Uh oh... found an egg today! ... - A journal of sorts, from finding eggs to hatching them... Update

[PeepsCA]

Ok so after all my whining and lettin' my self slide down into a hatching funk earlier... I just candled my latest batch of 82 eggs that I set 6 days ago from my youngest flock, and since I was expecting the normal of only around 50-55% fertility rate I made sure to set an extra double number of eggs to be able to get a decent hatch. Well... out of the 82 eggs, I only pulled 20 clears and 2 blood rings this time! Yikes, gonna have another big hatch, but will probably hatch more of my fav colors ( and ugh more keepers, lol). But at least now I know that the fertility rate is goin' up in that flock finally!

Now... somebody just needs to buy me a Dickey Incubator for my birthday that's coming up next month, lol!



Oh and the keet with the toe/foot issue in the last hatch looks like he decided to pull himself together, fight a little harder and is gonna make it after all. He's not 100% yet, but he's definitely improved... walking around more, just a little slow still. Better than just layin' down, givin' up and gettin' walked all over!

 

[Whatchamacallit]

This has been an interesting thread.

 

[daylily]

After reading your posts I'm really excited about this batch I have cooking!We are on day ten and the temps are steady at 99.5 and humidity about 30 to 40 %. Looking good there. PeepsCA I too noticed a difference when the windows were open so I have them in a back room so there isn't much fluctuations.

I am just so darned excited we are all going in to check on then every hour and even during the night if some gets up to go to the bathroom!

don't care what colors I get as long as they are healthy

.

 

[JLeigh]

daylily, you're one step ahead of me in this process. I think I would be running around to look every hour, too. I hope you don't have the same high anxiety that I do about it though. I'm a Type A personality in some things (Type C in others though - like laundry!), and try very hard to do things EXACTLY right. After all, these are living things, not old socks.

I'm hoping you'll share the process with us, so I can learn from you as well as others. Is this your first hatch? I can't remember....

 

[PeepsCA]

Sounds like you are on track to a successful hatch daylily, and have lots of help watching over them/your 'bator

I've never tried incubating with any type of home made set up, I'm too chicken about what could happen to the keets

I used a heating pad under a glass aquarium with some eggs sitting in straw one year that were already pipped when one of my dogs killed a broody Hen (I'm guessing she refused to get off the nest and the dang dog just grabbed her and brought her to me, dead, fresh kill, not even bloody

) and most of the eggs finished hatching, but man I was a nervous nellie (a term I pilfered from perchiepgirl, lol). But hey if your temp and humidity are staying stable and the eggs are being turned sounds like it's gonna work for you. Have you hatched this way before?

 

[PeepsCA]

Its not a still air. My thermometer Hygrometer is a reptile one with leads that feed through the groove that goes in the corner for the egg turner. This way the readout can be set on top of the incubator so you can read it very easily. I set the leads down on either side of the eggs. I don't think the thermometer is very accurate. The one that came with the incubator is right on. I dont think I will adjust anything till this hatch finishes just because like you said the preset is 99.5 -99.7. So I trust the incubator.

If anything I may get a different Hygrometer/thermometer. At a later date. Right now I am assuming that 100-101 means 99.5-99.7 because its steady. Right now I have 30 bucks in the bank and no future income till moms done with her radiation. 3 weeks.

deb
Quote: Whoops, I meant circulated air (duh peeps, you knows it's a 1588

). Sorry deb, I'm highly distracted these days... too much going on at once. I trust my 1588s too, in fact I use them to double check the accuracy on all my thermometers, lol.

 

[PeepsCA]

I'm really enjoying watching these assorted Chocolates and Blonde keets feather out... so cute. Nice little varied group of 6 to compare to each other. I sure I hope I like them this much once they are adults,lol.Time for wing bands before I lose track of who's who.

Last week:


This week:

 

[perchie.girl]

Its amazing how much they change in one week.

deb

I'm really enjoying watching these assorted Chocolates and Blonde keets feather out... so cute. Nice little varied group of 6 to compare to each other. I sure I hope I like them this much once they are adults,lol.Time for wing bands before I lose track of who's who.

Last week:


This week:

 

[perchie.girl]

Ok for you experienced incubator people. I candled today which is day seven. some of the eggs looked like this.
This is an image I got off the internet. The dark part I am seeing is about a third of the egg not half. I was thinking that the top part of the egg should have an air sack.....


The blue eggs look as if they have some veins.... but wasnt expecting to see anything yet. and certainly nothing like the above.

Shouldnt I be seeing air space at the big rounded end of the egg or the top that sticks out of the tray.

deb

 

[PeepsCA]

You should be able to see the air cells very clearly by now, (especially in your chicken eggs, which develop a little faster and have thinner shells). Focusing on the air cells is basically how I determine fertility early in all my eggs, the shade of the air cell is really pale/light compared to the shade of the egg contents and pretty noticeable (to me anyway) after about just 4 days of incubation.

Kind of odd that egg in the pic you posted has the dark area up at the big end of the egg, and no visible air cell... might just be due to how the pic was taken and the egg was held, or even how it was set in the incubator. I incubate all my eggs in egg turners, pointy end down and the dark area always settles to the bottom/pointy end

For whatever reason, (compounded by my overwhelming lack of photography skills)... I can't EVER get veins/embryo growth to show up well in my candling pics... frustrating as ****. You can at least see that the air cells are very visible at the top of my eggs tho. I'm running the RH a little low in 'bator with the yellow egg turners (maintaining in the high 30% range), higher in the 'bator with the blue egg turner (maintaining in the low 50% range)... Notice the air cell size difference, it's a lot more than I expected it to be, kinda has me worried now, lol

Day 8 for these eggs:






Day 1 for this egg, for comparison. Air cell is hard to see: