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

[gmjarvi]

Congratulations on (maybe) completing your first hatch!! I'm glad the little curled toe baby is figuring out his feet as well! Fingers crossed for the last few, you never know!

Thank you! I am officially addicted I'll definitely be setting eggs again soon and will keep everyone updated on my broody's eggs, too, which are due on 3/21.

I have cayuga eggs coming next week (shipping out tomorrow!) and will be setting them soon after I receive them because I also have chicken eggs coming in April! They will just miss this HAL, but hopefully we all just move over to an April thread ❤.

My first hatch was only about 30% (16hatched out of48) so I think you've done awesome!!

Thank you! the unhatched eggs are worth all of those babies in the brooder!

 

[Jules929]

I have a question regarding my Leghorn egg. It's a good sized egg. The roo is a Bantam. The embryo is the same size as the Sebright embryos, but it looks so small compared to the size of the egg. Is it going to have any trouble hatching?

 

[Mylied]

I have a question regarding my Leghorn egg. It's a good sized egg. The roo is a Bantam. The embryo is the same size as the Sebright embryos, but it looks so small compared to the size of the egg. Is it going to have any trouble hatching?

It'll be fine. I've had bantam roos over full sized hens.

 

[Jules929]

It'll be fine. I've had bantam roos over full sized hens.

Thank you!

 

[BluebirdHomestead]

Tomorrow will be day 20 for my Gypsy Hen eggs. I put them in the hatcher on day 17 and have been internally freaking out because the air cells looked too small to me. I’ve let the humidity completely drop since then. It bottomed out at about 14% finally. It was a bit more humid earlier just naturally in the room so it’s been between 14-28%. I just candled one and I *think* it has helped enough to be ok. The air cells have definitely grown. Not a ton but they aren’t WAY too small now. So, I plan to raise the humidity to around 40% overnight in case one happens to pip by morning. I wish I could leave it low for a bit longer, but last Gypsy Hen batch I had 2 pipped when I woke up on day 20. Do you think 40% is still too low or will I be ok?

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Tomorrow will be day 20 for my Gypsy Hen eggs. I put them in the hatcher on day 17 and have been internally freaking out because the air cells looked too small to me. I’ve let the humidity completely drop since then. It bottomed out at about 14% finally. It was a bit more humid earlier just naturally in the room so it’s been between 14-28%. I just candled one and I *think* it has helped enough to be ok. The air cells have definitely grown. Not a ton but they aren’t WAY too small now. So, I plan to raise the humidity to around 40% overnight in case one happens to pip by morning. I wish I could leave it low for a bit longer, but last Gypsy Hen batch I had 2 pipped when I woke up on day 20. Do you think 40% is still too low or will I be ok?

40% is too low for my IncuView, my IncuView runs drier than my Nurture Right, but I still aim for 65% when I can get it there. I see the membrane turn brown more often in the IncuView than in the Nurture Rights. What was your humidity at on previous hatches?

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Tomorrow will be day 20 for my Gypsy Hen eggs. I put them in the hatcher on day 17 and have been internally freaking out because the air cells looked too small to me. I’ve let the humidity completely drop since then. It bottomed out at about 14% finally. It was a bit more humid earlier just naturally in the room so it’s been between 14-28%. I just candled one and I *think* it has helped enough to be ok. The air cells have definitely grown. Not a ton but they aren’t WAY too small now. So, I plan to raise the humidity to around 40% overnight in case one happens to pip by morning. I wish I could leave it low for a bit longer, but last Gypsy Hen batch I had 2 pipped when I woke up on day 20. Do you think 40% is still too low or will I be ok?

I feel like my Olive Eggers have surprisingly small air cells for day 17 as well considering I have some very porous eggs and a cracked egg even but I guess the wax I used to repair it slowed the water loss because the cracked egg has the smallest air cell. I'm going to wait until day 19ish to increase my humidity I think but I try to remind myself that the air cell changes A LOT in those last few days and I decided to lockdown a day early.

 

[julskinka]

D10 Update for Clutch 2

Had to pull the lavender marans egg - it looked like it had quit around D6 (no beak development yet). That was my first real quitter so far this year! So, I'm down to a single BBS marans (again), 2 green-olive eggers, 1 dark olive egg, and another opal legbar. Which means once again, every single shipped egg that wasn't a marans looks just great, and all but one marans have failed to develop. Blaaaaaaah.

Weight loss is bang on. The aircell on the BBS marans seems to have affixed itself to a side, so I'm a little nervous about that.

 

[baby-blue]

Candled again because I’m impatient. Counted white candling and we have 26/47 chicken eggs and two uncertains. Not too bad for a bunch of free eggs!! Took another peek at different duck eggs and they’re a little bit behind but still developing. Also sealed up two eggs with wax tonight... and managed to ‘seal up’ some of my fingers with wax too. Spring break is this week so I’ll be twiddling my thumbs, tending to chickens, and candling obsessively. Sounds thrilling!

 

[BluebirdHomestead]

40% is too low for my IncuView, my IncuView runs drier than my Nurture Right, but I still aim for 65% when I can get it there. I see the membrane turn brown more often in the IncuView than in the Nurture Rights. What was your humidity at on previous hatches?

My hatch last month I got it to 60% for lockdown and then when they all started hatching it spiked all the way up to almost 80%. For my failed singleton hatch last week I got it to 60%. I was just thinking to try to keep it low overnight to help those air cells grow a little more, but it’s probably a bad idea. I would rather have the air cells a little small than deal with another shrink wrap situation I think.