Too Early for Feb Hatch-A-Long Thread??

[aliciaplus3]

Is it really worth being able to count my chickens though? I say no, I want to move so I can happily keep so many chickens that I can't even remember their names. That's the life, lol.

hmmm novel thought, every chicken at my place does not have a name. Most of the keeper roosters have a name but that is just for ease of my kids knowing who we are talking about... you know like whitey the black NN rooster. there does come a time when knowing if you are feeding WAY more chickens than you get eggs is important though.

 

[FortCluck]

100% of my Fort Cluck eggs are showing movement and eyeballs think some will hatch on my birthday

 

[CluckNDoodle]

100% of my Fort Cluck eggs are showing movement and eyeballs think some will hatch on my birthday

 

[FortCluck]

I honestly forget when I put some of my eggs in from my flock and they almost look like they could internally pip any day now The other eggs will hatch on the 4th. Maybe I subconsciously put eggs in on the right date for a bday hatch

 

[aliciaplus3]

2 of these are not like the others... ok so the 2 cold poults seem to be doing fine. Meaning I cant tell you whitch 2 they are in this pic... oh and there are 2 black nn hiding there

 

[LilyD]

This hatch will be my test on humidity and if dry incubation might be the trick for better hatch rates on shipped eggs.

I hatched two batches of shipped eggs two weeks apart in November and beginning of December. Everything I read, at the time, said around 50% humidity. So I kept it very humid during the entire incubation. The eggs air cells were VERY small on lock down with both batches. Exactly 50% of them hatched. The rest were fully formed and died a couple days before hatch day. They were still in a bunch of fluid when I opened them.

The two new batches of shipped eggs were started with zero water added to the incubator. The humidity in the room their in stays between 20% and 30%. So far it’s proving to be better already, but the true test will be this Friday and Saturday. First half go into lock down Wednesday evening.

I will know here in the next week and a half if dry incubating ups the hatch rate on shipped eggs.

I start out with it dry which for me is usually around 30% humidity and watch the air cells and how much they are losing. If they don't seem to be losing enough I try and make it drier. Harder in the summer when our natural humidity is around 30-40. In January though I seem to have less than 10% humidity dry so have to add water and watch for the air cells getting too big. I think the key is definitely keeping an eye on how much they are losing. You have to watch the humidity but then adjust as you see how the eggs are doing.

 

[LilyD]

Yeah VA requires shipped eggs to be NPIP I haven't really found many on here who can ship me eggs.

I'm getting about four eggs a day, but that's about half of what I should be getting every day. I'm sure they will start back up soon and I'm hoping I can find my Polish eggs because she's hiding them on me

Fort Cluck I am hoping to get my NPIP this spring once the snow has disappeared. If I do I will ship you free eggs.

 

[FortCluck]

Fort Cluck I am hoping to get my NPIP this spring once the snow has disappeared. If I do I will ship you free eggs.

That sounds awesome! I haven't had any luck with any eggs excepty own so far. This last hatch has given me a headache and heartache, but I keep telling myself that it's not my eggs so I can't be hard on myself.

 

[BluebirdHomestead]

Oh my gosh! Why the heck haven’t I been getting notifications on this thread?! I was thinking today that it had been awfully quiet and just looked and there’s 7 pages since I last checked. I just enjoyed reading them and catching up on everyone’s hatches!!!!

 

[BluebirdHomestead]

I just candled mine. I have 10 days left so today is day 11. I was going to wait until day 14-15 to candle my 13 with super messed up air cells that I’ve been keeping upright but I felt like I caught a whiff of something when I opened the incubator so I decided to candle them now very very carefully from the top. I may have been imagining the smell because I’m a newbie and scared of exploding eggs but better safe than sorry.
6 of the eggs were quitters with obvious blood rings, 6 were clears and 1 is alive! I can’t believe there is a survivor. Those poor shipped eggs got scrambled. We will see if the poor thing makes it. I made a little cradle for it and taped it to my auto turner so it can stay upright and finally got the auto turner back in since all those duds are out. So one final Black olive egger remains.
My 15 eggs from Gypsy Hen (also shipped) look absolutely amazing. The 2 batches of eggs I got shipped were opposite ends of the luck spectrum. I have only lost 1 of 15 eggs. The Lavender Ameraucana Egg was an early quitter. 3 OE’s (F2-4), 4 Ameraucanas (3 White, 1 Wheaton), 5 Black/Blue Birchen Marans, and 2 Wheaton Marans remain.