looking for the bullseye if a specific egg is fertile or not. But the odds are very much in favor of the hatchery sending fertile eggs and the failure to develop being either shipping or incubation conditions - or a combination of the two.

their was nothing at all. no veins no development, nothing I'll give Meyers this one because this was my first hatch and i could have very well been at fault but their was nothing in these eggs
to tell me otherwise that they were fertile