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

[FortCluck]

I also do that too, I never guarantee any of my birds sexes until they are fully mature and laying (or are visibly a cockerel).

I can give people an idea or guess as to what is what but I never say a chick is definitely male or female, especially with Silkies!

Silkies are my own personal hobby and I hatch for myself. Of course, I end up with ones which are not of a standard for me to keep and breed from so I move them on. People think I’m on some huge scale at times but I’m really not, I have far less breeding birds than what people do as backyard laying chickens. I’m super limited to space so I also can’t keep many birds till they are mature and I certainly can’t accept returns on cockerels!

Hatching is fun but damn isn’t it stressful

Yes! I'm going to have such a hard time this time picking the chicks I want to keep. My silver sebright is now breeding with my girls so I got a lot of silver chicks. I wasn't expecting that! They're all so darn cute!

 

[FortCluck]

My daughter caught the flu this year too. It's terrible. I hope you recover quickly. View attachment 2015417

How are you feeling today @ShannonsChimkens?

Did she take Tamiflu? I have no idea what it's supposed to do. Think it just shortens the time you have the flu. My lungs feel like they have cement in them. Then the shooting pains are ridiculous. Hopefully by Monday I'll be good.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Did she take Tamiflu? I have no idea what it's supposed to do. Think it just shortens the time you have the flu. My lungs feel like they have cement in them. Then the shooting pains are ridiculous. Hopefully by Monday I'll be good.

No, she didn't take tamiflu. We actually took her to the doctor twice and they tested her for the flu twice, first time she was negative, second time positive. I was honestly more concerned because she caught the bug while she was at Disney World and with all this creepy virus stuff going around in China I just wanted to be safe. She's feeling much better but honestly it's still hanging on a bit.

 

[LynnaePB]

First baby is out!

Little bugger never was able to externally pip so I'm glad I added the safety hole. Once I got some shell around the beak cracked it was able to do some of the work. Yolk and blood vessels were all absorbed when I helped it out(I let it push out on its own just helped with cracking the shell). It's doing good now, seems perfectly normal for a newly hatched baby, perky when it's not resting.

I hope the others don't have issues, maybe that shell was just a little too hard/thick but I'm hoping this one was just a fluke. I had really good luck with my last few hatches about 7 weeks ago but it was from a different breeding group.

The baby kind of looks dead but I couldn't resist getting a picture when she/he stuck those little legs out for a few moments.

I'm probably not going to be getting much sleep tonight. The baby won't rest in the brooder very long before complaining about being alone. When she/he gets too lonely I hold him/her in my lap with a heating pad set on low. I'm hoping the next due to hatch doesn't take too long so the little one will have a companion soon.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

First baby is out!

Little bugger never was able to externally pip so I'm glad I added the safety hole. Once I got some shell around the beak cracked it was able to do some of the work. Yolk and blood vessels were all absorbed when I helped it out(I let it push out on its own just helped with cracking the shell). It's doing good now, seems perfectly normal for a newly hatched baby, perky when it's not resting.

I hope the others don't have issues, maybe that shell was just a little too hard/thick but I'm hoping this one was just a fluke. I had really good luck with my last few hatches about 7 weeks ago but it was from a different breeding group.

The baby kind of looks dead but I couldn't resist getting a picture when she/he stuck those little legs out for a few moments.

View attachment 2015478

I'm probably not going to be getting much sleep tonight. The baby won't rest in the brooder very long before complaining about being alone. When she/he gets too lonely I hold him/her in my lap with a heating pad set on low. I'm hoping the next due to hatch doesn't take too long so the little one will have a companion soon.

View attachment 2015497

Aww, precious little fluff ball! Congrats on your first peep out!

 

[ShannonsChimkens]

First baby is out!

Little bugger never was able to externally pip so I'm glad I added the safety hole. Once I got some shell around the beak cracked it was able to do some of the work. Yolk and blood vessels were all absorbed when I helped it out(I let it push out on its own just helped with cracking the shell). It's doing good now, seems perfectly normal for a newly hatched baby, perky when it's not resting.

I hope the others don't have issues, maybe that shell was just a little too hard/thick but I'm hoping this one was just a fluke. I had really good luck with my last few hatches about 7 weeks ago but it was from a different breeding group.

The baby kind of looks dead but I couldn't resist getting a picture when she/he stuck those little legs out for a few moments.

View attachment 2015478

I'm probably not going to be getting much sleep tonight. The baby won't rest in the brooder very long before complaining about being alone. When she/he gets too lonely I hold him/her in my lap with a heating pad set on low. I'm hoping the next due to hatch doesn't take too long so the little one will have a companion soon.

View attachment 2015497

What are they again?
How many left?
All the info is so far back in the thread, would take hours to find lol

Today is my brothers birthday. He said I needed to name all the babies that hatched after him. So 6 babies named Dustin

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Today is my brothers birthday. He said I needed to name all the babies that hatched after him. So 6 babies named Dustin

I tried that with my Aunt, she wanted a chick named after her...so we later realized we had Pamela the rooster. lol

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

I candled my day 7 shipped eggs this morning. Out of 27 three look questionable. They have growth but are also starting to look hazy. In my experience that means they're about to kick the bucket. They're back in the incubator, marked with a "?", just in case.

Some looked about a day behind. Two reasons for this could be because I set them in the evening and candled in the morning. Yes, those 12 hours make a difference. Also the incubator temperature could be a tad low. I've bumped it up about 1/2 a degree. It's a still air and this is my first time incubating in it. We'll see how they get on with that. Hopefully I can stay strong and not candle anymore till next week.

So that means I currently have 42 eggs that look good! Grow chicks, grow!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I candled my day 7 shipped eggs this morning. Out of 27 three look questionable. They have growth but are also starting to look hazy. In my experience that means they're about to kick the bucket. They're back in the incubator, marked with a "?", just in case.

Some looked about a day behind. Two reasons for this could be because I set them in the evening and candled in the morning. Yes, those 12 hours make a difference. Also the incubator temperature could be a tad low. I've bumped it up about 1/2 a degree. It's a still air and this is my first time incubating in it. We'll see how they get on with that. Hopefully I can stay strong and not candle anymore till next week.

So that means I currently have 42 eggs that look good! Grow chicks, grow!

View attachment 2015524

Do you rotate your eggs around the incubator? In a hatch-a-long last year we discussed the hot/cold spots a lot, especially in still air incubators and rotation seems to help quite a bit.

 

[UThobbyfarmer]

Do you rotate your eggs around the incubator? In a hatch-a-long last year we discussed the hot/cold spots a lot, especially in still air incubators and rotation seems to help quite a bit.

I don't have them in rows or anything but I do try to move them around when I'm turning. For the exact reason you mentioned. I've moved the thermometer around with each turning and it's surprisingly stable.
Do you remember which hatch along it was? I might try to sift through it for information.