Tis Time for a March 2020 Hatch-a-long!

[CluckNDoodle]

My dumb farm incubator is being sent from Virginia by fed ex to WA state. I can tell they are sending it by truck. He sent it Monday, and as of yesterday it was in Utah, I hope I get it by Sat, I mean the eggs are here. And they are already 5 days old. I am working on getting one of my home made incubators fired up. just in case, I mean what if it doesn't get here until Mon?

Fingers crossed it makes it there quickly!

 

[FortCluck]

My dumb farm incubator is being sent from Virginia by fed ex to WA state. I can tell they are sending it by truck. He sent it Monday, and as of yesterday it was in Utah, I hope I get it by Sat, I mean the eggs are here. And they are already 5 days old. I am working on getting one of my home made incubators fired up. just in case, I mean what if it doesn't get here until Mon?

It's coming from my state. They should've sent it priority so you could get it. Sometimes that's why I like Amazon prime and the two day shipping.

 

[gimmie birdies]

Yea- I know they can be up to ten days or older, but who wants to put ten days or older eggs in incubator?
Eggs prolly gave up by then.

 

[gimmie birdies]

Cluck Ndoodle, is a funny name, like chickNnoodle, I am going to name a rooster that. "noodle"

 

[FortCluck]

Yea- I know they can be up to ten days or older, but who wants to put ten days or older eggs in incubator?
Eggs prolly gave up by then.

I've put 3 week old eggs in the incubator and chicks came out of all of them. It was another experiment that I did. I also put 2 week old eggs that were in the fridge in the bator to see if they'd hatch... 80% of them did

I'm sure that a little after 10 days should be fine, but I'm hoping you get the incubator by tomorrow.

 

[FortCluck]

You'll notice that I like doing a lot of experiments with my eggs because you read all these things that they say are needed... When in reality, it's just their opinion and not based on anything.

Like the egg turning. Last batch I did, I turned the eggs whichever way by rolling them with a basket on top. No embryos got stuck to the eggs and all hatched but 1. Confirming to me they don't need to be in 3 different positions. They just need to be moved at least twice a day... Do they really think a chicken mathematically moves her eggs to 3 different positions a day

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Cluck Ndoodle, is a funny name, like chickNnoodle, I am going to name a rooster that. "noodle"

Chickens, drawing, and gardening are some of my favorite hobbies so I figured CluckNDoodle was better than CluckNDirty.

 

[FortCluck]

Chickens, drawing, and gardening are some of my favorite hobbies so I figured CluckNDoodle was better than CluckNDirty.

I just laughed so hard at that I just put my farm name as my name. I couldn't come up with anything else.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

You'll notice that I like doing a lot of experiments with my eggs because you read all these things that they say are needed... When in reality, it's just their opinion and not based on anything.

Like the egg turning. Last batch I did, I turned the eggs whichever way by rolling them with a basket on top. No embryos got stuck to the eggs and all hatched but 1. Confirming to me they don't need to be in 3 different positions. They just need to be moved at least twice a day... Do they really think a chicken mathematically moves her eggs to 3 different positions a day

Interesting, I've never even heard about the 3 different positions thing. I do turn my goose eggs over every morning and night since the IncuView only rocks them back and forth due to size but I don't worry about it if I forget or if I have to leave for a couple days and they just rock in place on the auto turner.

That's why I like to read so many poultry studies where they often utilize 100's of eggs to determine the best outcome for a hatch. They will not only offer examples for best practices but they often reveal how much you can get away with NOT doing and still have successful hatches with maybe a slightly lower hatch rate. I save them now but there are some great studies that I've read on temperature and turning that I can't find anymore and I SO wish I still had access to them. One basically showed that after day 13 there were no detrimental effects to the incubating chicken eggs when the turning was stopped. It's only beneficial during early incubation. I still leave them in the turner until day 17 usually but that's because I have great hatch rates doing so and haven't seen a reason to stop. lol

 

[FortCluck]

Interesting, I've never even heard about the 3 different positions thing. I do turn my goose eggs over every morning and night since the IncuView only rocks them back and forth due to size but I don't worry about it if I forget or if I have to leave for a couple days and they just rock in place on the auto turner.

That's why I like to read so many poultry studies where they often utilize 100's of eggs to determine the best outcome for a hatch. They will not only offer examples for best practices but they often reveal how much you can get away with NOT doing and still have successful hatches with maybe a slightly lower hatch rate. I save them now but there are some great studies that I've read on temperature and turning that I can't find anymore and I SO wish I still had access to them. One basically showed that after day 13 there were no detrimental effects to the incubating chicken eggs when the turning was stopped. It's only beneficial during early incubation. I still leave them in the turner until day 17 usually but that's because I have great hatch rates doing so and haven't seen a reason to stop. lol

I take mine out at day 14 because I read something that was very similar. I'm going to stop turning my duck eggs 7 days before the hatch date just like I would with the chicken eggs because at that point the duckling should be big enough to turn themselves in the egg. I don't see a huge duckling getting stuck on the membrane because it wasn't turned.

I think us humans tend to overthink a lot of things especially when it comes to incubating. I see it all the time where people are so worried about every little detail and when I was like that, my hatch was so horrible. It seems the less I worry about stuff the better my hatches come out.

My first hatch I was by the book and listened to the incubator instructions that came with my incubator... Big mistake. they don't tell you in those booklets that if you're in a humid area you should not add water. So you can imagine the terror that I went through being on the East coast in a humid environment.

I had several chicks that I know would have lived that I think drowned because of the humidity because their air cells were small. I hate blaming myself and thinking of the what ifs, but there's nothing else I can do besides that. After that hatch I decided I wasn't going to go by the book and I was going to do my own thing.