Valentine's Day 1st Annual Hatch Along

[DarthRooster]

26 out of 33 look good at day 7! Look like I had 5 clears and 2 with blood rings. Not bad so far for shipped eggs in January!

 

[chickkrakidd]

So I candled on Day 3&4 (only bc I couldn't resist!!) all seemed to have a growing air cell. I candled again today (day 7). 3 have veins, 2 I can't see anything (one of these was set later on Tuesday, which was Day 3 for the rest) the other two seem to have good air cells, but they may be blood rings. One of these two has the dark mass closer to the bottom of the egg& has sort of a ring around the egg about midways between the mass at the bottom& the air cell at the top. Would this be a blood ring for sure or no?

 

[emvickrey]

I was wrong on my candling the other day. I did another check last night and none of my splash eggs where fertile. Theng I go to feed today and the roo was dead in the pen. I assume he had something going on that I couldn't see. He was one of my show birds. He will be missed. But I was fortunate to still have his cockerel I hatched last year so I replaced him with the youngster. It will be a while till I have fertile eggs in that pen again. A huge loss, loosing such a great roo and the girls are picking up on laying right now too. I have 7 hens in there with only 1 broody and 1 is a new pullet same age as the cockerel.

I filled another bator today and consolidated the first one with all the ones I set last saturday.

 

[ochochicas]

I tried candling them yesterday, a lot have veins in the lavs eggs. My BY mix, not so much. I couldn't even see into the EE or the OE eggs at all, and a lot of the rest were iffy. I did have a couple with veins there, too, though.

My weights on both groups were real low. Lost about 3.5 grams in days 0-6. Anyone here weigh for humidity? I upped mine to 51%. It was at 45% for the first week. The humidity outside the incubator is around 30% most of the time, never more than 35%, so I think the bator is losing a lot of moisture due to the difference between the room and the bator RH.

Will try candling again maybe Sunday to see if I get better results at night. I wanted to weigh at the same time of day as they were set, so I was candling in the middle of the day last time. In a room with the blinds shut, with a blanket over my head, but still wasn't dark dark. So I need to do a repeat at night.

How big were your eggs to begin with? If they were 65 grams or larger, you are right on track for weight loss. They should lose about 5% of their weight in the first week.

If your eggs are smaller, then you should increase the humidity during the second week.

I just weighed my eggs tonight. I have not calculated percentages, but it looks like my humidity was too high this week.

 

[taymar's flock]

So sorry about your loss. I lost my black copper marans rooster this summer and did not have a replacement. My hens were molting and not laying. Now I will have to get more eggs from a breeder to replace him. From now on I will keep two roosters. I always assumed that I could always just hatch more eggs if I lost a rooster, it never occurred that there would not be any eggs to hatch.

I did some serious candling today and eight out of nine of my amerucana eggs are looking good. My marans eggs,(splash and blues) are still too dark to tell, but I did find out that I had one upside down. I hate when that happens. Sometimes it's so hard to determine the small end of their eggs.

 

[Alaskan]

So I candled on Day 3&4 (only bc I couldn't resist!!) all seemed to have a growing air cell. I candled again today (day 7). 3 have veins, 2 I can't see anything (one of these was set later on Tuesday, which was Day 3 for the rest) the other two seem to have good air cells, but they may be blood rings. One of these two has the dark mass closer to the bottom of the egg& has sort of a ring around the egg about midways between the mass at the bottom& the air cell at the top. Would this be a blood ring for sure or no?

sounds like a blood ring... but keep it in for another week and then decide.

 

[ochochicas]

Tonight I candled all my eggs. There were some definite clears and I pulled 12 eggs. The Marans and olive eggs looked doubtful, too, but they are so dark that even with my new light I couldn't tell for sure. There were a bunch of porous eggs that I couldn't see much, but I'm assuming they aren't doing anything either. I will candle again on day 12 and probably toss a bunch more then.

The good news the legbar eggs mostly look good so far. Hope they stay that way for two more weeks!

 

[gogetter]

My weights on both groups were real low.  Lost about 3.5 grams in days 0-6.  Anyone here weigh for humidity?  I upped mine to 51%.  It was at 45% for the first week.  The humidity outside the incubator is around 30% most of the time, never more than 35%, so I think the bator is losing a lot of moisture due to the difference between the room and the bator RH.








Looks like a lot of you are getting fertile eggs!  I hear that is good this time of year to get any at all.  

@misfitmorgan
 Sorry about the eggs!  Its a cool idea, though.  Have you done store eggs before?

@ChickyChickens
 Go Chicky go!   Lol.

I use weight loss for my humidity adjustments. I weigh one egg of each color every third day while I'm doing a turn. It all friends on the starting weight. Do you need the calculation?

 

[minihorse927]

Sounds like most everyone is doing pretty good! Thought I'd check in and say I've got 15 for 15 developing under the broody and 15 fertile in the incubator. They are 4 svart hona, 1 ohiki, 5 swedish-flower-hen, and 5 orp/ohiki cross.

 

[emvickrey]

So sorry about your loss. I lost my black copper marans rooster this summer and did not have a replacement. My hens were molting and not laying. Now I will have to get more eggs from a breeder to replace him. From now on I will keep two roosters. I always assumed that I could always just hatch more eggs if I lost a rooster, it never occurred that there would not be any eggs to hatch.

I did some serious candling today and eight out of nine of my amerucana eggs are looking good. My marans eggs,(splash and blues) are still too dark to tell, but I did find out that I had one upside down. I hate when that happens. Sometimes it's so hard to determine the small end of their eggs.

I have 5 juvenile cockerels that have yet to sell from last years hatching. I was lucky that nobody bought him. I had him up for sale till yesterday. If all those eggs I had in the bator where fertile I could have hatched out another one but I'm just glad I still had him